It is a crime against humanity to join forces with oppression. It doesn’t matter whether you are not personally affected! Remember that people are dying of hunger daily because there is no food on the table, no money to attend to their medical needs, life has been made meaningless to our people AT THE GRASSROOTS. Civil servants are worse off. I shed tears nearly everyday because of relative bad news coming from home.
The case of Kogi is an emergency. Even if you lack the strength to challenge the oppressor, it is better to be silent than to give support on the premise of seeking position that might not last forever.
From my knowledge of activism, it is always humanity focused! Anything outside of that is share selfishness!
I am particularly concerned because I had been a rural farmer in Idah suburbs during my childhood/primary/secondary school and undergraduate periods, member of National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE-IDAH) as Administrative Officer with Idah Local Government Council for six years, as member of Association of Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU-KSU) for two years and as ASUU-KSU member over the years, prior to my research career in the United Kingdom. Practical engagement at every stages of my life has given me first-hand knowledge and experiences of the nature of fundamental hardship occassioned by lack of social amenities such as electricity, water, educational facility, housing, roads and what half salary or percentage salary and non salary payments in Kogi State would mean for an average family home.
Without recourse to casting blames unnecessarily on those in authority, I have taken my time to look through the perspective of the government to assess the situation objectively. As an appointed Personal Assistant to the Executive Chairman Idah Local Government in Kogi State then in 2006, and in several other avenues, I critically accessed some challenges that may likely confront governance averagely in Nigeria.
However, on this occasion, no excuses would be enough to justify daily records of avoidable deaths in the land. The essence of leadership at this level is trust and it is your responsibility to think outside the box to ensure that both ends meet and total liberation of the people from shackles of poverty and degradation. All the complex languages surrounding monthly federal allocations, Paris club refunds, bail out funds and borrowings are not relevant now. This is because time might come in the near future when that source of income would be grossly limited.
At least, if government could not create opportunities for her people as promised because of limited capacity to do so, payment of salaries to workers must not be a subject of controversies at this critical time. Those workers you are seeing are not the only beneficiaries of their monthly emoluments. The numbers of their respective dependants may be one hundred times more on the line.
At the moment, the pitiable condition of sacked workers lawfully/unlawfully is better not mentioned. For them there shall be justice in the end.
Given this sorrowful situation, apart from IICOPOL which is a world of her own, the planning/design and establishment process of the AMINU MUSA AUDU PEACE FOUNDATION (AMAPEP), an NGO with operational base located at Idah, the seat of Idah Local Government Council and headquarters of Kogi East Senatorial District in Nigeria, is on course to tackle chronic and embarrassing hunger, disease, illiteracy and hopelessness in the land. Primarily banking on the blessings of my personal efforts when due, AMAPEF shall mobilise local and international resources for this humanitarian task. I therefore enjoin all and sundry to kindly support me in this selfless project.
I will like to share one of the first reactions to my opinion. Responding, Mr Solomon Idenyi said: “I’m not in any way surprised at your level of practical engagement to sociopolitical and economic quagmire of our society today. When I came in as a jambite at the university of Ilorin then, you were one of those stars from Kogi and of the Igala extraction that we really looked up to. So prominent in ISA and the Kogi state students Union. You’ve been championing the course of the down trodden and the oppressed. God bless your good works.”
— Dr. Aminu Audu Musa
