DAPCHI GIRLS AND THE SKRIPALS: A TALE OF TWO TOWNS AND TWO COUNTRIES

By Prince Adewunmi Rotee Fariogun

The unfolding diplomatic row between the UK and Russia will help you understand how backward we are in Nigeria, and why England should colonize us again. Say what you will, but I'm convinced beyond doubt that our independence from British rule in 1960 was premature. If we need to tax ourselves to pay for recolonization, I don't mind paying my share.

Ten days ago, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy living in England, was poisoned along with his daughter by suspected Russian agents. Both are alive, though critically ill and receiving treatment. It was passers-by who alerted the police to Skripal's dazed state on a public bench. Doctors immediately suspected poisoning, which led to police sealing parts of the neighbourhood as "crime scenes". 

Lab tests and CCTV footage would later point to two suspects who apparently smeared the victim's car door-handle with "Novichok", a deadly nerve gas developed in Russia during the Cold War. The British obviously learnt from experience. In 2006, another Russian at odds with the Kremlin was poisoned to death in London with radioactive Polonium by two Russian agents identified by UK authorities.  

Compare that to Dapchi. A barely literate bunch of terrorists dressed in fake army uniforms drove trucks into a boarding school at a major town, abducted 110 students, and disappeared with them for a month now. And the government searches for the victims by erecting more highway checkpoints and flying fighter jets over Yobe State! We didn't learn from Chibok. 

Security is all-encompassing. Human intelligence, electronic intelligence, community policing, and forensic labs, are all parts of security. But we ignore them to the delight of criminals and then scramble fighter jets to search for them. If the U.K. had taken this path, I'm sure those Russian poisons won't have been detected, and thousands would have died of chemical and biological poisoning in London and Salisbury. 

Dapchi showed how Nigeria is governed badly even under APC. Dapchi showed that FGC Ijanikin - the farthest spot from Dapchi that I can think of - is also not immune to student abductions by determined criminals. Lagos traffic may allow citizens to foil their escape, but don't count on a prompt response by the Nigeria Police or the army, DSS and civil defence. They would be busy guarding VIPs. 

Yes, Rome was not built in a day. But Rome was also not built in a million years, which is the rate at which we are going. Shamefully, our leaders have been to Rome and London and seen their standards. Our system favours them, so they won't change it. Since life is all about self-preservation, I call on the U.K. Government to please colonize Nigeria once again to ensure my safety. I'm willing to pay for it.