The beautiful mind of Kadaria Ahmed and the Trouble with Nigeria

When Chinua Achebe wrote his seminal work, “The Trouble with Nigeria,” he blamed it squarely on leadership. He made the book brief, hoping that Nigerians would not have any problem reading it. But apparently, they didn’t. Or if they did, like in the case of Kadaria Ahmed, they misunderstood the leadership Achebe meant.

Kadaria Ahmed’s recent intervention following last weekend’s attacks on Northerners in Shasha, Oyo State, did not scratch the surface of what afflicted Nigeria. I agreed with her that violence is not the way to follow and that everyone must do their part to dissuade killings and destruction of properties.

Beyond that, what Kadaria’s intervention did was simply to apportion blame to the media. As much as the media shares responsibility when things go wrong, she wrote as if the media is not a product of its environment.

More troubling, she wrote as if she wanted to use her blame of the media to protect the people who have real power to do what is right for everyone in the country. Her thesis was quite dishonest in her decision to absolve the real culprits — leaders — leaders, like herself, Gov. Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna state, and so many others.

Kadaria did what the elite are good at doing — throw the little guys under the…