The National Security Adviser recently announced the miracle of two hundred and fifteen abducted pupils from Papiri doing fine. Though, they sit somewhere in a forest. They sleep on bare earth, or as we now know, they sleep on tarpaulin spread on the ground. They obey armed strangers. They wait for rescue that wanders like a drunk goat. Still, they are fine, declared Nuhu Ribadu. Accordingly, the heavens and the earth must celebrate this piece of miracle in a country that has arrived ahead of other countries at the new civilisation. A civilisation where captivity becomes wellness. A civilisation where fear gives way to fear that becomes comfort. A civilisation where parents receive news of their abducted children with gratitude because the NSA has spoken. Who needs evidence. Who needs truth. The word fine has abolished the need for rescue.
The proprietors of the Catholic school in Niger State travelled to Abuja. They went with questions about the safe returns of their pupils. They returned with a philosophy that teaches citizens that suffering depends on official interpretation. If the state says children in chains are fine, then citizens must update their emotions. Pain becomes optional. Outrage becomes obedience. Rumours become facts that the NSA says they are, not rumours. The NSA did not bother with details of the wellbeing of the pupils. He did not explain how children stolen from their parents by armed men have become fine. He did not explain how hunger nourishes wellbeing. He did not explain how fear comforts. He did not explain how a forest has become the new school. Instead, he offered a single word. A word that now stands taller than common sense.
Fine has become government doctrine. Fine has replaced strategy. Fine has replaced operational plans. Fine has replaced the security budget. Fine has replaced the constitution. Fine now does all the heavy lifting. The government does nothing else. In this new Nigerian civilisation, rescue is unnecessary because reality can be built by vocabulary. Language does what soldiers cannot do. Words walk into the forest and comfort the children and then return to our world and tell their parents, “your children are fine”. Words shield them from the cold. Words negotiate with kidnappers. Words feed the children breakfast. Words are cheaper than bullets and more flexible than policy.
READ ALSO: Lakurawa’s expanding shadow: Governance, coercion, and religious manipulation in Northwest Nigeria
Satire struggles in our country’s landscape. The NSA has taken the job of the satirist and driven it to an extreme. Satirists exaggerate to expose foolishness. Our country exaggerates itself. The satire is already written by officials who speak like jesters in starched kaftans. One imagines Jonathan Swift reading the NSA’s statement and whispering to the inhabitants of the graveyard. Folks, Nigerians have overtaken me. How about the master satirist, Mikhail Bulgakov? He would watch this performance and weep. Not from sorrow. From admiration. Even Woland, the devil in The Master and Margarita, would struggle to match this level of irony. The devil thrives on inversion. Our country has mastered inversion without supernatural aid. Here, Freedom has become captivity. Captivity has become comfort. Comfort has become collapse. Collapse has become governance.
The parents of the abducted children live in another universe. They do not enjoy this official miracle. They wake each day with empty hands. They pray the same prayer. They inspect the same beds. They listen for footsteps that never return. They do not understand the government’s new science. They do not know how fine, fine is; how fine is measured in a forest. They do not know how to adjust their grief to suit national optimism. But, the government insists on calm. It always does. Not because calm helps the victims. Calm helps the government. Anger creates responsibility. Calm creates silence. Silence creates space for more failure. The government thrives in silence and performs best in the dark.
Our country and its rulers have perfected the familiar ritual of turning calm into silence, and wellness into a strange official language stripped of meaning. So the pattern unfolds like a ritual. Children are abducted. Communities cry. Officials recite their grammar of reassurances. Journalists document the performances. Committees convene to complete the choreography. Then the government offers its final line, the one that seals the ritual, the one that declares the victims fine. The cycle closes. Only the coordinates of the next abduction change.
One begins to suspect that the forests are more organised than the state. The terrorists have a business plan. The state has a wellness manual. The terrorists know their targets. The government knows only how to declare abductees fine on television. The terrorists create fear with precision. The government manages fear with vocabulary. Perhaps, the NSA knows something we do not know. Perhaps, the children are fine in the spiritual sense. Perhaps, captivity builds character. Perhaps, the forest offers leadership training. Perhaps, fear strengthens the spine. Perhaps, hunger sharpens the intellect. If so, our country has discovered an exciting new model of education in the new civilisation that it has arrived at. Soon, the Ministry of Education may consider sending pupils on compulsory forest excursions supervised by terrorists. Our country loves innovation when it requires no budget padding.
READ ALSO: Nigerian govt shuts 41 schools over insecurity
This absurdity exposes a deeper failure. This government has grown comfortable with crises. It no longer recognises emergencies. It treats abductions like traffic jams. Annoying. Predictable. Normal. A country collapses slowly when abnormality becomes tradition. Our country has mastered the tragic art of moving on. Moving on without justice. Moving on without answers. Moving on without solutions. Moving on until the next tragedy arrives. Moving on because standing still forces the country to look at itself in the mirror. The mirror is unpleasant. The mirror reveals a government that never learns. A government that blames shadows. A government that governs by announcing feelings rather than delivering facts.
The NSA’s statement reflects a grand national tradition. The tradition of treating citizens as children. Citizens must accept what they are told. Citizens must not ask for details. Citizens must not doubt the state. Citizens must remain calm while their children are traded in the forests like goats. Citizens must remain patriotic even when the country treats them like refuse.
The children are fine, the NSA says. The parents must agree. The public must nod. The journalists must type. The critics must take note. Scholars must update their textbooks. A new chapter of Nigerian governance has begun. Language will now replace reality. Facts will now defer to proclamations. Pain will now be rewritten by press releases.
This satire writes itself.
A government that cannot locate two hundred children announces that they are fine. A government that cannot secure highways assures citizens that forests are safe. A government that cannot protect schools explains that captivity is now an acceptable form of childcare. A government that cannot account for its failures insists that the victims are thriving.
The children are somewhere. At least, their numbers have now been reduced by a hundred. Those left behind are waiting for the sound of rescue. Or, is ransom-payment? They wait for a state that has abandoned them. They wait for a country that sends condolences instead of soldiers. Their future hangs between two forces. The terrorists kidnappers who hold them against their will; and the government that claims they are fine. A country that treats hostages as fine will soon treat anything as fine. Hunger will be fine. Unemployment will be fine. Corruption will be fine. Failure will be fine. Death will be fine. Leadership will no longer be necessary. All that will be required is a skilled spokesperson and a dictionary.
The NSA has spoken. The children are fine. Nigeria must pretend to believe him. The forests laugh. The kidnappers laugh. The government laughs. The parents do not laugh. The country cannot laugh. Satire laughs on our behalf. I am also laughing on your behalf, dear reader.
