By Nnanke Harry Willie
#EndImpunity
WHY LOOTERS, WHY?
Why do looters loot?
Why does a governor who should exude all things excellent become a common thief and bare-facedly steal the resources of the state using questionable schemes?
Why do members of the legislature pass self-serving laws for the president, governors and themselves when they know it is akin to stealing the rights and humanity of the citizens?
Why do government appointees and civil servants, subvert due process and blow up gaping holes in the revenue pipelines from where they mindlessly loot the nation dry?
Why do business leaders create themes and schemes and collude with regulators to cheat and steal from their customers, the community and the nation?
Why do heads of MDAs create systems that bleed and impoverish their organisations and the generality of their staff and in the process, force their staff to pounce on the helpless citizens to snatch their own loot for their own survival?
Why would a hungry and angry set of citizens discover that food donated by a group of good Samaritans, through their governors have been hoarded by the same governors while they have been crying of hunger, rush to loot as much as possible for themselves, fighting their fellow hungry neighbours in the process without regard for those who are too hungry, too weak or ‘too naïve’ to join in the looting?
Why do looters loot?
There is a slew of righteous indignation spewing forth from governors of states affected by the mass looting of suspected looted (or at best, hoarded) Covid-19 palliatives by their respective citizens.
If only they knew that their angst and indignation is not up to one-tenth of the citizens’ anger, pain and fury that the continuous looting of our resources by a good number of the governors and others in privileged positions have carried out amid the silence and vain protestations that their fellow citizens have had to endure.
While any kind of looting should be condemned, we must not gloss over the fact that in this particular instance, most of the governors must take full responsibility for their citizens (merely) re-looting (some say, sharing) what they believed was their looted share of the COVID-19 palliatives in the first place. That notwithstanding, a looter is a looter!
Again, Why do looters loot?
Looters don’t loot because they are hungry. They don’t loot because they are angry. They don’t loot because they are over-privileged or under-privileged.
Looters loot because they can get away with it.
Punish the big looters first and the small looters will disappear!
#EndImpunity
