In late January 2013, I was invited to give a short lecture and
acoustic performance at Federal Polytechnic Offa to mark the school’s 20th
anniversary. I drove there early in the morning with two members of my crew.
After about 4hours on the road, and with only a few minutes to our destination,
we encountered a make-shift road-block at the Erinle-Offa “border”. It was manned
by a large number of mean-looking individuals holding pistols, rifles, swords, machetes
and hunting knifes. They descended upon us violently and ordered us out of the
car. I informed them that we were on our way to Offa. Immediately, we heard
voices saying, “They are from Offa, hit them, maul them, kill them!” My 2
assistants were dragged out of the car, roughened up, slapped and punched. They
were made to go on their knees. The tip of a sword was thrust near my face and
I was pulled out of my seat. Several rifles were trained upon me as I stood by
the side of the car quietly. It seemed as if we would be shot, cut to pieces
and burned to ashes in a matter of seconds by these drugged up vigilantes.
Suddenly, one of their handlers who was sitting under a tree some distance off
recognised me and shouted “Don’t you know who it is, that’s Beautiful Nubia, the
man who sang ‘Owuro L’ojo”. Slowly the ‘warriors’ relaxed and lowered their
weapons.
One said, “Why didn’t you just tell us who you were when you were
stopped?” They explained that a border “war” was on between Erinle and Offa and
we had driven right into the thick of it. Several people had been killed and
property destroyed, both towns were on total lock-down and the school we were
going to had been ordered shut as well. We would not be allowed to pass through
Erinle to get to Offa and were told that it would be too risky to even try
taking an alternate road. We should just go back to Lagos. I chose to take the
risk and goon to my destination through an alternative route.
What struck me most strongly about this encounter were the sense
of insecurity and the lack of government presence. Those Erinle warriors
barricaded a highway and assaulted people as they wished, and there was not one
security agent anywhere near. Of course this is child’s play compared to what
obtains in several other parts of this “country”. There is no organized
government here, just organized thievery and corruption. Perhaps it is time to take
this land back from all these poorly bred, wicked and twisted elements that
populate the halls of power? Perhaps the people of this time can decide to make
that change and create a society that thrives on excellence and creativity? Nigeria
is a giant problem (those who profit from it as it is would argue otherwise)
but we can fix it – either by giving all its federating units a chance to
reconfigure it as a workable behemoth or peacefully break it up so that the people
of this place have a chance to breathe true freedom and progress for once. We
owe it to the innocents just being born and the young whose dreams are yet
untainted.
-Segun
Akinlolu
Twitter:
beautiful_nubia
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