By Taiye Olaniyi

We are sure living in a tumultuous time, we all are heartbroken, government, governance, and the governed daily get shattered and scattered.

Insanity seems now more normal than sanity just as whoever thinks sane the society takes as belonging to the phylum of abnormal beings.

Nigeria, which in geopolitical references lay claim to being a “Giant of Africa” being the repository of natural resources endowment, high population, and human resources, is today a giant but of Goliathan status which forehead gets daily plummeted by mere a throw of catapult stones.

The word “Nigeria” itself seems no more tenable as a reference point of sovereignty but a shattered, balkanized cadastral map of imperial conquerors, vassal states, and agonizing generality of beings.

Religion, which ordinarily should be a focal point in man’s relationship with God is now daily bastardized as an avenue to discriminate, disunite and destroy fellow human beings similarly created by the one and only God, the Creator of every living being, everywhere.

Crude materialism, racism, ethnocentric tribalism, religious hypocrisy, and demon possession are now the daily penchant for the so-called religious puritanism and forceful imposition by the religionists thus deviating from the glowing beauty of Islam which to me in heart, mind, and soul remains a “Religion of Peace”.

In the same vein is the current trend of banditry and kidnapping which are now spreading like wide fire and which if not curtailed may end up engulfing the whole of the West African sub-region already being plundered by unruly attitudes of the rulers, the misrule and general poverty culminating in fringes of coup and countercoups.

In Nigeria, citizens are no longer patriotic, we are already a broken calabash whose family fabrics not only daily get torn but equally endanger the lives and properties of the entire sub-regional cartography.

The 1975 ECOWAS policy orientation for sociopolitical, cultural, and economic integration, the policy criteria for the free flow of peoples and goods amongst member states, and the aspiration to build an ECOWAS of People from the ECOWAS of States should now be better approached with serious-mindedness before ISWAP and the likes get us all extinct from the annals of world history.

Peace moves, educational drives on environmental interplay, tailor programs for itinerant herdsmen now turned bandits, consultations with their identifiable groups and their representatives, and consolidation efforts must be enhanced before confrontations on all fronts, so we make the best out of the enveloping dangers around us all. We all should work together as members of the same humanity, seek peace together, and engage in productive endeavors rather than translate to making both our sub-region and entire Africa a theatre of war and market base for the sales of lethal weapons from America, Europe, Asia including Russia and China.

May our one and only God, the Creator of every living being, everywhere teach us all the way to Light, Life and Love.

Taiye Olaniyi, a retired Postman of the Nigeria Postal Service, is based in Lagos.