Without any iota of doubt, the United States of America (USA) is a well organised country and, with the help of technology at the highest level of human efforts, the society, to a large extent, could be right to her claim of being the number one country in the world. To do any legitimate thing, be it job, opening of bank accounts to registering your credit card, background checks are conducted by the very efficient security unit of the Home Office.
As an African man who has crossed the three scores of his life in Africa and visiting America for the first time, one can be pardoned for having to see things differently from the perspective of those born into this system or the young inquisitive Africans who could have strove the internet repeatedly to understand many things happening beyond the shores of Africa, thanks to technology age of his birth, even in an African village.
America values the lives of her citizens and would do everything to protect them from danger, especially when they are outside the country, but it allows them to carry weapons, not necessarily for game, but to kill each other at the slightest of provocations. Guns are sold in the open market and once the prospective buyer has no previous criminal record, he is home and dry to buy and carry it all around.
In many cases, those who went on the rampage, killing people at malls, gatherings or even in schools carry licensed weapons. And America values her citizens’ lives. What a contradiction?
In the states and federal laws, cruelty against animals is viewed with more seriousness, even than against fellow citizens. American animals, especially those bush meat like deer, squirrels and others that are the delight of hunters in my village, enjoy an uncommon privilege of protection and right to life here. Dog is chief in their kingdom. But we have countless number of senseless attacks and killings of blacks in the American society. What a contradiction, again?
No, I have not said it and do not put into my mouth that Nigeria also has similar contradictions in the preference of the lives of cow to the lives of her citizens. Well, you are right if you want me to put it down, but it is not my thinking.
On the ravaging scourge of Corona virus, while Americans are dying in their thousands and many states are doing their best to curtail the scourge, the nation’s president does not care about the people. All he wants is to win his reelection come November this year and, to achieve that, the economy must be reopened, even as people continue to die.
Just as the ravaging COVID-19 continues to kill Americans, the president told a bewildered citizens that schools must reopen, saying people were also dying of trauma at home because parents could not go to work as children are kept at home. Therefore, schools must reopen and who will die will die!
Oh, you want me to link that to my home country where all that matters is the winning of elections and retaining of power at the expense of good governance, security of lives and property.
Oh, again, yes, I remember that after many farmers and the ordinary people had been murdered in their villages and communities by armed herdsmen, the first statement from the Nigerian president was that the farmers should learn how to live peacefully with their killers who had murdered thousands of helpless people in Benue, Zamfara, Plateau and some other states.
The president was practically begged by Nigerians before he made his first public reaction. The government that had taken oath of office to defend the Nigerian people, the country’s territories, had, at another time, claimed the killer herdsmen were foreigners, but helpless citizens must tolerate them.
As America continues to look forward to the November 2020 election to reunite their various peoples through a democratic change of government, I am yet to see the light of a new dawn for my country, even beyond 2023.
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