Before The New Boko Haram Emerges

The time is 1:20am here in the winter-cold state of Michigan here in the United States, and I have just finished talking to my friend in Nigeria about Jonathan’s New Year gift. Like other Nigerian Diasporans, I placed this call to get the people’s structure of feeling concerning the subsidy issue and my interlocutor’s response was not surprising.

Temidire, (that’s my friend’s name), is a youth corper serving in the North but is currently in Lagos due to the Christmas break. He plans to return to his base this weekend but wonders where he will get the money to pay the outrageous bus fare to his destination. As I spoke to Dire, the literary analyst in me detected a somber mood that is reflective of the general mood of the Nigerian masses that have at least three serious problems at this time: the spate of insecurity in Nigeria, the effect of the fuel subsidy, and the sense of betrayal by a president that they empowered some months ago.

But beyond the foregoing, I am worried about the million Temidires scattered over Nigeria as I write. A few courageous ones will trudge on hoping that things get better but I am afraid that the current situation is another open invitation to the membership of another Boko Haram and the effect, I think, would be calamitous for us as a people. When young people wake up and realize that their meager earning (that is for those who are lucky to be employed) cannot buy them anything anymore, we are simply telling them to devise new means of livelihood, of which crime, is one of them. 

Before we send another group of Madalla victims to their graves, it is time to rethink this subsidy madness and not add to the burden of Nigerians. I hope Okonjo-Iweala, Reuben Abati, Oronto Douglas and others who have the ears of Mr. President are reading this.

By Cajetan Iheka
Cajetan is a doctoral student in the United States.