When a System Stops Making Sense!!!

There are things in Nigeria that simply do not make sense, no matter how many times you try to wrap your head around them.

Yes, we have regulatory bodies.

Yes, we have laws and institutions that are supposed to protect, guide, and enforce. But the reality on ground often tells a different story. It’s hard to understand why certain ills continue to thrive, unchallenged and unaddressed, like a disease we’ve all agreed to live with.

Take our prison system, for instance. Let me be clear: I do not condone crime, nor do I support illegal activity in any way. However, a functional justice system should not just punish, it should reform.

Prison should serve two purposes: first, to restrict movement as a consequence of wrongdoing, and second, to rehabilitate. The goal should be reintegration into society as better people, not breaking them beyond repair.

I’ve visited prisons in two different states in Nigeria. The conditions are enough to make even the strongest person lose hope. But what about those who are innocent? What about those who were wrongly accused? In one of the cells I saw, inmates defecated and urinated into the same bucket, placed right where they sleep. Many of them developed health issues over time, yet no attention was given. These are human beings, not animals. How do we expect rehabilitation in an environment that doesn’t even preserve basic dignity?

Then there’s how we treat our elderly. Just take a walk to any queue in this country, be it at a bank, an ATM, or a fuel station. What you’ll often see is a heartbreaking sight: frail old men and women, grey-haired, weak-kneed, standing in the same long, frustrating lines as the young and able-bodied. The worst part is that many young people don’t see a problem with this.

I once gave up my spot at an ATM queue for an elderly woman, thinking it was a simple act of kindness. To my surprise, I was scolded by other young people.

“Why didn’t you just go to the back if you wanted to be generous?” one of them said. And that was exactly what I did, walked to the back, saddened not by my place in the queue, but by what we’ve become.

That day, I made a silent vow: if I ever become a lawmaker in this country, I will push for legislation that mandates priority access for the elderly, perhaps even fines for those who ignore it.

Now let’s talk about the silent poisons we consume daily.

Walk through any market and you’ll see traders displaying goods clearly labelled;

“Do not expose to sunlight”, yet they are roasting under the sun all day. From canned drinks to plastic-bottled beverages and perishable foods, many of these items lose their safety and integrity in such conditions. Still, people buy and consume them without a second thought. Then we wonder why new illnesses keep showing up with strange names and symptoms.

What’s worse is the confessions you sometimes hear from people you trust. A food vendor I know once casually told me she sells moi moi that’s been sitting for days, sometimes even up to a week, to unsuspecting customers. I was shocked. But again, I shouldn’t have been. When a system fails to uphold basic standards, people will do anything to survive, even if it means slowly poisoning others.

The day I heard that some people now add detergent to fufu, yes, you heard right, detergent, just to make it swell and boost profit, ah! That was the day I knew we were no longer a nation, we were a ticking time bomb

We’ve normalized too many wrongs in this country.

And the worst part? We no longer see them as problems. Until we collectively start to care, not just with our mouths, but with action, we’ll keep living in a system that has long stopped making sense.