Consider, for instance, the genocidal gambit that took place in Benue State the other week. President Tinubu was not perturbed by it. He passed it off as a normal occurrence. It took the jibes from one or two opposition elements for the President to realize that he needed to visit Benue State and see things for himself. Even after his attention was called to his need to rush down to Benue, it took the President some more days of scheduling and rescheduling before visiting the bleeding state.

But the bigger issue is that his visit, ultimately, was not about how to deal with the dire security situation in the country. The President visited Benue to fulfill all righteousness. Then he took time off to campaign for his re-election. A case of Nero fiddling while Rome burnt. There is, as yet, no plan by the government to deal with the blight of insecurity. While in Benue, the President made light of the situation in the state. That was why it took the public show he enacted while on Benue soil for security agencies to realize that they needed to go after the killers of unarmed Benue people. The Inspector General of Police, knowing full well that that Mr. President was not perturbed by the killings in Benue, did nothing to fish out the terrorists. It was after the President jocularly asked the IGP why no arrests had been made that the police, ostensibly, swung into action. Days later, the IGP, Kayode Egbetokun, announced that some of the perpetrators of the heinous act had been arrested. So, it took the President’s directive for the police to do its job. That is a measure of the lack of seriousness that government and its agencies have been displaying over issues of insecurity.

Regardless of this unpardonable show of indifference, government still has the shamelessness to tell Nigerians that it is doing well in the area of insecurity. A few weeks ago, the Tinubu administration went on a publicity blitz in the bid to tell its own story after two years of wobbling. It rolled out the drums. The objective was not to tell the truth. It was done for purposes of self-adulation. We had a surfeit of this celebratory masturbation as Tinubu marked his two years in the saddle as President. But the real state of affairs spoke otherwise. The true situation is known to the man in the street who is eking out a living. However, since he is not in a position to join issues with the lies from officialdom, he allowed the sleeping dog to have its way. Regardless of the effort to sell the naked lie to the people, the chronicle still sounded inchoate to the listening ear. It did not resonate with the facts on ground. Of course the hard fact known to one and all is that Nigeria is in an upside down mode. The country has, in the past two years, been stripped naked by those who grabbed power. They have made governance look like a nightmare. For once, Nigerians are fighting a duel with a government that neither provides for them nor cares to do so. Under the present order, the country and its peoples have been reduced to objects of pity.

As Tinubu claims victory in the area of insecurity, the country continues to bleed the more by the day. In recent months, the upsurge of Boko Haram terrorism has become unspeakable. Some local governments in Borno State are under the full control of the terrorists. The governor of the state, Babagana Zulum, has been shouting his voice hoarse. He was forced to visit the President recently to tell the pitiable story of insecurity in his state.

But Zulum is not alone. The North West of Nigeria is a war zone. States like Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi, among others, live under the shadow of bandits. New terrorist groups are emerging for the purpose of fortifying their hold on the affected states. The same thing is true of the North Central states of Plateau and Benue. Here, bloodletting has become customary. It has become a way of life. Just a few weeks ago, Plateau bled ceaselessly. Hundreds of lives were wasted by terrorist herders. It was so bad that Governor Caleb Mutfwang had to openly call on his people to arm themselves for self-defence. That was anarchy let loose.

The same thing is true of Benue State. Here, as well, terrorist herdsmen are on the prowl. The situation in Benue has become a national embarrassment. Life has lost its sacredness in this state governed by someone who is supposed to be a reverend father. The people of the state are wasted in their numbers on a daily basis. But whereas Governor Mutfwang was able to make a clear and definite statement on the killings in his state, Governor Hyacinth Alia is busy pandering to the dubiety of the Tinubu administration on matters of security. He has no message for his people. He has no response to the dire situation. His people are just dying without let or hindrance.

Across the southern states, Fulani terrorists are establishing their camps in the forests. They are killing and maiming. Fulani invasion is imminent everywhere in the south. Neither the federal government nor governments of the affected states have been able to respond appropriately to this anomaly.

This is the Nigeria that Tinubu rolled out the drums to celebrate. This is the security situation Tinubu said has improved.

Under normal circumstances, Nigerians are supposed to tell themselves the truth about their ugly situation. But the reverse is the case here. In fact, a huge irony is trailing our situation. Nigerian politicians are giving the impression that all is well with the country. They are falling over themselves to identify with a government that has not just impoverished the people but has also debased its institutions and the values they are supposed to promote. They are clapping for a government that has domesticated the Hobbesian state of nature in the country.

Fortunately, the man in the street, the real Nigerian, has a different pull. He is not persuaded by the shameless dance of the privileged. He feels the pain the government has inflicted on him and his likes. He knows that those gravitating towards the dead system are feathering their own nests.

They are feeding fat on the misfortune of the less privileged. In other words, two tendencies are colliding in Nigeria – the pretensious fanfare of politicians and the harsh reality that the ordinary people face. But no matter how anybody tries to shield the people from the reality of their situation, they cannot but recognize that the past two years of the Tinubu disorder has been nightmarish.