Jackson Okpale

In Memory of Nigeria: Where The Past Is Forgotten Jackson Okpale

MENE, MENE, TEKEL.

Nigeria is populated with many people living in a state of permanent amnesia; oblivious of the past, nonchalant about the future and particularly not engaging in deep thinking. What has passed is past and forgotten. Nigeria is a ship with plurality of captains sharply divided by estranged crew members and separated by historical inequalities. While crew members on the far left are like clay in the hands of the potter and available for spinning on the wheels of modernization, the far right remain closed in their cast-iron shell of ancient traditions and conservatism. Thus, either side treats the other with suspicion, distrust and as enemy generally motivated by bitterness, unforgiveness and deep-rooted hatred driven by the strong desires for vengeful actions and reactions. Those who were prevented from contributing their service to the administration of their people regrouped behind narrow and lethal corridors of religion, ethnicity and partisanship, metamorphosed into pressure and terrorist groups that became a clog in the wheels of governance and perpetrate acts of terror against the regime of those in power and the people of Nigeria. As a result, the fields of Nigeria have been turned into the valley of blood and death, littered with many improper graves of varied depths where the bodies of the people of Nigeria killed untimely were buried unceremoniously. Instead of punishment, the unruly receive amnesties and are treated as heroes with government recognitions and appointments. In their new position of power, they chase away the ruly and replace them with loyalists who raise disciples of unruly and corrupt people. Those charged with the task of fighting corruption do so with glittering long necklaces of corruption hanging around their well-fed necks. Since 1966, Nigeria has been running aground on 'funeral mode' and on a reverse course where everything right has become wrong and everything wrong has become right. "In Memory of Nigeria" is a collation of fragmented history of a people and a land that became Nigeria and their journey into oblivion.