Sandbagging Nigeria

By Dr. Ike Agbor

Nigerians have perhaps seen videos from the United States during floods—neighbors in lines, passing sandbags hand to hand, building a wall against rising water. For a while, it works. The water slows. It holds. There is relief, even hope.
But the water never stops coming.
I doubt if Nigerians have stood behind sandbags or understand that exact ritual.

And the sandbagging?

It is the act of buying time.
You stack one bag, then another, then another. You hold back the pressure just enough to get through the day, the week, the season. You tell yourself you will build something stronger later. Something permanent. But later keeps moving.
Sandbagging clearly captures Nigeria as it has been for several decades.
The Nigerian roads are patched, not rebuilt. Power comes and goes, managed, rationed, with mere change of name; NEPA to PHC.

Policies appear when things get bad or not at all and fade when the urgency passes. The people clap when huge resources are wasted propping up a fake democracy.

Each response is a sandbag. Necessary in the moment. Insufficient in the long run.

And still, the water rises.
It rises in the form of population growth without matching infrastructure. In the killing field engineered by Fulani and Islamists! The killing never stops. It manifests itself in forcing everyone to remain in Lugard’s cage.

It is in the job market where graduates are being churned out.

The danger with sandbagging is not that it fails immediately. It is that it works just well enough to delay real change. It creates the illusion of control. It gives everyone a reason to wait a little longer.
Until the pressure becomes too much.
And when the barrier finally gives way, it does not fail gently. It breaks all at once. Everything the sandbags held back comes through in a rush.

That is the risk of sandbagging.
Too much of what is being done is temporary, where anything is being done at all.

The focus remains on holding the line rather than changing the landscape.
Because water does not negotiate, it does not get tired. It does not forget.
It just keeps rising!