By Douglass Anele
The problems of Nigeria are too serious to be treated cavalierly at this point in time. Therefore, instead of wasting energy and scarce resources celebrating a cretinous giant, Nigerians, especially top members of the ruling class and the bourgeoisie, ought to have spent the day meditating on the problems of the country and how to go about resolving them with renewed vigour, commitment, courage and selflessness. This year’s independence anniversary has come and gone.

However, the occasion was marred by the twin bomb blasts that killed eight people instantly, injured about 27 others, and destroyed valuable property. The reactions and responses of some prominent

Nigerians to the sad event have shown once again that the country is still far away from becoming a united nation. Immediately after the bomb explosions, a spokesman for one of the militant groups in the Niger Delta, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), announced that the group was responsible for the incident.

Surprisingly, shortly afterwards President Goodluck Jonathan debunked the claim. The President exonerated MEND and blamed “members of a small terrorist group outside the country who were sponsored by unpatriotic elements within the country.” Clearly, Mr. President committed a serious error of judgment by hastily exculpating MEND even before investigations into the incident had commenced.

One can understand the desire of Jonathan to shift the blame away from his Niger Delta brothers. It is also very likely that he wanted Nigerians and foreigners to believe that MEND wouldn’t have carried out the bombings, because he thinks the amnesty programme for militants in the delta was working.

But these sentimental arguments cannot justify the President’s inapt remarks about the blasts. Even if he sincerely believed that the militant organisation which claimed responsibility was lying, he should have kept it to himself and ordered security agencies to fish out the actual perpetrators promptly. Indeed, by claiming to know the “small terrorist group” responsible for the attacks, Jonathan has put the cart before the horse.

The questions Nigerians want the President to answer are: what is the name of the terrorist group behind the bomb blasts? Who gave him the information and when? Who are the “unpatriotic elements within the country” that sponsored the terrorist act? We believe that if indeed President Jonathan knows the group behind the attacks, it would not be long before security operatives would reveal the true identities of the “demons that are with us.”

But up to now, more than two weeks after the event, nothing of the sort has happened. Thus, without knowing it, Jonathan has put his credibility on the line, and the only way it can be restored is through expeditious unmasking of the “demons” behind the blasts.

The uncharitable, inappropriate and incendiary remarks of some prominent northerners after the terrorist attacks must be seriously condemned by all reasonable Nigerians, irrespective of tribe and political affiliation. We have already noted that the president committed a serious error of judgment on the issue.

Those errors, however, do not justify Adamu Ciroma’s call for him to resign on the ground that “as northerners and citizens of this country, we no longer feel safe and secured under his leadership.” From his remarks, it is clear that Ciroma is a hard core hysterical tribalist who cannot entertain the idea of Jonathan remaining president beyond May 28, 2011.

Although the lack of imagination and narrow intellectual horizon of members of the ruling class in Nigeria are well known, we still have to ponder why a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and minister of finance is so parochial and insensitive, to the extent of ethincising and politicizing the murder and maiming of Nigerians?

On what basis did Ciroma and other members of the Northern Political Leaders Forum base their allegation that the Abuja bomb blasts were organised by Jonathan’s government to implicate northerners?

Why are some northern politicians so desperate about political power at the centre, about recycling failed rulers from the north, that they are willing to accuse a sitting President of heinous terrorism without providing solid evidence? Ciroma and others who think like him do not deserve the label “elder statesman” which journalists gratuitously attach to them.

Northerners, of course with the co-operation of people from the south, had held power at the federal level for over three decades. Yet, in spite of that, and beyond the emergence of overnight millionaires and billionaires northern Nigeria is still more backward economically and educationally than southern Nigeria.

Therefore, it is time the youths there should be asking Ciroma, Ibrahim Babangida, Atiku Abubakar and others what the suffering masses in the north had benefited from northern domination of political power.  In addition, northern youths must begin to work for intellectual and economic liberation from socio-cultural and religious manacles that have been tying them down to the apron-strings of their oppressors.
Ciroma, Babangida, Abubakar and Aliyu Gusau have no moral right to pontificate on the bombings or criticise Jonathan’s handling of the matter because they are part of the failed leadership that has bedeviled Nigeria since 1970.

All said and done, President Jonathan and the relevant security agencies are duty bound to do all in their power to identify and prosecute those behind the senseless act of terrorism.

The bomb blasts on Independence Day demonstrate once again that the rebranding programme of the present administration is not working.  Nigeria is a failing state.

Therefore, nothing short of a mental revolution to be triggered by a selfless, spiritually enlightened and imaginative benevolent dictator can successfully pull the country out of impending severe crisis and launch the process of building a strong, prosperous and egalitarian society, as envisaged by Nnamdi Azikiwe and other great nationalists. Concluded