Beware of the ides of 2015

BY JOE INIODU

The above title which has the allegorical caveat of Shakespeare’s epic work, Julius Caeser is deliberate and considered apt as we march with ungainful steps towards 2015. The year is assumed as the mark or mar year for Nigeria, the decider of its fate. Perhaps the kernel of Julius Caeser’s story bears recollection for ease of appreciation of the aptness. 

Julius Caeser was the king of the Roman Empire who was assassinated in 44 BC. Before his assassination on the ides of March which according the Roman calendar was March 15, a seer, Plutarch had warned that harm would come to Caeser not later than the ides of March. But Caeser, a powerful king who was well loved by his people had ignored the warning. Infact, it is said that on his way to the Theatre of Pompey where a meeting of the Senate was scheduled to hold and where he would be assassinated that fateful day, he passed the seer and poked a joke on the hollowness of his prophesy:

“The ides of March have come”, Caeser is quoted to have said to which Plutarch replied: “Aye Caeser, but no gone”. Well on that fateful day, Caeser was stabbed to death at a meeting of the Senate with as many as 60 conspirators led by Brutus and Cassius. Even though Octavia avenged Caeser’s death by executing 300 Senators and Knights, his assassination was a turning point in Roman history as it marked the historical period known as the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. 

About the year 2000, the American intelligence issued a report that Nigeria would break or be dismembered in 2015. As a Nation and a people, we kicked at the report and labeled it as the careless rantings of an idle world leader. Our leaders arrogating to themselves the pompous claim of being in charge warned the authors of the report to rather worry about their country and not Nigeria. In their illusory claim, they were in full control of the reins of government and capable of reining in any uprising, insurgency or dissidence. In their pomposity, they refused to ask questions and find out what those who conducted the intelligence gathering saw to warrant such frightening report. If our leaders had bothered with any diligent study of that report, perhaps we would have averted the recurring mayhem of today. But in 2000, everything looked bright and beautiful lulling the nation and its leaders into a false sense of security. Today the dark days are here and we are caught napping as we were unprepared. We are paying a price for neglecting an early warning. 

The conditions of today have forced many of us to often paint a damning and gory picture of the future of the country if concerted measures are not taken to reverse the nation from this cascading slide that is heading for the abyss. It is apparent that we may be heading towards a national tragedy if the many maladies that afflict our nation are not addressed pronto. In a nation where life has been made brutish by incessant bomb explosions, mindless killings, mind-boggling corruption, insurgency, religious intolerance, ethnic bigotry, elites conspiracy, high unemployment rate, epileptic power supply and several others, only the prayers of the faithful have continued to hold this country together. But must we live in sin because grace abounds? How much burden can we saddle God with? Has he not done so much for us already? Between 1993 and 1998, He reined us in from the precipice of disintegration. He kept faith with us. For how long shall we tempt this patient God with our self afflictions and perfidy? 

The ides of 2015 hold ominous auguries that would once again put the nation to test. The maladies that may attend the year would be contrived by man for the benefit of self and sectional interest. It would be concocted to serve the ends of skewed religious values, egotism and a myriad of vested interest. The people that would jump into the fray would be driven by ignoble considerations ranging from primordial to religion and which are of insignificant value to the cause of the nation and the well-being of the people. 

The Presidential election of 2015 in which President Jonathan of the People’s Democratic Party and General Muhammadu of All People’s Congress are the most prominent contenders exemplifies this fear of fanatical and blind followership. Some of the bigoted Northerners rooting for Buhari who is journeying through the presidential route for the fourth time have said that being his last as he is currently 72, it must be a do-or-die. They have promised that it must be either Buhari or no Nigeria. Even Governor Amechi has promised national unrest if the former head of State loses. These kind of comments will bolster and buoy the sentiments of the supporters and range them into frenzy. Such instinctive state can endanger the process of elections as such people reason with their emotions than with their heads. 

Down here in the Niger-Delta, militants have promised a show down if one of their own being President Jonathan is denied a second term like all others. The attempt by some people to interpolate that Jonathan would be doing a third term if he contest 2015 election was quashed by a court of competent jurisdiction recently. That means that Jonathan’s contention for the seat of President in 2015 is legitimate and constitutional. The people of the Niger-Delta want to see this realized and to thy tents O Israel if it is not. Their bargaining chip is strong. Niger-Delta is the economic bedrock of the Nation generating over 90 percent of the country’s earnings. And so it would be whether the nation wants to trade the presidency for a stifled economy that may come from blockade of activities in the oil industry by militants or allow the full course of equity and justice that would engender economic prosperity for all. Even though this may seem as blackmail in the game of politicking, all is fair. 

If these unyielding positions are brought into the mix, the nation is endangered smacking of the ides of 2015. The North has Boko Haram which it is using to push its case of return of Presidency to the North. The culture of silence that is noticeable in the North as it pertains to the Boko Haram is clear evidence that the insurgency is a sectional agenda with inherent purpose. The insurgents are not spirit. They live amongst people. They have parents, siblings and relations. They have sponsors and enjoy some level of protection. It is why insurgency has continued to thrive unabated with cities lost to Boko Haram from time to time. Their intention is to make the country look ungovernable and that way pave way for a “messiah” from the North who would end the lingering insurgency. “But he who starts a thing must know how to end it”, is the view of the people of the Niger-Delta. And for this, they are also prepared to make things difficult for anybody that stampedes Jonathan out of the presidency either through blackmail or intimidation. 

Where does all these live this once great Nation? The country is caught in a web of sectional interests that have no interest in national interest. The nation is fast becoming a voodoo nation where nationalistic fervour can not be stirred. People are too preoccupied with self vested and sectional interests to the detriment of patriotic zest required to drive the national dream that would bestow on our nation a pride of place. If most of the Northerners were patriotic, they would have been concerned with issues of governance which Jonathan is tackling the best way he can through the opening of schools, tarring of roads, unbundling of the power sector etc than the sectional demand of returning power to the North. They would have looked at Buhari on the merit of his person and not as Muslim cult-hero that must be enthroned by all means; an act that has certainly alienated others from supporting him. And so in this imminent debacle, let us pray that God intermits so that we can avert the ides of 2015.

Joe Iniodu is a public affairs analyst.