By Josef Omoriotionmwan
RECENTLY, this Column ran a series titled “Which Way, Nigeria?” These series were not, and cannot be, concluded because with each passing day, the question is gaining deeper currency.

Whichever direction we look at in Nigeria, we see a harvest of deaths, to the extent that we think that if things continue this way, those who seek to rule may soon run out of subjects to rule over.

They say, if you can’t beat them, you should join them but where you cannot join them, you are better advised to run away. If we were to be forced into the third option, we would soon arrive at the valid question, where are we running to?

Henry Okah was alleged to have committed an act of terrorism in Nigeria but before he could be tried here, he vamoosed to South Africa where the law still caught up with him. He was tried there and convicted.

Back home, the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta, MEND, quickly threatened that they were going to resume hostilities to protest Okah’s conviction.

In quick succession, 12 policemen have been killed at the Bayelsa creeks. Although it is not yet clear who carried out the attack, but coming on the heels of the MEND threat, many are not looking too far for the perpetrators. For a conviction that was obtained in far away

South Africa, where should we run to?

In the Kano luxury buses incident, hundred of our people, mainly from a particular section of this country, were roasted alive following bombs thrown at their motor park.

While we were yet mourning the loss of the Kano victims, another luxury bus incident occurred at Ugbogui, along the Benin-Ore Road. A peep at the manifest published on the front page of the SUN Newspaper of Sunday, April 7, 2013 clearly shows that the victims were also from the same section of the country as the Kano victims. Where can the people run to?

It is not true that no one can be held responsible for the Ugbogui disaster. Death is death, whether from Boko Haram or from the Federal Government. Murder is still murder even where our dear and loved one is the murderer. No one has convinced us that the myriads of road accidents in Nigeria are because the Nigerian roads are too good. Rather, the very reverse is the case.

With the Boko Haram, the victims come under the bomb, knife or gun. What can we say about a Federal Government that budgets billions of Naira annually on the Benin-Ore Road but ends up sand-filling the potholes and painting the road black, only to be washed off by the first rain of the year?

Are they not greater killers than Boko Haram? Why can the Federal Government for once, not swallow her pride and come to Edo State to see the solid roads that the Oshiomhole-led administration is providing for the people?

We may never know the number of innocent Nigerians who perish annually from the Federal Government default via the blackout saga with the concomitant generator explosions and smoke inhalations.

What manner of government would feel it is doing the citizens a favour by throwing them into undeserved darkness all the time? We hear that the cables used for electrical installations are such that cannot stand prolonged heat without melting.

Essentially, if we were to have steady power supply, many houses would be going up in flames as the inferior cables melt. So, periods of darkness are big reliefs, no thanks to our Federal Government. The truth, then, is that if we were to approach the era of regular power supply, we would first seek to revamp our electrical installations.

If we must advance further, governments must be held accountable for their actions. Before now, killings in the country had been segmented. They were either in the Niger Delta, the North East, the North Central or anywhere else at different times but not the type of senseless killings that are now enveloping the country at the same time.

The penultimate weekend, there were simultaneous outbreaks of hostilities in Bayelsa, Plateau, Borno, Bauchi, Kano, Kaduna, etc, and the entire thing is directionless, with no particular tribal or religious colouration.

Even while considerations are already on for amnesty for Boko Haram, hostilities are escalating. There is total anomie in our country. Even in areas where you think the progressive pogrom is dying down, kidnap and armed robbery cases are on the rise. Where do we run to?

This nation is certainly sitting on a keg of gun powder that can explode anytime. Which other administration worldwide prides itself in the disobedience of its own laws? There is a subsisting Supreme Court judgement out-lawing the excess crude account and ordering all monies accruable to the country to be paid into a single Federation Account.

This Supreme Court judgement is being obeyed only in the breach! Can anyone really say that the Federal Government has a budget for 2013? At best, what they have is a provisional approval, not backed by any law.

What we now call an Appropriation Act was signed by the President on condition that he would follow it up immediately with a supplementary appropriation that would bring the budget down to his desired level.

The Budget Office has since issued circulars to all those implementing the budget to discard the signed Appropriation Act and execute the budget only to the level of the President’s desire.

A supplementary estimate has been submitted to the National Assembly. The year is fast running out. In the end, we shall have what the late Professor Awojobi would have appropriately captioned the three versions of one budget – the President’s, the National Assembly’s and nobody’s!

Some people are running around the country building bridges and amalgamating political parties. Any hope that an