Abike Dabiri-Erewa heads team of those failing us as 26 Nigerian women are buried in Italy

I will have to dwell on good, sweet thoughts lest I scream. Yes, I will think of Chinua Achebe, Fela, even the Mummy Isioma, the akara seller who always used to have the fluffiest akara buns. Because Nigerian leaders ain’t sh!t. They starve us, steal from us, rape us DAILY. They deprive our children; stifle the life force and the skills out of them. These madmen and women send soldiers to war while embezzling the billions meant for defence and basic military gear. Our children sweep the streets and clean their range rovers as they drive past. Haaaa! Ko ni da fun won seh!

And all of this is awful in itself but not surprising: have black leaders not been selling us further down the creek since the days of the Slave Trade? No, nothing new to see here, we have seemingly made peace with the fact that it is our lot to suffer in their hands. But now, they have the gall and the temerity to actually tweet their utter apathy, disdain and contempt of us. After all, if they don’t have data, who will, right?

We have Ben Murray-Bruce: this albino constantly telling us to do the work he was ELECTED TO DO! And when the people come for him, he scoffs and mocks their grammar: they failed, right, Benny Boy? You gave them immaculate schools, paid their teachers, upped the game in education, and they still don’t know their “Am” from their “I’m”, right? Ewu Gambia.

I refuse to comment on Dino Melaye. He’s our punishment from a previous life and we must carry our cross.

Yesterday, 26 Nigerian women were buried in Salerno, Italy. Their bodies were recovered at sea and brought to Italy on November 3rd. Post-mortem examinations revealed that 25 of the victims had drowned, while one had a wound to her side.

All of the girls are believed to have been Nigerian nationals between 14 and 30 years old. Five have been identified so far. Two of them were pregnant, including Osaro with twins. Her coffin bore a pink and a blue rose in their memory.

Do you think there was a SINGLE Nigerian official there? Of course not! There are no Power Rangers, fast cars or prostitutes at a cemetery.

I would imagine the Estacode for such missions would not be worth getting out of bed for. Do you think there was a moment of silence in any Nigerian city? Any wreaths created and laid? Any investigation into the state of desperation that made these women take their lives into their own hands? Including a pregnant woman? None. Zip. Zilch.

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And where was the Nigerian ambassador to Italy? I know pasta will not eat itself and his schedule must just be chocker with his humanitarian work of buying up all the designer gear thereby helping Italy’s economy, but surely one afternoon of pretending to work would not have killed him? Another “person” we pay.

So far, so horrific but typical. Then Abike Dabiri-Erewa had to tweet just how sh!tty this country and her leaders are; lest we’d forgotten:

This lady needs to be arrested for cruel and unusual punishment and violence; her every word hits like a thundering blow. “Set up a panel”, “holistically”, “within a week”, “drastic measures”? Was this a competition to see how many lies one can fit on a tweet?

Thank God for Nigerian Twitterati who have not failed us yet:

Journalists pray for words that they might change the world with a lengthy but pithy damnation of the Status Quo. They bring down governments and destroy dictatorships with their paragraphs. A worthy cause indeed, but being a lowly blogger, I am not burdened by these lofty ambitions. I can swear for all of them with impunity:

Osaro got on a ship while being pregnant with twins. May our leaders face desperate situations that will make them embark on journeys that defy logic. May their needs be greater than their resources. None will mourn them, and none will care. May their deaths be foul; their existence a gaping hole that nought will fill. May happiness elude, may peace be a stranger. And when it ends (and God-willing, the ends be slow and filled with pain), may we be alive to tweet such bureaucratic, condescending mockery about it.

Amen.