We are not all SARS
There is a dangerously flawed theory making its rounds on the media -where the writer, whose identity has been lost on traffic, as it’s the case with such viral articles – tried to tar all of us in abusive colours, by comparing the misdemeanors that could be found in most humans to the institutional decays which we are protesting against. This is wrong and a very bad attempt at damage control. We are not SARS!
The acronym SARS has graduated from representing the notorious, now disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad to represent all the ills and malfunctions of the Nigerian system. When you read the hash tag #EndSars, from people like us, it doesn’t mean that we are calling for the abolishment of that police unit (After all, my original argument was that it should be reorganized and reformed/and not scrapped), but we are calling for a total reformation of the Nigerian political leadership system, which has been rigged against the poor and honest.
We are not the SARS that made food prices spike astronomically in the last five years, neither are we the SARS that have paid no heed to recurring incidents of abuse and human rights violations by those who are paid with our taxes to protect us. We are not the SARS that have allowed corruption to thrive in the highest levels of government and turned corruption fighting to a tool against perceived political opponents.
We are not the SARS under whose watch, the Nigerian Naira has become nothing but a piece of tissue when compared with other currencies of the world. We are not the SARS that have left our infrastructure dilapidated across the federation, while politicians build and rebuild their millions of Dollars worth mansions, every new year. We are not the SARS that have treated the poor artisans and younger people like rags of the earth by refusing to pay them their due entitlements for works done and throw them off like pieces of bones, when they have sucked the flesh out of them. The SARS that have scheduled our youths to be paid 20,000 Naira stipend to sugarcoat and justify the armed robbery and arson going on in different government houses and parliaments. Yes, this SARS even robs the youths of their futures and force them to applaud them for that wickedness.
We are not the SARS that are behind the imposition of political leadership across the country, thereby, making the people feel powerless. We are not the SARS that infected the supposed highest temple of justice in our land with the most brazen injustice. We are not the SARS that have made the priests of our temple of Justice dip their unholy hands into the faeces of sacred lucre and sell justice to the highest bidders. Or are we the SARS that turned the Supreme Court into an election commission, where forged results were used to impose someone as governor, even when the result was not diligently forged to meet up the Constitutionally prerequisite spread? Are we the SARS that crown criminality in the temple of justice?
We are not the SARS. Yes, the SARS promote mediocrity ahead of merit. SARS that have placed some people ahead of the others on the basis of tribe and religion and not in deference to their higher qualifications or better records in previous assignments. We are not the SARS that have made our divisions more profound than at anytime else in our history, the SARS that have treated a section of the country as prisoners of war and others as conquerors.
We are not the SARS that have destroyed our educational system, the SARS that have reduced UTME cutoffs to an unprecedented low, thereby discouraging more efforts from our applicants. We are not the SARS that have failed to encourage innovativeness and sterling educational performances, but have rather rewarded the blandest audacity advertised on television.
We are not the SARS that have allowed bandits to sack whole villages and terrorists to occupy parts of our territory. We are not the SARS that value elections more than the safety of the people, hence, deploying thousands of security men to provide cover for election riggers, while our mothers and children are raped in broad daylight by terrorists and our breadwinners are maimed and others taken hostage. We are not the SARS that have remained insouciant while our country is turned to a killing field by terrorists. We are not the SARS that have looked away while herdsmen destroy our farms, rip the bowels of our pregnant wives apart and set our homes ablaze. Are we the SARS that rather than bring these terrorists to book, ask us to learn to live with them?
We are not the SARS that have refused to equip our hospitals, but run to other countries to take paracetamol because they don’t trust what they have left us. We are not the SARS that have left our doctors, our professors and all our professionals to be paupers, while some hollow dullards who managed to steal their way into political power get intellectuals at a pittance to clean their shoes and wipe their arises with their tongues. Are we the SARS that have used hunger as a tool to victimize the most brainy among us?
We are not SARS, we are Nigerians and we all are victims of these rapacious SARSes.
Let Nigeria be healed of SARS!
