GOING OFF MY ROCKERS

One, two, three, no stopping, no waffling. It's time to do things
differently. Who cares if I sound like I've gone off my rockers? I'm
just angry at everybody who should do something constructive for
Nigeria sitting on their hands. If we entered an agreement to work
within some constitution, is there also a covenant to work with what
is not working and watch our national life go to the dogs?

Our prisons are congested, yet we keep convicting more Nigerians.
That's what we've done since time immemorial but has it stopped
Nigerians from investing in crime? Since the eneke nti oba bird has
learnt to fly without perching, how about the hunter shooting without
missing? If we have an ingenious Nigerian who can swallow 66 wraps of
cocaine, why should the NDLEA bother with giving him purgatives to get
the stuff out of his bowels? How about serving him a hot bowl of
'fufu' and 'ogbono' soup plus a keg of palm wine? That should help the
cocaine settle nicely down there. And if his cargo kills him, a
postmortem will teach our medical students a few things about what
happens when cocaine and palm wine are mixed. It'd make a good story
too. For me, it is better to let what a drug courier likes to swallow
kill him than waste a judge's time and further congest the prisons.
Let NDLEA stop providing toilet services to drug couriers.

As for those who have been administering fake, expired and adulterated
drugs to Nigerian and giving Madam NAFDAC sleepless nights. It's time
to go outside the law books. How about arresting the dealers,
chemists, shop owners and testing their medicines on them? Just put
them a air-conditioned room, feed them well and serve them their
drugs, watch the effects on them and let them sweat it out or die
slowly. I think it is a better deterrent than the long process of
prosecution. If you can make money from drugs that can rob a mother of
an only child, you can take the drugs too or is what is sauce for the
goose no longer for the gander? Why are will wasting precious time on
talking about whether to remove the immunity clause or not? Let the
darned thing stay? It is antiquated, null and void and of no effect
whatsoever to the new order. Let the governors concentrate on whatever
they have chosen to do with their four years. Let us also concentrate
on documenting what monies they t! ake from the treasury in four
years. Let us watch how they spend tax payers money. Let us compile
the facts as they write their handing over notes. No padding. No witch
hunting. When they swear them out, let them refund what they have
stolen. Let them then be whipped publicly at the state capital, in
front of the Government Houses in the presence of their wives and
children and of course their successors. We must not forget to ensure
that the world media cover the historic events. Then let their faces
be pasted at airports. They must never be allowed to leave Nigeria
until they be dead. No court injunction, temporary or perpetual. That
should make public office meet public service halfway. Now, only those
who come out of office and service blameless should be given national
honours.

You think I've gone bunkers? But this law that is an ass is making
assholes of all of us. It is killing the essence of this nation. The
family silver that the founding fathers bequeathed to is rusting away
in the dirt of legalese, bureaucracy and never-ending
injunctions.

We have flown by the seats of our pants for too long. We have played
by the rules for too long. We have played the copy cat game for too
long and it's time to quit. I know we are all hopelessly in love with
this rule of law stuff. I bet not a few of us think that due process
and rule of law are the Messiahs we have been waiting for.

For as long as you are seeing the Nigerian situation through
rose-tinted glasses, it will look like we are finally in El Dorado.
Unfortunately, dreams are different from reality. And it is high time
we realised that the Nigerian problem deserves a Nigerian solution,
one thing the rule of law cannot help us with. It's great to brandish
the constitution and preach the rule of law, it's good for our
international image. Let it be seen that we have also crawled out of
the caves and we are now a civilized nation. Let the rest of the world
lap that up. But back home, with our internal issues, we've got to do
something drastic. We've got do something out of the ordinary,
something out rightly irregular.

See where we stand. What exactly have our regular laws done for us?
Why do we still remember the Buhari/Idiagbon days with nostalgia? Is
there a portion of our laws that says we should be disorderly? So how
come the last time there were orderly lines at our bus stops was when
Idiagbon's boys whipped us into line? How come that was the only time
we were afraid of throwing banana peels out of the bus window? The
other day flying 'moinmoin' leaves from the car in front of mine
almost ended on my laps.

Tell me, why Lagosians are afraid of driving against the traffic? Is
it not because of the psychiatric test penalty? Who will remember that
the real reason your name is in the Yaba Psychiatric Hospital register
was because you drove one-way in front of Lagos Sheraton Hotel and
Towers to catch up on a business meeting? Trust Nigerians to haul that
at you when you decide to vie for an elective post. The Lagos
psychiatric initiative is a step in the right direction. Lagosians
aren't easy to manage, for instance, because they are always hurrying
somewhere.

And the only reason the Federal Road Safety Corp was a huge success in
the beginning was because they went beyond charging traffic offenders
to court. You commit an offence in Akure, you went to pay your fine in
Abuja. Quite effective. Our designer constitution is great but it
ain't solving our socio-political problems. We are in a hell of a mess
and there doesn't seem to be a plan to clear this mess or get out of
it.

This country that once had her citizens rushing back home after
grabbing blue-chip degrees cannot even educate them least of all give
them employment. Our groundnut pyramids have been taken over by Indian
hemp farms. Cocoa farmers are now drug barons. Our schools are
gradually been phased out. There is no coherent energy policy to
rescue us from the demons of PHCN. To top it all, you can now get a
perpetual court injunction stopping your landlord from asking you for
rent or issuing you a quit notice.

So, is it too much work to get things working again? And if we have
tried to do it by the books and it hasn't worked, pray, tell me why we
must stay on a course that is not leading anywhere. If you are going
to Ibadan from Lagos, you can go through Abeokuta if the Lagos -Ibadan
expressway has the regular traffic snarl. That is not rocket science,
is it?