RAILWAY TRAIN AND NIGERIAN ELITE

In order to satisfy my long held curiosity, I opted to go to Kaduna by train for the first time last week. To do that, I took advantage of the public holiday declared by the federal government to celebrate this year’s ‘Eid Maulud. But while boarding the train from Abuja to Kaduna, my mind was caught in some kind of deep contemplation about the Nigeria elite class struggling to reap where he did not sow!

First, I discovered how agitated and miserable the average life of Nigeria elite has become, and the panic modes which overshadow it today. I also saw firsthand, how the elite are paying the price of ineptitude and corruption having equally become victims of their own shadows and reaping abundant harvest of what their actions and in actions had caused in the social-economic architecture of the nation. Indeed, I saw palpable fear and trepidation graphically written all over them. The train journey also accorded me golden opportunity to watch more closely the sorry countenance and miserable visage engulfing the Nigeria elite class at the moment!

Today, the hunter has indeed become the hunted. Many security officers of different shades and ranks can be seen inside the train sheepishly fearing their own shadows, and unable to wear their uniforms.

In the same vein, some otherwise respected but terrified senior civil servants, and yesterday men and women could also be seen being squeezed like crayfish in-between train couches. This actually got me thinking about what could have forced an otherwise proud Nigeria elite to willingly stoop so low like an internally displaced persons (IDPs) with some of them barely managing to sit on bare train floors.

Indeed, when you see the sweat and the struggle and the physical exertions of the elite with ordinary poor mortals for the purchase of the very few tickets available at the train stations, you realize that a golden opportunity to make Nigeria better have been lost. The struggle and the fighting to purchase the ticket to ‘stand’ all the way to Kaduna from Abuja was indeed a dog-fight akin to what the Hausa used to say: what forced hyena into a scorching fire, is hotter than the fire!

The train journey was also rare opportunity to silently eavesdrop into some of the elite discussions lamenting the terrible security situation in the country. Let them go by road and taste a bit of their own making!

Kabiru Tsakuwa, Kano