03/10/2025
FELLOW NIGERIANS, REGARDING THE TRADE FAIR DEMOLITION, YOUR SILENCE IS NOT INNOCENCE, IT IS CULPABILITY
There are bulldozers, and then there is temperament. Bulldozers are docile beasts; they obey the lever, the pedal, the order. Temperament, on the other hand, is infinitely more revealing; it exposes the invisible hand behind the machine, the character of the puppeteer. You may call it “urban renewal” when you reduce a wall to rubble, but try as you might, you cannot pulverize the ledger of conscience. The stain it leaves is indelible, a smear across the soul of governance. Fresh concrete may disguise the debris, but it cannot mask the acrid stench of opportunity incinerated at dawn. That scent, the scent of livelihoods erased in an instant, it clings, like smoke in the fabric of memory.
The demolition at the Lagos Trade Fair is not merely the mechanical enforcement of planning codes. No, it is a crucible, a test of how this nation wishes to measure justice. And into that dust walked Fmr. Governor
, inconveniently upright, calling it what it truly is: “a test of impunity, justice and compassion.” In that moment, he reminded us of a truth most would prefer to forget: that governance is not the sterile ballet of documents and directives, but a living moral vocabulary, and one written, more often than not, in the suffering of the vulnerable.
Governor , I’m well aware of your administration’s infatuation with technicalities. Permits. Jurisdictions. The sanctified alphabet soup of bureaucratic ordinances that you wield with the precision of a scalpel and the cruelty of a cudgel. But riddle me this: if the state, ever so punctual in collecting its daily tithe, could not muster the conscience to raise an admonishing whisper while the foundations of these structures were being laid, why now? Why wait until the seed germinates, the stalk ripens, only to incinerate the harvest in a spectacle of sanctioned devastation?
Law, my dear Governor, is meant to be the architecture of order. But stripped of compassion, it transmutes into a grotesque idol, an altar upon which livelihoods are disemboweled with ritualistic precision. And hell, contrary to popular imagination, is not a singular destination. There are gradations. Some colder, some hotter, and one particular inferno reserved for those who wield power without mercy.
So, I do hope you are entertained by the rubble, because the sower, inexorable and unsentimental, will one day tally the account. And when he does, his recompense will mirror not only the severity of our transgressions, but the coldness with which we committed them.
And what, pray tell, of the digital chorus? The synthetic uproar on social media, orchestrated by the APC’s legion of keyboard charlatans, young men whose synapses have been so thoroughly scorched by mutilated crack co***ne that they’ve misplaced the very coordinates of their humanity. Their outrage is swift, performative, a vaudeville act in the theater of distraction. Counterfeit indignation, rehearsed not for justice, but for their patrons, those shadowy benefactors who profit from obedience masquerading as loyalty.
They bellow “hypocrisy!” at the critic, as though the sins of yesterday could be stapled to the atrocities of today, as though the mere invocation of a governor’s past absolves the present of its grotesque barbarity. But hypocrisy, Governor, is a question of character; it does not, in any court, earthly or divine, address whether human beings deserve mercy in this very moment.
To conflate history with current cruelty is not critique, it is sleight of hand, a conjurer’s trick, subterfuge dressed as discourse. A deliberate attempt to blur the line between accountability and annihilation, to pretend that yesterday’s failings somehow sanitize today’s crimes.
And therein lies the tragedy: they mistake noise for argument, venom for conviction, and cruelty for strength.
If one truly wishes to preserve a city, one does not manufacture an economy of demolition notices. No, one builds alternatives, negotiates compromises, buys time. One engages in the graceless, inglorious work of stewardship while the cameras sleep. Compassion, you see, does not trumpet itself. It is measured not in headlines, but in families spared, in futures left intact. That kind of leadership will outlive the bulldozer.
Yes, the Lagos State Government insists its actions were lawful, citing permits unmet, provisions invoked, warnings delivered. Procedure, however, does not preclude compassion. If people have staked their lives, their borrowed capital, their fragile hopes upon an investment, then the state owes them more than a wrecking ball. It owes them transparency, remediation, relocation, relief - in short, a process that honors both the law and the human beings subject to it.
Accountability requires two virtues at once: fidelity to the law and a humane application of power. Strip away one, and you are left with mere spectacle. And spectacle, my dear friends, is a treacherous substitute for leadership. Leaders who pursue stewardship may yet bind the city’s wounds; those who pursue theatre will watch trust corrode - brick by brick, like a slow-motion demolition.
As for the partisan jesters, the and the
of this shallow bazaar of commentary, you trade in the ta**ry pleasures of point-scoring. You sneer, you heckle, you create and resurrect grievances as if they were absolution for present barbarity. It is the oldest trick in the moral inversion handbook: “because you sinned before, I may sin now.” No, gentlemen. That dog won’t hunt. Produce the paperwork, the timelines, the notices, the evidence of fair process, or admit that what you defend is not governance, but cruelty in the service of power, laced with tribal bigotry and hate in the likes we’ve never seen before.
Meanwhile, those who have lost their businesses, their lifeblood, their dignity, deserve more than slogans. They deserve a process that is accountable, compassionate, and just. Because in the end, the city is not measured by the height of its towers or the neatness of its permits, but by how it treats those who build under its shadow.
Source - Kelechi
