Our unfortunate future

This thread is quite prescient. Nigeria has collapsed (I’ve been saying this for years now), and it’s a matter of time before the shit truly hits the fan.

The thing is when most people hear state collapse, they think of Iraq or Somalia, without realising that both countries have oases of relative stability, Iraqi Kurdistan and Somaliland which are both de facto countries, and may well become de jure one day.

The Nigeria of today, especially the North, is a country of turmoil with oases of relative stability. In how many rural areas in the country do we have rule of law, property rights and justice? In how many urban areas do we have these?

Heck, even Lagos, our commercial capital is essentially garrison towns called “estates” dotted between ungoverned spaces where thugs such as NURTW hold sway.

A few years ago, I talked about how the “banditry” going on in parts of the North at the time was a sort of skill acquisition programme. Of course, the reaction from certain quarters was the usual. Where are we now?

See, in my line of work, I’ve seen shit. Many times I regret joining SBM Intelligence, because being a part of this story, while I love the work, has shown me sides of Nigeria that I can’t unsee. Nigeria, as it is currently configured, simply cannot work. The problem is that there are too many people in the system who are so shortsighted and so greedy that it matters not what logic you place in their front, they will kill to preserve this system, and when the system inevitably gives up the ghost, they will all be on the first private jet out.

There is a second part to it which Bisola touched upon lightly: when (not if) Nigeria collapses, we will take down an entire swath of countries with us from Ghana to Kenya, from Algeria to Angola. No one wants to see that, especially as the world gets more hostile to immigrants/refugees. So here is how many countries will work to avert that: they will keep us together in a pressure cooker.

In de jure terms, the entity called Nigeria is not going anywhere. The world will leave us to our own devices but will do everything it can to keep us from destabilising the rest of our near abroad.

That, is our unfortunate future.