VANDALIZATION OF BRT BUSES, UNACCEPTABLE UTTER MADNESS.

Icheoku says provided the Nigerian army is guilty as alleged that some of their soldiers went on rampage, vandalizing public transportation buses, just because one of them was mowed down by a bus while illegally riding his bicycle on a lane exclusively reserved for such buses, their action is condemnable and simply unacceptable. Icheoku asks what was the soldier doing riding his bicycle on such a busy highway as Ikorodu road, especially on a lane strictly reserved for those rapid transit buses (BRT)? If true, then it is yet another display of crass indiscipline, wantonness, egregiousness and lawlessness by the often ill-trained Nigerian "unknown" soldiers, whose penchant to go cuckoo on the slightest provocation is legendary. Icheoku says it is completely incomprehensible for these soldiers to go on rampage, destroying public transportation equipment and infrastructures, simply because one of their possibly 'DRUNKEN' colleague, seemingly chose to commit suicide using a BRT bus; otherwise what was he doing in such an exclusive rapid transit bus lane in the first place? By the same token, if a train kills someone on a rail track, whose fault is it anyway?

It is only in uncivilized brutish enclaves that men and women trained, equipped and paid to protect and defend the territorial integrity of a country, often viciously turn around against the same people that make their existence possible. In advanced civilized societies, the only place and time you see soldiers is on television news coverage when they are returning from or shipping out on deployments, during such National holidays when they are participating in parades and on other seldom occasions when they are receiving honors or burying one of their killed in action (KIA). You do not see soldiers on the streets getting rascally or in "MAMMY MARKETS" getting drunk or in 'Mosalashi Yaba burning Kalakuta Republic' or now on 'Ikorodu road burning BRT buses' or at any other place for that matter that is not within their confined barracks, which is often zoned off to 'bloody' civilians. Speaking in equivalence, such occurrence as this BRT brigandage is alien and completely none existence, admitted that once in a while, an incensed soldier can snap, pick up a gun and kill his colleagues or family members and then sometimes self in a murder suicide? This could be explained away as a mental illness of that particular soldier BUT Icheoku refuses to accept that an entire army of a country is probably afflicted with unsound mind due to the frequency of occurrence of such outlandish misbehavior by the Nigerian army.

The BRT buses destruction by the Nigerian army will go a long way in further damaging the image of a country that is already very far below stellar; added to the Boko Haram madness particularly their Chibok girls 'alleged' abduction that is continually spewing very corrosive sulfuric volcanic ash upon it. icheoku asks which tourist or investor would pick such a country as a priority go to place for a visit or investment? Humanity like to be safe or at least have a sense or feeling of it, otherwise no one would want to even visit America because of gun violence, but at least you know and feel the authorities are making effort to stop it or solve it when it happens. Most times, appearance rather than reality is key; and at present, Nigeria certainly appears to be a very unsafe place for anyone to be. 

With one crisis after another, Boko Haram this Boko Haram that and some school girls being kidnapped etc; and in an Internet age when one does not need a Nigerian Information Minister Maku to spew his peculiar facts about the condition in Nigeria, Icheoku wonders whose interest all these disturbances are really serving? Icheoku says Nigeria could sure use some break from all these nightmarish daily incidences and so, this further stain on its image at this time of great tribulation and challenges was certainly uncalled for and was also avoidable. But whether the authorities would do something to find and arrest these miscreant soldiers and punish them accordingly, the jury is still out. icheoku says our safest bet is that instead, the authorities will use the cover of "UNKNOWN SOLDIERS" to allow them to escape from justice. 

Icheoku laments that the impunity of these khaki wearing department of the Nigerian society was foist on Nigerians by the Alusi (deity) of Ota, Olusegun Obasanjo, who in 1977 destroyed Fela's Kalakuta Republic, killing Mrs Ransome Kuti in the process and later dismissed the carnage as 'Unknown Soldiers' act? Regrettably, for Nigerians, if it is not them that is impacted directly by an action, it does not matter; and today, the BRT which was not even in existence during Fela's persecution by Obasanjo, is now at the receiving end of the same Nigerian soldiers' fury. Since that Obasanjo's infamy of 1977, it has been one abuse after another, one wantonness after another by the Nigerian army against the people of Nigeria; with some of them stealing governance through coup de tats (Buhari and Babangida), to murdering innocent civilians including Dele Giwa, Bartholomeo Owo, Bernard Ogedengbe, Segun Lawal, Ken Saro Wiwa and most recently a Police DPO and his deputy in Ikorodu Lagos. Simply put, the Nigerian soldier has brought so much sorrow, blood and tears to many Nigerians that one begins to wonder if there is indeed any real use for their existence and whether they actually do add value to the Nigerian society?

Icheoku wonders what manner of men these guys are and what sort of training they actually receive and further, whether they are from another planet; because were they Nigerians, they cannot continuously be committing such hateful crimes against their fellow citizens and their properties? It is quite unfortunate that the BRT which every Lagosian applauds Governor Fashola for, could be so vandalized by the Nigerian army. Icheoku wishes that all of these soldiers in Lagos as well as other cities in Nigeria could be shipped away from the cities to places like Sambisa Forest, Bakassi, Kaura Namoda etc because army formations do not belong in the cities. Military formations throughout civilized world are NOT located in cities but in such far away secluded places where they can freely be the armed men they choose to be. They remain there, train there and wait to be deployed as security needs arises and periodically get some days off to visit the cities if they earned it. The military have a separate existence or world of their own and the Nigerian military should not be an exception to the rule by stationing them within city limits. Such their removal and separation from the main society greatly reduces frictions between them and the civilian population; and thus help in reducing the frequency of such outcomes as was witnessed on Ikorodu Road Lagos today. But unfortunately, icheoku forgets that preaching to a 'deaf and dumb' society, led by a timid government that refuses to learn how things are done better or could be improved upon, is often an effort in futility. 

Anyway, what an unfortunate BUT otherwise avoidable destruction of public properties by the Nigerian army it was. Icheoku hopes that Governor Fashola will throw enough tantrums and stir overbearing dust over the incident that Abuja is forced to do something to get the army authorities to pay for the damage done and also punish their petulant errant soldiers that perpetrated such untoward breach of the peace. OR could it possibly be that these perpetrators are Boko Haram members and/or sympathizers trying to provoke Lagosians into a confrontation? Icheoku says what happened on Ikorodu road today is crazy-madness and unacceptable, no matter the prism with which it is viewed. However, if according to the army version of the incident, Lagos Area Boys took advantage of the accident involving their soldier and carried out the vandalization, then Icheoku apologize; but maintains that such rampage is not beyond the usual repertoire of the Nigerian army. Only a thorough investigation would unravel what actually happened and Icheoku calls for one.