This System is not "Flawed"

THIS SYSTEM IS NOT "FLAWED"

The system is not flawed. I wish we would stop saying that. I really wish we would stop saying that.

This system isn't flawed. It is not like a white girl with freckles or a like a black girl with stretch marks. The system is not anything like that.

If you would call a cancer a flaw or maybe reference to a crippling disability as a minor defect, then sure, do carry on.

The system is diseased. There is no justice in my country. There is no security. There is no health care.

Children die for nothing, for NOTHING, and that's it, they just die.
"OK, they're dead, too bad. No follow up questions, your honor."

Where does the flaw begin and where does it end? What do you call a rash that covers the whole body from the inside out? A small problem? An issue? A lump on the breast sometimes means the breast has to be cut off, but what do you do when the whole body is one big, useless lump covered with smooth skin?

Unarmed people are shot in the back by law and order. The criminals pay tithe and are welcomed with pomp and fanfare. One day, a serious crime is committed with strong evidence against a very obvious person, we think to ourselves, "Oh this is definitely going to be his end". The next day, Executive, Legislature and Judiciary is acting like it never happened.

This system...is...NOT...FLAWED. A young man who shoots his neighbor in the head and takes off with his neighbor's car is not "becoming a bad boy", he is a criminal. This is not a slight illness, it is full blown cancer!

Do we not realize that there are humans in this country who are consciously drinking bad water because they do not have a choice? Oil floats on their water, the fishes they used to feed on are belly up and the whole place reeks of Industrial Greed and Nigerian Democratic Insensitivity. Would you like to know what the system does for these people? It holds TALKS! It forms committees and pays privileged nephews to sit in these committees and "talk about the situation". These committees hold a ball to celebrate the novel act of providing one tank full of clean water and then take a couple of years to discuss just how to "go about the problem".

The system does not account for the old men who gave the best of their lives in service to the country. They are left to sit under tired, barely shady trees for days, waiting for pension that they are entitled to; waiting for money they were promised. Every day, they are told to "give us some time". Tuition fees have to be paid, rent is due, fuel price is up, but hey, You should "give us some time". You might die before the time is over but, that's just too bad.

Every day, every 24 hours long day, people die from treatable diseases. Either doctors are on strike or nurses are. Either there are no emergency ambulances or there is a traffic jam caused by road constructions that really should not take as long as they do. Either there is no working medical equipment or there is no power to use it with.

Workers salaries are withheld for months, universities are shut down for longer than it takes a new born baby to begin to crawl. Tuition fees are more than enough to cause civil unrest. Primary school buildings are falling apart, so is the education system.

Checks and balances is just a subtopic in government class. Everybody is misbehaving and nobody is checking the other because everyone is content with carrying on as usual.

We cannot continue to prescribe sustainers for a quickly failing heart; we need a new one, or this one will die and take us all down with it.

I'm worried about the next generation. I'm afraid for the children I'll have. This resignation; this utter hopelessness in the face of daily disappointment; this mistrust for the powers-that-be; this lack of surprise at violence and ignorance and incompetence and plain, simple cruelty; this disillusionment, this is the opposite of what I want for my children, and your children to feel for my country.

For over 5 decades we have tolerated the system; the system that is incapable of dealing with terrorism and poverty. We have shrugged and said, "at least it is better than...", while the disease spread and became unmanageable.

Dear Nigerians, It is all good, until it isn't.