COUNTDOWN TO MELTDOWN

"Choose good leaders, or you will be stuck with bad ones." These were the words of Aristophanes, the great Athenian, in his comedy 'Frogs' of 405BC. The poignancy of those words cannot but be acknowledged; they are a ratification of the ramifications of our collective, and generational, failure to heed them. Copious amounts of words have been written, spoken, and even vocalised, on this national affliction of ours, but grounds are not shifting. Our attitudes are stubbornly stuck in reverse; we accelerate backwards and crawl forwards; stuck in the quicksand of self-inflicted misfortune.

The permeation of venal tendencies in every single fibre of our national being is being evidenced 24/7/365, and all we can do is moan endlessly and trudge on, regardless. We see meltdown ahead and we engage in countdown. The recent airplane mishap is a sad case in point. Yes, it is true that accidents happen, but they're not bound to happen. If reports of bad maintenance practices in our aviation industry are substantiated (and I have no doubt they will be), this accident would certainly prove to be another cruel verse in our national litany of unadulterated woes. Lives lost; lives snuffed out in varying stages of productivity. Hopes dashed; aspirations destroyed; families and friends scarred for life. Why? Oh, my God, why?

The notion of a government safeguarding the security of its people has always been treated with the utmost contempt by successive governments. However, this very government has effectively, by devilish inaction, relegated the issue of our security to the lowest of priorities. No acceptable level of safety in the air; death traps disguised as roads up and down the country; terrorist groups wantonly killing and maiming innocent citizens; armed robbers ruling the roost. When, I ask, when do we initiate a U-turn from the road to perdition?

The building blocks of this great nation are crumbling around us, and at this most critical stage of our national life we're cursed with a government that resolutely refuses to stop the rot. We have a rudderless, visionless and compromised government; largely populated by knaves and rapacious pipsqueaks; headed by an insufferable doofus. Yes, things weren't that great before he became President. Things weren't this hopeless either. There's a reversal of fortune and he is single-handedly responsible for it, this Jonathan.

We have to start an aggressive rebuilding exercise, before our inchoate democracy is snuffed out once again. I don't have an iota of confidence in this present lot of moral pygmies in government who trade lives for Naira. Swelling their pockets with ill-gotten wealth is their main reason for being there. Improving the lives of Nigerians is no concern of theirs. The tide will turn, and we will, by God, turn it. Hope will return. Sanity will rule.