Who will salvage Nigeria
By Taiye Olaniyi

Nigerians are growing savage to such an extent that for any iota of salvation to come we must first be saved from the direction of perdition to that of "National Salvage." Everywhere, tunes are getting discordant, personalities are turning to warring, things are falling apart and the center no longer holds.

Any effort at salvaging Nigeria seems usually to end in one crisis or the other and talks of unity which are ultimate in bringing together folks in the garbs they wear usually end in deepening crises.

At the family level, house ownership, religion, land appropriation or/ and misappropriation connote eternal struggle and at the inter-family level, the history of woes and geography of family struggles ultimate in economic catastrophe. At the community level, communal efforts of the glorious past are getting eroded into hollows and now every community in Nigeria only paints a picture of what used to be togetherly done now becomes habitual of what is never done or be done again.

States are pocketed in personal pockets and everything that belongs to the state is personalized to the extent that if one person that has the sole power to run the state goes mad in power, the madness of corruption becomes pervasive and absolute power corrupts the powers that be absolute.

The characteristics that characterize the character of occupants of the corridor of power at the federal level is like being taken to pray for the transfiguration of a nation at the highest level, but getting sleep and sedated into snoring and slumber only to wake up abruptly to ask for the building of 3 tents, one for he who is most powerful, the most powerful Eve of the realm and lastly the shrine for oblations and prayer for long life and unending but of course, mundane emptiness.

Teachers as advisers are teaching nonsense and nonsensical, Lords Spiritual are yielding all into spiritism, primitive magical occultism, and like their counterparts in a class of politicians are making Nigerians and Nigeria burn alive at the time previous infernos are yet unquenched.

Who will salvage Nigeria for Nigerians? Fat the question but lean the answer seems to be. Americans are too powerful to be trusted, the Asian Tigers like a centipede too snaky and sluggish to help, and African brothers and sisters are dying under the yoke of self-afflicted poverty culminating in wars and attendant woes.

Only Jesus can save we are told and bombarded in sermons, yet tithes and anointing miracles only give evidence that Christ Jesus Father's house of worship has turned into the den of thieves, stealing in the name of God. The 5 Fundamental Pillars of Islam in Nigeria unite only in Jihad interpreted always in the misinterpretation that on mundane matters that the slicing of throats and the bombing of the perceived infidels are a boulevard to the eternality of glittering light of Aljanna in life beyond. To all these, the Son of Man says "NO" in the capital but sharing Thought with Socrates I say capital "YES" when he says, " The Un-Examined Life is Not Worth Living".

Every individual Nigerian has a Role to Play through processing our thoughts, words, and conduct hovering around the Fundamental question of Why a Nigerian? Who Created You?, When?, Where? What ? and How you were so created as A Nigerian? I suspect it is when we relish in answering these questions that our Individual and Personal involvement in "Salvaging Nigeria" can be accomplished.

"Know Thyself" the mystics inject and You will never be false to Thyself. Peace Profound.

First published for METRO

*******************************

Taiye Olaniyi, a retired Postman of the Nigeria Postal Service, is based in Lagos.