Publisher's Synopsis
When the mistakes which the snoring forebears regretted so badly and so deeply after their own time become the celebration of their children and grandchildren in our own time, there is but only one meaning: that lessons were not learnt from the dark past. It equally means that the badly stained baton that was passed on by the old generation has continued to be carried on by their offspring and celebrated by the same with spurious and ignoble pomp and pageantry.
The unending repeat of the vicious circle has remained until now, defying the constant rule of change. Sadly, it is a defiance beckoning for the results produced only by irreparable danger. Such result is always akin to a tottering wall sitting right at the edge of the cliff stupendously overlooking the dark-blue, deep and defying ocean. The ocean's lone assignment is to swallow up every visiting object so that its existence will be told only on the pages of horrid history.
Before the doom's day comes in the most nearby year of 2024 and the years beyond this nearest year, the Nigeria of today remains that historic city loosely hemmed on the tip of the tottering wall. What will happen to it when the tottering wall sinks into the swallowing ocean? Before it happens, let us learn, relearn and unlearn! Before it happens, let us blend passion with caution! Before it happens, let us care and prepare! Before it happens, let change take its natural course-this time, it must be a change in the upward direction towards light and limelight, away from the ditch of darkness and the gulf of obscurity, wherein the nation is currently being imprisoned!
For is it not now so true that "the ship of the state is fast approaching a huge rock, visible enough for those that look beyond self-interests? Lest we stand [then] and courageously steer it away, it shall hit the rock. And the inescapable consequences shall be unspeakable disaster, which is rare in the annals of man."
Is it not now rife to raise the inquisition that indeed at what point in Africa does a citizen's loyalty to his nation becomes full stupidity? Could it be when the citizenry is sailing away already on the slave ship on that trajectory to the gallows or the slaughter station? Is it at the point when the tears of frustration has become morning meal, and the cry of gruesome failure has become the lunch and the regrets of non-achievement is the night supper? Is it at the point when the "invited machinery from where no one knows for the purpose of rigging elections have finally invaded the land and have turned around to murderers, and mothers who went through labour pains in the arrival homes called hospitals to deliver their sons and daughters return to the departure homes called cemeteries in order to bury the same sons and daughters? Is it not at the time when common sense is still common sense and applicable? Or is it not the moment just before common sense becomes absolute nonsense?
The Nigeria of today is a political pawn played at will and at the mercy of a few political tacticians who play the game only in the absence of reason and at the departure of every concerned contestant. With all the mess and the ruthless meanderings, there is yet a way forward. If restructuring is impossible; if regional autonomy is a no-go area; then revolution of an encompassing kind remains a reality waiting on the wings of time without an inevitability.
In the end of the very end, let us earnestly pray that the Federal Capital Territory and the entire nation of our pride and providence will not someday, soon to come, be gutted by the fire whose fiercest flame and smoke will remain in activism for more than few days. Let us earnestly pray that foreigners will not overwhelm and overpower the nation's army some day and commence the reign of ruthless rule.
