By Oludayo Tade

HORRIFIC killings have become a common feature across Nigeria’s geo-political space to the extent that criminals have widened their tentacles, competing over who could inflict the greatest harm. On the other side is government, elected to protect lives and properties but seems to be either bereft of what to do to tame them or complicit in the evil.

Nigeria is fast becoming a state of normlessness or state of nature where life is not only short but uncertain. While the presidential flagbearer of the All Progressive Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is singing Emilokan (it is my turn to be president), Nigerians are afraid of Ta lo kan (who will be the next victim of insecurity) as they have become helpless.

I watched the viral video of the torture-killing of a Nigerian army couple in the South-East, I viewed the emotionally disturbing ‘blasphemous burning’ of Deborah in Sokoto, and the tyranny of terror killings in a Catholic Church in the ancient town of Owo, the homeland of the sitting Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu which exterminated no fewer than 40 parishioners in cold blood with over 70 injured. The Owo terror attack on the church represents a throwback to early period of terrorism in North-East Nigeria when religious institutions were targeted, attacked and victimised.

The Owo massacre if poorly managed is inducing fear and triggering perceived ethnic agenda of domination with unintended consequences of encouraging ethicised conflict.

As terrorists intimidate in Owo with deaths, money bags in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and All Progressives Congress, APC, Buga (intimidate and dominate) others through the purchase of delegates with money. They increased the cost of nomination forms to exclude others and ensured their cronies became delegates. The role of dollars in a naira economy underscores why there is so much insecurity and why Nigerians remain pauperised.

Across Nigeria, the broom and umbrella parties are in the political trading market where delegates have become traders of their conscience following the economics of voting the highest bidder as preferred by the leadership of their respective parties. Manifestoes of aspirants meant nothing as it is a waste of saliva to be addressing people whose ears have been blocked with dollars. After the emergence of Atiku Abubakar in the PDP and Tinubu in the APC (not leaving out Peter Obi), the journey is completed and we should be reflecting on our own positions in the emerging order of things. At least, we will agree objectively that not only those in IDP camps are internally displaced persons, many of us are displaced and inside such displacement is our vulnerability to negotiate our positionality with extorters and beg for stipends.

Kizz Daniel’s 2022 song, Buga, presents analytical frame to situate current happenings in Nigeria and why terrorists see themselves as ‘working’, and delegates see the opportunity to dollarise as loyalty. Kizz Daniel stresses the importance of being alert to shoot at an opportunity while it flies because it is a bird that never perches. Hence, being dull in the face of opportunity is considered unwise. He believes that those who work deserve to get paid, but incidentally Daniel makes reference to dollar, the popular currency reportedly used at 2022 party conventions of the two mega political parties who have not improved the life chances of Nigerians significantly but have produced more poverty, insecurity, decrepit education, health and road infrastructures. These two parties (APC and PDP) have jointly produced powerful individuals who consistently weaken institutions to allow them have unfettered access to our collective patrimony. If not, how does one explain a government with cashless policy and digital naira policy aimed at driving financial inclusion and checking fraud participating actively in activities at variance with its publicised policies all in the name of politics? Politics is certainly intimidating andbugarised phenomenon which renders the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, helpless.

“Wake up. Don’t sleep, no sleep. Wake up (koba). Collect your money (collect your money). Wake up, eh Collect your money (collect your money). Wake up (giddem), Gbe’ra (gbe’ra o)Gbe’ra; go get that mullah (wake up). Oh, ah, moni ko kala (kala gb’owoy¹n o). Kala gb’owoy n’iwi, dealer,” says Kiss Daniel. He was implying that delegates, a rare status every four years, need to grab that opportunity and collect money from the ‘dealer’ as against leader. A dealer is a merchant, a trader investing for return for himself and household, while a leader breaks ground of opportunities beyond his inner caucus. For the dealer, by the time he returns,  it will be at the expense of the majority on whose behalf the delegates have collected dollars. Sadly, the structure of leadership emplacement across sectors has been by monetised loyalty. Politicians are just the macro representation of what happens in micro-institutions such as alumni associations, church/mosque, campus politics, and religious elections during which those with greater prospects of making positive changes are edged out through the weaponisation of cash.

The terrorists who massacred in Owo are also funded by someone who may be interested in war economy. Dealers on people’s lives don’t bother about the negative consequences of their actions; they are like drug dealers who don’t care how illicit drugs consumption is killing Nigerian youths and inflaming insecurity. To Kiss Daniel, however, those who ‘work’ (terrorists, thieves, labourers consider themselves as workers) deserve their pay irrespective of what happens to others. “You don work, you don try-try, You suppose to dey j’aiye, j’aiye, Kilo kan mi kan person matter o? Person wey don mad, o, When I land, I land softly on a sofa floor, So far, so good, konibaje o. The use of the proceeds of ‘work’ is also to intimidate/dominate. The fight is tough, the stakes are high and the cost is high and at the end, those with big pockets, not necessarily those with what it takes to engineer positive change for the ultimate happiness of the majority, get to the position and the society suffers for it. From local to national, how many of those flagbearers want the best living wages for workers? Who among them will be treated in Nigerian hospitals? Who among the aspirants will allow their children attend public schools? Who among them will their children enter the civil service and earn minimum wage?

The consequences of what is happening to us through politics which, unfortunately determines what happens in other sectors, is contained in the chorus of Buga where Kiss Daniel expects the favoured person to Buga won (show off or intimidate them). He says: Let me see you, go low-low-low. Let me see you, go low-low-low, buga won, Lemme buga won. I see this as a representation of happenings during electioneering period. A typical politician comes down to the level of the maginalised (goes low), and pretends to be at the mercy of the delegates and the electorates, while they trade with cash and make humanitarian interventions to gain support. After election and when in control, the ‘dealer’ who purchased loyalty is now in a position to intimidate and dominate those who traded with him. At this time, the electorates are now “low-low-low” because they are faced with insecurity, poverty, poor education and health facilities and need the attention of Buga executive. The dealer, as constituted authority raises his shoulders and intimidates them to silence. Was that not the strategy used by the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari as a candidate and flagbearer? After getting to office, bugarism becomes the trait, and the masses who complained are labelled ‘corruption is fighting back’. Today, we have landed in the land of tyranny of terror, bugarised leadership and dollarised patriotism. Unfortunately, the commodification of voters is almost impossible with the nosediving economic fortunes in the lives of Nigerians. But if we can remain resolute and are determined to have positive change to a peaceful, secure and prosperous country, we would need to move against dollarised/commodified loyalty. Politicians are less numerically among the voting public. If the public mobilises to be active in the coming polls, it may be our way to get real leaders into government and show dealers the exit door.

  Dr Tade, a sociologist, wrote via: [email protected]