By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
A new prayer is urgently needed for Nigeria.
The prayer should be composed for people to stop dying in droves because of the biting hunger all over the benighted country.
The self-advertised “Giant of Africa” has never known this level of suffering in its history – not even at the time of the civil war.
During the Nigeria-Biafra war, the privation was just on the eastern front because people were still partying in Lagos, Kano and the rest of the country outside the war-torn zone.
Now the cry in every mouth all over the country is: “I am hungry!”
It’s akin to speaking in tongues when diverse Nigerians repeat the statement in their various languages and dialects
No amount of propaganda can unmake the clear and present danger of acute suffering in the land. .
It does not help matters that peaceful protesters are now made to undergo trials as treasonable felons.
Characters who took power on the platter of protests have now turned into arch enemies of the art and science of protests.
Democracy has been turned on its head, and there are cries of woe bordering on prayers against helplessness and hopelessness.
The dangerous dodge is pitching one ethnic group against the other as a means of underhand distraction.
Nigeria needs salvation to stave off the immense danger staring the country in the face.
Parents and guardians are withdrawing their children and wards from schools because the school fees are out of their reach.
The high electricity tariff is impossible to pay for almost all homes.
House rent has shot up astronomically such that homelessness is the rule rather than the exception these days.
Transportation costs cannot be met by teeming Nigerians in this age when fuel subsidy is said to be gone – dubiously.
The much-ballyhooed private refinery billed to end the petrol and gas woes has met with inscrutable legerdemain.
Insecurity is all the rage all over the country, and humongous ransom is being paid per second, per second.
The galling dimension is that the government is living quite large with booties such presidential jet, yacht, escalade, N21 billion mansion etc.
The sufferers of privation across the country are being asked to be patient for Eldorado to come in God-knows-when time.
The hungry people can hardly survive for many days longer, yet they are being asked to exercise patience via patriotism.
As Samuel Johnson had stated, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”
Government agents feeding fat upon the suffering of the masses are all engaged in getting the country more divided by the day.
Any protest is tagged as treason, with the standard answer from government askaris being the repetition of the mantra that people must perforce wait for the 2027 elections, or even 2031 in the name of democracy!
As things stand, Nigerians have become quite cynical about elections in which the rulers warn before even the polls: “Go to court!”
In elections that are fixed like American TV wrestling, aggrieved parties are encouraged to go to court before even the announcement of the results.
The electoral body always plays ball for the powers-that-be and, the judiciary does the end bit by dancing to the tune of power.
The country keeps diminishing in the eyes of civilization and essence within the orbit of the human race.
The ideology at play is just like the “Animalism” published in George Orwell’s Animal Farm where all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.
Totalitarianism is overwhelming the land, and plutocracy is being celebrated before the very eyes of very hungry people.
Keen observers cannot but ask the question: Must Nigeria forever have presidents smaller than Nigeria?
It is as though everybody has been cowed, and there is no silver lining whatsoever in sight.
The dark tunnel into which Nigerians have been thrust is getting darker all the day and night, whence the resort to prayers.
As I am writing this piece on a Sunday, I cannot but remember that the Catholic Church used to wax strong with “Prayer for Nigeria in Distress”.
I pray that I can garner enough afflatus to write to the Bishop of Sokoto, Most Reverend Dr Matthew Hassan Kukah, to get his esteemed colleagues in the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) to compose a new prayer for these sad times: Prayer for Nigeria in Disarray!
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is a renowned poet, journalist and author