The Trial of a Nation – Beyond Abbas Hushpuppi, Abba Kyari, Chibuzo Vincent, etc

It is very painful to write this because CNN, Washington Post, BBC, etc are baptizing Nigeria with “super cop” and “fraud”. But at least, the Ramon Abbas (aka Hushpuppi), Abba Kyari (Nigerian Deputy Commissioner of Police, DCP), and Chibuzo Vincent case is a testament of our federal character: all core tribes are represented. So, no tribe can claim that it was left out of the deal!

If Abba Kyari is extradited to America and convicted, he does not represent the fullness of Nigerian Police just as Abbas and Vincent do not represent the young men and women of our nation who toil day and night to build the nation.

I am from Ovim and we have Ovim Police Station. Throughout the time I lived in the village before going to FUTO for university education, we knew the police as the people that would always come to break up fights. People truly admired them. In short, my mother who sold garri in the Oriendu market would always add extra cups for them. Their children were our classmates and they served.

This is not to say there were not bad officers but I recalled a debate in our Igbo class when some students challenged what Obodo wrote in the Igbo novel – Uwadiegwu. In that book, the author admonished people not to make friends with the police. I think the book was retired by WAEC, possibly due to the same reason.

So, as always, Nigeria needs to build the infrastructure of the minds. If we cannot make that work, all the railways, waterways, airports, etc will fade. Things have fallen apart and many are saying that the beautiful ones are not yet born. But as James Ngugi reminded us to weep not, even when seeing the burning grass of a nation, Francis Selormey gave us the narrow path, and Achebe sees that arrow of God as we remain William Conto’s Africa but without T.M. Aluko’ one man, one matchet because girls at war will fight for our minds.

It is a trial of a country, and the Oginga Odinga maintained it was not yet uhuru.  Yes, let this American case be on Hushpuppi, Kyari, Chibuzo, etc. It must NOT be on Nigeria and the Nigerian people! We need to make that clear to the FBI, Department of Justice and American press.

(Ok — from “Things have….uhuru”, I meshed books in the African Writers Series like Things Fall Apart, Girls at War. Most of the lines there are titles of the books. Those days they used to be our Facebook, Instagram, etc as reading from #1 to #100 used to be a challenge instead of the virality of a video on Facebook!)

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Who are we trying to impress or seeking a validation from, American press or its intelligence community? I am not sure which of them qualifies for this nice rendition, just to prove that Nigeria is not terrible and her people not fraudsters?

Few young people stole money, they were never sponsored by Nigerian State to scam people, neither did they remit their crime proceeds to help fund Nigeria’s budget deficit, so how is it now a national tragedy? Narratives are there for shallow people to run with, they neither define a people nor diminish them.

There are terrorist attacks that are state sponsored, and there are cyber attacks that are state sponsored, the Nigerian State has never been fingered in such transnational crimes, yet the citizens of those countries are still treated with respect, irrespective of what their decrepit regimes unleash on humanity; we need to be smarter.

What we have here is just a case where small creatures did what small creatures always do: reaping where they did not sow, which every nation out there has its fair share. Elevating it beyond that is being mischievous and ignoble, and that’s not the domain for decent humans.

If we are to draw a list of nations who have caused greatest pains to humanity and states, Nigeria isn’t among the top 30, the history of the world is a very long one, and we know the levels of happiness and agony each country has contributed.

Nigeria is fine, let the deviants answer for their malfeasances.

“Super Cop” Abba Kyari, A Hero or Villain?

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