The Labour Of Our Heroes Past 

The occurrences of the past shape the mindsets with which people manage the present which linger on to predict the situations of the future. We learn from the past to manage the present for the benefits of the future. But as a result of corrupt leadership system, most of our citizens have gotten ill past experiences and in ignorance have resolved to selfishly work against the present at the detriment of our collective future.

The accumulative effects of how most of our past Patriots were disgustingly treated and the way the past political thieves were set free with little or no penalty and in some cases, elevated to honourable positions in the society are the reasons patriotism flew away from the hearts of many. Where there is no, or weak penalty, crimes become ways of life. It is the fear of the law that makes one resolve never to operate against the tide of the law. The corrupt leadership system in Nigeria makes our society a fertile soil for crime to flourish. It discourages patriotism and weakens the strength of our security agents as most criminals are connected to top players in the society who defend and order the release of criminals whenever they are caught in the act of crime.

It has become a culture for politicians to keep using criminals for electoral violence and in return, offer protection to them in order to compensate for their efforts in political activism. When a leadership system supports criminality, you will unquestionably have what we have in Nigeria today. Citizens living at the mercy of criminals; some security agents working as kidnappers; tribal bigotry and religious supremacy wars everywhere! Ethnic cleansing for land grabbing, promoted and defended by those who should have known better. It will interest you to know that in our nation presently, some societies are paying criminals security fees for survival. Government has lost its grip on the security apparatus of the nation. ‘Every man for himself, God for us all’.

The non recompense of the labour of our past heroes fuels in a high degree the unpatriotic nature of the majority of today’s players. It discourages one to sacrifice for a nation that cares not for those who sacrificed for her wellbeing; a nation that celebrates wealth irrespective of the colour of means the wealth is procured; a nation where bribe must be paid to speed up a procedure; a nation where electoral competition is not about ideas but about deep pockets and dog eat dog; a country of majority ‘odds’ where the infinitesimal ‘evens’ are ignorantly referred to as the ‘odds’; a nation where the ‘know somebody’ and the wealthy remain above the law while the ‘know nobody’ and the commoners remain victims of manipulative and indomie laws.

Note: Injustice anywhere, done to anyone at any period is a threat to everyone across  the globe, as it affects the characters of most people whom may, or have come across the knowledge of it.

I submit it to you that the hopelessness and the poor lifestyle of most of our retired Police officers alongside other security agents caused the panic and the desperation with which some of our security agents hustle for wealth. When you see no worthy future in what you do by watching the living conditions of those who have done it, you will adopt some measures to have a change of narration which sometimes brushes across the boarders of legality and that of morality. Hunger drives the wolf out of the wood. No one negotiates the navigation of his thought ship very well in the storming Sea of empty stomach. A borrower must borrow with conditions that favour the lender.

There had been agitations, complaints by those who have been denied payments of retirement benefits. Recently, Retired Members of Nigerian Armed Forces (REMENAF) and the Coalition of Concerned Military Veterans (CCV) poured out their grievances against negligence on the government’s part to pay their retirement benefits. The old men and women agitated under the coldness of the rain and that of a searing hot sun to reveal their frustrations to the entire world. As we are failing to protect those who protected us, we are sending a bad signal to those who ought to protect us to have a rethink in their sacrificial efforts to keep us safe. And when you see deprived and hopeless law enforcement agents engaging in certain illegal business practices you wonder why. The same cain used on a fool has been used on the wise.

It is high time we accepted our inherent responsibility to keep our societies safe from avaricious recalcitrant political monsters. It is time to lift our voices and and engage our resources to demand justice for the deprived and the oppressed and call for harsh penalty for corrupt public office holders. As denizens of the land, it is time we rise to stop the commercialization of our political electoral contests that only favors the highest bidder, instead of the man with better ideas. As it applies to an object, every unholy situation of a People will not gain a positive advancement unless a force is applied to it.

The people who milk their wealth from oppression, deprivation and corruption will continue to ruggedly defend the bad system at the detriment of the general public. They can only bow to a rugged passive formidable resistance from the public. Not until we form a united front to demand our inherent rights, our freedom from bad leadership settings will keep remaining hanging in the sky.

No truth can be ‘truer’ than the truth! Until we rise to say enough is enough, their more than enough will never be enough.