There was a twitter of giggle, then a moment of sobriety, on Airport Road, Lagos, last Tuesday. A lady bearing a handbag in the early evening hours was accosted by three scruffy men on motorbike. They intimidated her into a frenzy of fright and consequently made away with her handbag. Assured of a haul, the three crooks sped off in the maddening melee amid shouts from passers-by. The lady, effing and cursing, cried for help. Pronto, help came. The fleeing urchins were blocked as they tried to meander through the maze of traffic. Sometimes, Lagos traffic does not permit pedestrians ease of passage, let alone a motorbike. Last Tuesday evening was one of those moments of Bangkok-grade traffic.

In a flash, jungle justice prevailed over pleas. The crooks were beaten mercilessly. They barely managed to escape the wild orgy of knocks and pummelling with cudgels. Our sister’s bag was retrieved, intact. No harm was done to the bag. Nothing was removed. But guess what was inside the bag? Tissue paper and a few appurtenances of feminism. Handkerchief and N1,500 cash. A debit card that looked abused and sufficiently assaulted which our sister confirmed had expired but could not be renewed as she had no money in the bank anymore, completed the ensemble of items inside the lady’s bag. Our sister’s broke. Not only her. We are all broke. She probably was on a job hunt, without money. Without hope. She was trekking towards the nearest bus stop when the three monstrous crooks, all graduates of gangster land, snatched her bag. Who knows, she may have been trekking all day. Despite her poor state, she expressed herself in good, healthy English. You could tell she’s a university graduate. Her comportment, diction and Victorian oratorical eloquence tell the story. She’s knowledgeable. Only, she’s jobless as she later whispered to one of her rescuers.

These days, wild-eyed crooks stalk the nation. Call them terrorists, bandits, armed robbers or neighbourhood thieves, their presence is undeniable. They live for the moment, on the edge of crime, on the cusp of criminality. Acting under the influence.

Our sister’s story is eerie but it epitomises our collective fate. It typifies the garbage and debris that had in recent history formed the hard crust that underpins our socio-economic well-being as a nation. Suddenly, Nigerians are broke but the leaders continue to swell in resources. There has been an emerging pattern since the birth of the 4^th Republic. Nigerian governments continue to earn more money but the standard of living for the citizens continue to erode. What happened between the lady and the three crooks was a collision between despair and hopelessness. The system has rendered many citizens hopeless and helpless. This explains the growing Japa exodus. Nigerians are emigrating to other countries in droves. It does not matter to which country and what awaits them there. Lawyers, medical doctors, engineers, nurses and sundry professionals and non-professionals have moved to other countries with some settling for menial jobs including dish-washing and mortuary hands while they sort out their permits and relevant papers.

Some advanced nations report that they receive the highest volume of visa and Permanent Residency requests from Nigerians every year. And you wonder, why are Nigerians running away from Nigeria, a land blessed with milk and honey? The answer rests in the handbag of our sister; in the plight of university graduates who wander from despair to despondency for years without job. It is to be found in the fate of millions of Nigerians who are under-employed and under-paid. The answer stares down at you when you consider that minimum wage in Nigeria is N70,000 monthly. That’s $50 in one month. A menial job worker in South Africa or UK will earn more than that in a matter of four hours. These days, a university graduate with an impressive grade can stay for years unemployed if he/she has no one to push for his employment. Entrepreneurship is out of it because he doesn’t even have the capital to take off. This, in the same Nigeria where university graduates were recruited by blue chip corporates right from their campuses in the 70s. In the same Nigeria where secondary school certificate holders were recruited to work in banks and in other corporates. In those good old days, unemployment was never the norm. To be unemployed was abnormal. Not these days.

The truth is that Nigeria is inexorably and very painfully scuttling through the path of a failed state. A state is said to have failed when the past betters the present. This is reflective in the country’s continual and continuous recession into the heart of darkness.

Pray, how do you explain to this generation that in 1970, $1 was equivalent to 71 kobo, less than N1 and remained so until the mid-1980s. Successive governments by their actions and inactions brought the naira to ground zero. In those days, agriculture and the primary sector, not crude oil, sustained the economy. It says so much about Nigerian leaders. They are soulless. They promise big things on campaign days when all that the people need are little things. They need things as little as regular supply of electricity; things as commonplace as potable water; things as cheap as good roads. And now, you can add, things as cheap as security for the citizenry. All of this will conduce to a benevolent order; to a better economy, the type that would put money in the handbag of our sister and her ilk.

There must be something wrong with successive leaderships of a country that have only succeeded in generating darkness over 65 years after it became a sovereign nation; leaderships that have borrowed and borrowed and have now plunged the nation into a debt hole of N121. 67 trillion (US$91.46 billion). So much borrowing without commensurate totems and evidence of development. This is the sense in which the episode involving our sister and her handbag does not only arouse giggles. It draws a chill.