Crying More Than The Bereaved

By J.D Ephriam

NEWSDAILYNIGERIA: The South-West people are an interesting set of people.
I have been trying to study and understand them, but they are a paradox to me. A complicated one, for that matter .

Here are a people, whose “turn is now “, yet ,here are they, “crying more than the bereaved, and the “bye-standers “. Barely a year and a half ago, we had Tinubu, whose battle-cry was " emilokan ". Truly, it became his turn.

He ran after it, ( power ) , got to it, grabbed it ,held tightly to it, and sprinted away with it.
While this happened, the South-East stood by, askance , with their mouths agape, watching the scenerio. Is it sadness or joy , or like a craw waiting for an opportunity to strike ? After power was snatched from the North, and the Snatcher sprinted away with it, the North stood silently, as a bewitched people ; they could not believe it. What had happened ? Where were they ?

One can not eat his cake and still have it.
They had power, held it, manipulated it and got power drunk, in the process .

The North’s ruling elite treated the grabbing of power as an end in itself. The shouting of
” ranka ya dade” was enough to intoxicate those welding power.
It was a license to do as they wished : It was an opportunity to get rich quick ; they, their families, friends, and tribe.

They did not see it as an opportunity to develope the North and its people.

Infrastructure in the North was not developed .
Human resources were not developed, yet the commonwealth was cleared clean and dry.

Then ,in their stupor, they miscalculated. The religion they had politically weaponized was used ( against them, but they thought it was in their advantage ) , This was done by some one who, though was of the same faith ,with the poor masses of the North, however had part of his family and even his wife as Senior Pastor of the other faith. The north exhibited their usual mastery of Nigerian politics, but the winner showed them he was more cunning and a master of the game better than them.

The new Master, feigned weakness, ill-health, ( about to go ), uncoordinated, and some form of ignorance. The new master of the game was extremely wealthy. The North thought they could take his money and still dash his hopes. Unfortunately, they had miscalculated. The money hooked their throats. They neither ingested it nor vomited it out. It was emilokan's time and he took over, and " like play, like play ". The North stood mesmerized. They could not believe it. Power had unmistakably slipped off their hands, into the hands of their traditional opponents. They had underrated this opponent, and mistook the East for the real opponents. But it was not so. They were in a frenzy to ensure 1966 does not repeat itself, and so did everything to immobilize the East .

But the West, all along, had been very tactical .
Alas, their tactics paid off.

The condition of the North and its people is pitiable. No infrastructure; no super-structure ; its people are the poorest of the world, earning them the poverty capital of the world; over 30 million children out of school and in “almajirci “, and the whole North under sieze by insurgents, and othe terrorist groups.

But its elite. Under Buhari’s government, had stolen the country dry. Where have they kept the proceeds ? Emilokan is nor willing to touch that yet. We are watching . The cry from the North is very loud; and it is from the poor. The elite that brought them to that condition, are pretentiously quiete, yet working from behind the scenes, instigating all kinds of protests and sabotage. In the midst of all these , the East has been standing ,with its hands akimbo, quietly, smiling, and watching, and hoping to reap bounteously, from the any aftermath that may come up from the scenerio, yet being very discreet. Then the beneficiaries of the status quo, are using their familiar domain, the media, where they are masters and dominant, to make the loudest noise, saying-- " no ,we do not want ! We do not want ! ! We do not want ! ! ! "

“Tinubu is killing us ! ! ” Then we ask ;
TINUBU KILLING THE WEST ? HAHAHAA ! !
WHEN IT IS EMILOKAN for them ? With policies that are geared towards consolidating the commonwealth to Lagos and the West ?
Crying more than the bereaved North ? By North I mean the poor and not the erlswhile Northern ruling elite ?

YORUBA RONU ! ! I can not understand you ! !
There are even cries for ODUDUWA COUNTRY ? Protests, protests, protests ! !
Are these not crocodile tears ? Yet, that giant North seem to have not recovered from the self-inflicted devastating blow, the loss of power. Will this be permanent ? All eyes are on 2927. BUT TRUST THE N3W MASTER OF THE GAME . Something fundamental must happen. He did not ran for, grabbed power, and sprinted with it for the mere sake of grabbing power. The struggle has been on since 1962.

The giant North is now divided: deeply divided along tribe, religion, majority/ minority etc Is it a social revolution that is in the offing; the ruling and aristocratic class versus the “talakawa ” ?
What is to be done remains a mystery.

And the East is watching . And the rest of us are watching .
J. D.EPHRAIM.