Nigerians and indeed, the world, watched aghast last week as a South African grisly movie reel began to roll. Full of all the elements of a movie, it was however a real story. The cast was two black women who, on August 17, were shot and fed to pigs by a white farmer. The victims, Maria Makgato, 45 and Lucia Ndlovu, 34 were scavenging for edible food in consignments of recently expired or soon-to-be-expired produce on a farm located near Polokwane, a South African northern Limpopo province. The expired edible foods were meant for pigs. Before her gruesome murder, Makgato was mother of four sons of between 22 and five years ages. Farm owner, Zachariah Johannes Olivier, 60, had reportedly ordered his employees, Adrian de Wet, 19, and William Musora, 50, to kill the two women. Their bodies were then fed to pigs, in order to destroy evidence of their murder. Ms Ndlovu’s husband, Mabutho Ncube, who came to the farm with his wife, had been shot, too but crawled into safety with his gunshot wounds. Several days later, police found decomposing, horrific bodies of the women in the farm’s pigsty, partly eaten up by the swine In South Africa, farming communities are severally under attacks by white farmers, exacerbating an already high crime statistics in the country. This is especially rife in rural areas, despite the official cessation of the obnoxious racist system of apartheid 30 years ago. In same August, in the eastern province of Mpumalanga, two men – a farmer and his security guard – were arrested in Laersdrift, located beside a small South African town called Middleburg, for allegedly murdering two men on a farm. Accused of stealing sheep, the men were incinerated beyond recognition. The court had to subject their ashes to DNA analysis to be able to establish their identities. In the same vein, a 70-year old white farmer, Christoffel Stoman, of Lutzville, a Western Cape province, had allegedly driven over and broken the two legs of a 6-year old boy for picking a fallen orange on his farm. The boy’s mother, walking with him past Stoman’s farm, on their way to town to purchase groceries, was horrified as his son got mowed down by Stoman. As they watch this grisly movie, like the rest of the world, Nigerians are entitled to their shock. However, literally and figuratively, on the social and political planes, our country can be said to be grappling with leaders of similar sadism as South Africa’s Oliviers. Almost on a daily basis, Nigerians’ bodies are figuratively fed to swine, simply because they pick expired pig foods from our collective farm. Nigerian leadership in the last seventeen months, like Olivier, has figuratively thrown Nigerians’ bodies to the swine who now take turns to feast on our flesh for supper. Nigerians are writhing under excruciating poverty occasioned by wickedness in high places. They encounter limited vision and foresight of leaders who claimed it was their time to rule but who have no time to think through the people’s plights. Perhaps the greatest Olivier-like savagery inflicted on Nigerians is the gradual destruction and undermining of the foundation of democracy by the born-to-rule taskmasters. In almost 17 months, all the institutions of democracy, like the electoral system, free press/speech and impartial judicial system have been dealt mortal blows. They are all comatose today. This speaks to that eternal aphorism that democracies are not killed by guns but by wicked undermining of its foundation. If Nigerians are so distressed about the misrule in their country today, unfortunately, they are in a Catch-24 situation. We are locked up in a paradoxical situation from which, except an intervention of providence, we may never escape. As Sule Lamido warned recently, if the Leviathan in Aso Rock didn’t control the Senate, the Nigerian Army, Nigerian police, DSS etc and yet won the 2023 election, it is wishful thinking that anyone can stop the reproduction of this misrule in 2027. The ones at the top today have worn upon them the classical head of the Medusa. In real terms, like the sobriquet of one of the friends of Ayinla Omowura, an Abeokuta musical warlord of the 1970s, they are reincarnates of Ab’esuj’obi – one who shares kolanut with the devil. According to the playbook of democracy, opposition deepens democracy. In Nigeria, the Leviathan has effectively castrated opposition. And this is why we should all be bothered. It is a Lagos model given federal promotion. The Leviathan then dipped his hands into his wiles pouch. From there, he brought out a colony of termites, led by a choleric dictator who is seeking political vengeance in his home state. His main assignment was to gradually corrode virtually all the internal strength of the PDP. I will not be shocked if the Leviathan is also the sponsor of the crisis in the Labour Party as well. Like a colony of pests called termites, Aso Rock and Nyesom Wike have visited on our country, using Rivers State as model, one of the most debilitating democratic devastations ever in history. This means that, whatever tyranny and limited vision leadership which Nigerians complain of today has a longer expiry period than they may think. We should all buckle up for a marathon. It is a distressing reality. What happened in Edo State last month, coupled with the lawlessness that has eaten up Rivers State today, are clear signals that the electoral, judicial and police institutions have been ambushed. In broad daylight, with the obvious abetment of the Villa, electoral process was cavalierly thrown to the swine. The animals in turn mauled it with maniacal relish. It was obvious that Mahmood Yakubu’s INEC didn’t have any qualm licking the pus-dripping wound of the Leviathan and his accomplices. With wanton abuse of electoral rules by INEC, advocacy for the abrogation of state electoral commissions for being lapels of state governors will not make any sense. From what is going on in Rivers today, with INEC openly … Read more
