In the dead of night, in a deserted alley of the city, a group of teenage boys roams like shadows. In their hands—wrenches, pliers, screwdrivers. One has a rope tied to his waist; another walks along, puffing on a cigarette.
Suddenly, they stop—huddled near a lonely flyover pillar, they lean toward a steel girder. Click… click… One by one, they start unscrewing the nuts and bolts. No one stops them. In fact, there’s no one even around to stop them. Perhaps only their conscience could’ve intervened—but that, too, seems sealed in lead.
So their misdeed goes unnoticed. But even if someone had noticed—what difference would it make? Who dares to confront such wrongdoers? And who even dares to ask: if the nuts and bolts of an infrastructure can be so easily dismantled, what does that say about the structure’s safety? It’s like a billion-taka bundle being devoured by a goat.
The scene is from Akhtaruzzaman Flyover in Chattogram. Built at a cost of 700 crore taka, with over 80,000 vehicles using it daily—this vital structure is being stripped of its nuts and bolts! Even the safety barriers are being removed. The plants are dying. The lights are out.
This reckless dismantling of nuts and bolts isn’t just an isolated act of vandalism—it seems to symbolize the reality of many Third World nations. It’s not just the flyover—it's as though the foundational bolts of the country itself are being loosened.
The pillars of a modern state—media, judiciary, educational institutions, administration, even civil society—are like interconnected steel beams, fastened by bolts of integrity and accountability. But if instead of maintenance, oversight, and responsibility, we begin removing the bolts of these institutions—what fate awaits such a nation?
Many Third World countries already teeter on that precarious edge. The bolts of good governance are loose. The media pillars are starting to bend. And across the system—wherever we look—countless vital bolts have either been stolen or gone missing.
And those in charge of tightening these bolts? They parrot the same tired lines: "I don’t know," "It’s not my responsibility," "I’m not aware if this was reported before." But a state isn’t merely a lifeless mechanical structure.
It has a moral framework, a social contract. If the very bolts at its joints are continuously stolen or loosened, the state will become shaky—vulnerable to collapse at even the slightest tremor.
But things cannot go on like this. At the very least, citizens of the Third World must realize this much: they must protect their nations—or else, how will the people be protected? So, while there’s still time, we must act.
Before it’s too late, we must repair, restore, and reinforce every connection. We must eliminate the rot within every institution. We must confront those who are dismantling the system’s bolts for petty personal gain.
If we fail to do so, one by one, the structures of the state will collapse—and buried beneath the rubble will be the ordinary people.
