Introduction
A recent past travel to and
through the territory generated pictures of historical reality in diverse experiences located
precisely in refreshed memories, new vistas for self-interrogation and unknown
niches that mesmerised imagination. Simply put, nothing is stationary as any
authority is quickly devalued by inundating touches of dynamic change. Therefore we position these lived experiences in 4 silhouettes of collective
human endeavour captured in real time across in different places below the 6th
parallel.
The Gist
Away from Whatsappistan
republic that offer armchair analysts and uncritical observers their dues
devoid of practical responsibility and incisive duties in a specific territory
of their purview; historical reality offer something more concrete, agencies in action,
complex processes and radical responses that dissolve attempts at easy
description and non-frill explanations.
As 2026 opened her arms to
the long-suffering peoples, their tested hopes exploded almost simultaneously
across different settlements, villages, towns and urban concentrations. What is
moving millions of people to act, to seek to breakdown unjust barriers to
survive cannot be contained by shallow intellectual posturing or irreverent
rational constructs. There is more to the deep yearning of the interiors, their
insatiable draws to justice and the indefatigable biceps bulging for
liberation. The evident fact is that most peoples across the multination that call different locations therein home no longer wait for insensitive external
structures or reckless impositions to dictate their experience, understanding, judgement
and decision. Each person have become a republic, as the republic is truly humanised
in each person.
It is no longer a head-on
collision between contrary forces waxing lyrical with opposite tensions, no,
this is the maturity of the innocent just party finally settling for dedicated
asymmetrical response to uncertainty after a strategic scanning of the horizon.
In accepting that the future is neither predictable nor predetermined; they
wrest away any trust on external and imposed structures to define, decide and
forge the future of their choices. Be it possible, probably or preferable; they
are the master. A mastery devolved to each person; man, woman, boy, and girl.
It may suggest on casual view as license for uncoordinated randomness, in
actual fact its systematic evolution and development over time point to a side
to human quality lost in the so-called quantitative modernity pivoted in its loss in
translation on confrontation with qualitative indigenous peoples.
Let us start from a road trip within the entity where one-way Lagos-Owerri airfare cost nearly half a million naira. Forget about inflation for the moment. The road like an impressive lady offered cosiness between her feminine touch and warm hug. Lagos-Owerri by road should take 8 hours but useful lessons have extended it to provide helpful tasks that melt assumptions. The first is the erection of "president" every few kilometres personalised as a uniformed personnel armed to the teeth at checkpoints with an arm on the trigger and the other unclenched for a drop.
He/she is the head of state, “invincible” in real-time micromanagement of
movements with “full” powers of life and death to control the spaces and the
people in them. Congratulations to civilian rule and democrazy! Even the passing “selected”
acknowledge and give them their dues. Seamless bilateral relations open up under
this presidency with the commons mostly women particularly mothers meandering
elegantly between vehicles hands-free with goods on their heads sinking their
wisdom to sell all sorts to travellers baking in the sun or gloomed by rain.
This isn’t laziness, it is agency, it is hope.
Another beautiful testimony
refreshed in every settlement as peoples refused to bless an irreverent state
or submit totally to humiliation. Yes, they are excluded and marginalised, but
hang tightly on their inalienable dignities which defy the highest bidder.
Whether in Eke Onunwa Imo State, Oshodi Lagos State or Rumukurushi Rivers
State; it became apparent that survival is allergic to a single religion, one
ethnicity and gender. It eviscerates any pretence of the human condition. Beyond
an initial consternation in the face of inhumanity, an attentive soul simple
yawns to evident weight of hidden source of vitality, a dense mystery that
grounds men, women and children from all walks of life to defy the odds to make
life worth living each day. This is the majority, the masses and the commons of
the nations! You must be there with them, to share, breath and
exhale with them before interpreting assimilated experience. These are human
beings per excellence who cannot be parked into regressive categories of
attainment, background, nation and religion. They worth more!
Penultimately is the apparent subtle machination but bizarre display of raw power in a manner that colonial minds could only envy. Reflection of power in its broadest context unsuspectingly inflicts a powerful daze on the uninitiated that its dynamics and purpose is always open to abuse by the inauthentic. In addition it also raises an important forgotten fact that many fakes clamouring God’s name have the strongest buy-in and loyalty to unbridled power. Anyway beware of those who holy roll in desperation as generations keep exposing their bottomless stomach and poverty of memory.
A trip to
Port-Harcourt through Okpala offered a worthy pilgrimage package for perusing
lower appetite clothe in desperation on the right side of the road once Eziama
is passed. After Nkwo Ala Eziama all the way to Amala to the south and Ntu to
the west i.e. 10+ kilometres square of communities’ land were grabbed with
impunity. Check it out on Google map. Purported God’s agents didn’t flying in
via prophetic visions, they were offered/invited/led by citizens/elite of the
said communities to enable rape, betrayal and usurpation of their own peoples.
Obike community refused to submit to such degeneracy. They deserve applause and
credibility.
Lastly, a new march on Africa via geopolitical steps is slowly emerging with satrapic compliance of Abuja. Not that the current occupants have any leverage for antagonism or protest. How can stomach incorporated wax lyrical on Nigeria’s independence and even genuine sovereignty without advance settlement? Of course he/she is entitled to his/her disequilibrium. Truth is that the weak diplomatic construction effected by Chief Obafemi Awolowo during Nigeria-Biafra war that grafted Nigeria under Washington DC with London’s superintendence is iron-clad. That giant of a genius as “vice-president” had no match in Jack Gowon and his uniformed minions as they folded their undeserved ranks then on “One Nigeria”. Lagos later Abuja locked itself in an intellectual and unrealistic covenant as a stunted inferior partner even as Kissingerian maxim loudly intoned, “To be US enemy is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.”
Finally
All great and emerging powers know where Nigeria leans. Moscow got the message long ago, while Beijing currently
draw profitable risk-free pickings from the morass of opportunities. Now that Europe
is down, flat and almost out; Washington DC is positioned to start
recolonisation with extra boots on the ground. 2025 Christmas bombing on the caliphate space of Sokoto sent a weighty message. Dominated Abuja (for her huge
natural resources) may also serve as a bridgehead for niggling Alliance of
Sahelian States (AES). Look at the map again. However the Venezuela
playbook maybe rerun without deployment of armada on hydrocarbons and nucleus. As for the surviving
masses and mystics, their eyes remain unwavering on the prize regardless of who
the master is or becomes. Revolution of survival is the way since the state or
its making remain stillborn. They have the moral superiority and ethical
ascendance to hold their ground after all they’re already embalmed in a history
richly dripping with fat from revered ancestors prior to colonial infiltration which
birthed current demoralisation.
