When America predicted that 2015 will be the end of a united Nigeria, many only taught it to mean the disintegration of our sovereignty and secession of various nationalities from the Nigerian state. However what most Nigerians did not decipher is that in all intent and purpose, a united Nigeria ended in 2015, albeit not through secession, but a metamorphosis of two giant independent states of differing public opinion christened as “Wailers” and “Zombie” republic.
Sincere observers of the Nigerian polity will agree that never in the history of Nigeria has there been such a fierce sharp contrast in opinion and political leanings with such bitterness of this magnitude between these two shades of public opinion. It transcends from internet wars down to the street corners, markets, workshops, in the taxi cab, garage, mechanic workshop and even in the church the differences are obvious.
Make no mistake about this, the diarchy appears to be more than just dissenting opinions, a scarier element of this war is the fact that these shades of opinion is divided along tribal lines. It will be objective for any observer of this trend to agree that the republic of wailers are mainly from the southern part of the country, especially the south-eastern and south-south geopolitical zones.
They are obviously disgruntled that one of their own and former president, Goodluck Jonathan failed in his attempt to clinch the top job for a second term. The change of power to a brand new government is totally unacceptable to them. They fume with anger, ill will and a total desire for failure to any thing called “APC”, “Buhari” or “change”. To them these characters represent everything that is wrong with Nigerian.
They have tried to respond in many barbaric ways, such as criticize a noble cause like the war against corruption, stand proudly behind well-known corrupt public servants, and can even protest openly for the weirdest reason of all time. To the wailers Nigeria must not succeed under this government, or else it ultimately means a double loss for them.
In the opposite side of the divide are the zombies, those whose shade of opinion will do anything humanly possible to justify every action of the present government. Just like the name suggests, they are like robots programmed to sing praises for the present regime in total absence of fairness, truth and objectivity.
You probably will not be in doubt which part of the country dominate this group, the process still follows the voting pattern of the 2015 general elections. What they forget to understand though is the fact that elections are over, the one who lost has conceded defeat, while the winner has since be cruising round the world.
The wailers gladly accepted their designation as proudly “wailers”, while the zombies are yet to come to terms with the fact that they are actually “zombies”. When Femi Adesina took to social media and twitted his infamous season’s greetings to the wailers, little did he know that he has given approval and legitimacy to the wailer’s republic.
With this scenario presenting itself, one can only expect one thing: there will be no winners in this war, only casualties. The first casualty however is total reckless abandon of constructive criticism at a time Nigeria as a country needs it more than ever in order to overcome it’s present challenges. Every successful democracy has always rode on the back of constructive criticism based on real issues, but with the present trend in public opinion, a man from the wailers republic will see white and call it black while the men from the zombie land will see black and call it white. The idea is usually “if it isn’t our man in charge, let everything scatter” who benefits from this arrangement and who loses? I tell you nobody benefits, but they all have lost.
Another damaging casualty of this dangerous arrangement is our common wealth, since our leaders no longer have access to “truth”, constructive criticism, and issue based argument against them, there is bound to be gross mismanagement of public funds and a betrayal of public trust. Rather than form a common front and make the government accountable, we have evenly divided against one another, in the process hand them our common wealth on a platter of gold.
The biggest casualty of this war of words is the common man, specifically from those who make up the wailers and zombies. For the past couple of weeks there has been fuel scarcity in the country, where have you seen Buhari queue for fuel? Or Lai Muhammed buying fuel from the black market? To worsen the whole matter, after spending the whole day in filling stations we come here to attack one another, instead of uniting in order to make the government accountable.
Whether you are from Zombie republic or wailer’s republic, we all suffer power failure, lack of good roads, harsh forex, unemployment, low standard of living, insecurity, hunger and even death. Yet we attack one another and kill ourselves and the most painful part is that both sides will spend their last kobo just to come to the internet to attack, not the government but among themselves, the wailers and the zombies.
The harsh truth is that whether you defend or attack your countryman because of any politician, these men probably have no idea if we exist, no matter the state of our economy, they will always be governors, presidents and senators with luxury, exotic cars, private jets and have access to every good thing life can offer.
This is a war with only casualties, the winners are our leaders as long as we continue accepting peanuts and they take the juicy positions like CBN jobs, NNPC, and top jobs for their children and wards while we are only being “promised” one million jobs in six months’ time.