9-1-2025.

Done an article on  suggesting the scrapping of the scrap metal business, which some people vehemently objected to, because they are benefiting from it in some way or another. This brings us to None Governmental Organisations (NGOs), which may appear to have NO connection with the topic under discussion. 

But it does. Broadly divided, there are three types of NGOs. At the opposing ends are the one founded and funded by governments at federal and state levels, to always do their bidding and sing their praises. On the other end is the type founded and financed by the Western World to do all they could to defend the guilty, and find the Nigerian government at fault of taking the action it did against the criminals. Both do their job loudly for the purpose of justifying the funding they get from their sponsors.

In between, there is the genuine one that operates quietly, but with lots of tangible results for all to see. It is made up by both Nigerians and human-loving foreigners, including Westerners.

The first group, the local one that is, might not like the write up, as many of their members may likely see it as a threat to a system that they immensely benefit from. It had happened before.

In the article, I noted that the hardship, suffering, poverty and hunger suffered by most of the citizens in the country have forced many into unfortunately becoming beggars or criminals (not by choice). This though is not given them an excuse for the bad behaviour).

Specifically, the article stated that, “Many of the Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) operate in Nigeria either to serve the locality and the locals, or to serve the interests of their foreign sponsors, which are not always edifying.

“Two events led me to write this piece. The first event is the uncelebrated and unsung, but helpful actions of an NGO, which recently demonstrated this by rendering assistance to a popular big Mosque in Katsina town. The NGO silently built a bore hole to mosque free of charge, without making noise about it. The bore hole remains the source of water for the mosque users and some of the neighbours who need its services.

“The other event is the insidious writing of a Western embassy in Abuja, which someone passed as his opinion but was caught out by someone who had earlier seen the write up as a statement from the embassy in question. I had not seen that statement to be judgmental about it, but I read the ‘opinion’ and thought it was more like a hate statement. A copy-and-paste job, in other words.

“The ‘opinion’ in discussion, tried to pitch Nigeria against a next door neighbour it never had any cause to quarrel with, at the same time praising its hostile neighbours as her ‘friends’. They were some friends indeed. One of them dragged Nigeria to the International Court over a disputed territory, and the judgement went against Nigeria. Despite the fact that the matter is not a close secret, a Western power wants to tell Nigeria that country was its friend. 

“For the information of the Western country, Nigeria does not need it to tell her who are her friends and who are her enemies. Both can be judged by their actions towards her. 

“There are NGOs and there are NGOs. Some NGOs serve useful purposes, while others the country would be better off without, because of their insidious utility. While the former category goes about their activities silently, without ‘announcement’, the latter category do ‘announce’ everything that they do, which always happens to be against the government. This they do in the open and with fanfare, so as to attract the attention of their paymasters with a view to justifying what they were given for that particular assignment. Although they are in the majority, they are hardly heard, and when they are heard, it is to make a case (support) for the offender, and fight the government no matter the circumstances of its action.

Some vehicles, be them cars, cycles or vesicles, are stolen and sold as scrap to scrap metal dealers. Regardless of the vehicle’s condition, the dealer would quickly have them cannibalised into scraps and transported to where they would be melted and exported to some parts of the world, where they would be recycled into various parts of some products.

The thieves of metallic materials, as is happening in Abuja ( the rampant stealing of manhole covers) or polymer objects for sale to the ‘scrap metal’ dealer, do not advertise themselves on their forehead. They may appear well dressed and driving very good vehicles, like the ‘gentleman’ who was caught stealing a cover of a manhole in Abuja, or looking very wretched, like the many beggars swarming the streets in the North. All of them may well be in the neighbourhood looking for what to steal and sell to the receiver of stolen articles, or the so called dealer of scrap metal.

At the best of times, Nigeria is teeming with druggists and drunks who would steal anything available around them to sell in order to afford the purchase of their next ‘fix’ from the dealers. Unfortunately, the country is not in the best of times at the moment, so a field day of sorts has been made available for such and even some otherwise sane people to become public nuisance, whose major preoccupation is to lay their hands on anything ‘stealable’.

Such drugged and drunk people steal even at places of worship, like Mosques and Churches. Some crazies go to the length of arranging the Holy Quran, one on top of another, in Mosques, so as to steal out of reach items, like ceiling fans and loudspeakers. This forced the introduction of bugler proofs to prevent the theft of the items in most places of worship in Nigeria.

Nigeria is in an unfamiliar, unstable, unfriendly, unfavourable environment, where siblings, living apart, abandon one another. Acquaintances are scared to relate with each other. Friends fear to answer calls or reply to text messages. All fear that the first caller or the sender of the text may request for some kind of assistance.

May God get Nigeria out of the adversity it is currently facing, and provide the country with a lasting succour in a way that most of the citizens would heave a sigh of relief, and say ‘today is better than yesterday’.

Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.