Cruelty And The Future Of Nigeria
By Jerome-Mario Utomi When Niccolo Machiavelli first came up with the idea that cruelty could be rightly or wrongly employed in governing a country, he may have had Nigeria in mind. According to him, ‘cruelty is used well ‘(if it is permissible to talk in this way of what is evil) when it is employed once for all, and one’s safety depends on it, and then it is not persisted in but as far as possible turned to the good of one’s subjects. *Buhari Again, cruelty badly used is that which, although infrequent to start with, as time goes, rather than disappearing, grows in intensity’’. Unfortunately, this is where we are today. Going by the records, Nigerians in cases after case after case witnessed situations where politicians/leaders come up with policies aimed at starving hapless civil servants/pensioners to their early graves. And security agents take laws into their hands without thinking of the long and short-term damage their act of impunity has on Nigerians and the watching wor...