Any thinking person will wonder what else we, the prodigal fathers (and mothers) of Nigeria, will not take away from our innocent children. First it was the money that we took. The commonwealth that should spread around and be used to develop education and to positively and productively channel the minds of our growing children, is continually cornered by a sick few, with an endless lust for needless lucre. Most of the big men we worship in Nigeria today are nothing but addicts to the acquisition of money. We see them recycling themselves in government. One will wonder why they cannot rest, or leave the poor country alone, having made a huge mess of things already. Every position in government is being vied for by the same old usual suspects. Check the list of the big men vying for positions of leadership in PDP today and you would wonder if there are no other people in Nigeria!
In talking about prodigality, I am not concerned about the Nationalists – the leaders of the time of Awo, Sardauna, Balewa and Zik. I think those ones tried their best. They communicated and built bridges in an age where there were no phones, no mobile phones, no internet, no email, no fast cars, no facebook, no nothing! They kept the country together in spite of their differences, and their native orientations. But look at us today! We have all the gadgets of communication, but we don’t use them to build mutual understanding, but to spread mutual hatred and distrust! We now live in the age of freedom of speech, alas, no one seems to be listening to the other.
The ongoing fuel probe, for me, was the limit. In 2011, according to DPR, 46 new companies joined the gravy train of Nigeria’s utterly deranged petroleum sector, and proceeded to bleed Nigeria of 50% of its annual budget. Indeed, we spent close to 70% of last year’s budget on petrol and kerosene alone. The government chipped in N2trillion, the people added say N1trillion (since they said the subsidy was about one and half times the price we paid for PMS in that year). Therefore, between the government and the people, we spent N3trillion purchasing petrol in 2011! The few racketeers who did the job of disemboweling Nigeria, saw nothing wrong in what they did. They are trying to bribe to kill the entire case as we speak. Some of those billionaire rogues, are the ones fuelling reckless speculations and trying to convince us that a certain religion and tribe are the problems with Nigeria.
When I termed the attempt by government to remove fuel subsidy as 419, I meant that in legal terms. “419” is a crime taken from the legal codes, which describes “advance-fee fraud”. It is a scenario where someone asks you to pay first to get a benefit later. In Nigeria, successive governments have been playing this 419 on Nigerians, obtaining more from us, promising to deliver later, only for Nigerians to see their situations getting worse. Under the present government, they intend to carry out the greatest heist ever. The government is still trying to collect their pound of flesh from the people, but I wish them luck if they try to increase fuel prices again under the guise of ‘deregulation’. Perhaps one should remind government that it is evident that the companies who have defrauded Nigerians of the amounts in question, will very easily collude, form a cartel, to continue to rip off Nigerians, when there is no government to intercede on our behalf. Deregulation, given the mentality of Nigeria’s businessmen (and women), will only send more Nigerians into abject poverty.
Back to the prodigal fathers of Nigeria, which includes all of us living today, who have children or intend to have some… As an economist, one notes that too much money has been tied down in useless real estate. If we were thinking people, we would know that such monies should have been used to better the lots of our children – through education and health facilities etc. But we have used such monies to build mansions in our villages, which are only lived in at best, two weeks in a year. That is gargantuan waste. No progressive society wastes money and VALUE, like we do. It is evident that we are more concerned about massaging our egos. Nigerians believe their greatest possible achievement is to build huge houses, even as the world powers on. Our successive governments have also lacked the insight and/or vision to address this anomaly.
Things are so bad today, that we use monies that is better spend to feed and educate our children, to purchase weapons, armoured SUVs… and bomb detectors. What a sweet legacy we have laid down for our children! By the time they build on this, they will be throwing nuclear bombs at children’s parties ten years from now…
Many of our elder statesmen and intellectuals, who have acquired untold amounts of money by being Nigerians, and received assistance and friendship from people who hail from all the nooks and crannies of Nigeria, are today saying they are first tribesmen before being Nigerians. They believe all other tribes and religions are bad, except their own. The only tragedy is that they have infected the minds of the young ones with their sick and myopic ways of reasoning. They have stolen their children’s innocence.
Our children as young as 3 years old now express opinions of tribal and religious supremacy. Muslim and Christian children, Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo children, are now actively growing apart. Teachers even separate them in school. Parents lack the vision and the sense of history needed to create a great future for their children. The present thus becomes a struggle for our children, and the future, a mirage. Some of the parents are busy lavishing stolen wealth on their children, creating booby traps ahead of those children. On one hand we have mega rich people – mostly government appointees and powerful civil servants – who have denied their children the opportunity of organic growth by throwing so much money at them and thereby ruining their futures. Say, when 5 year olds fly first class around the world, what will they fly when they grow old? On the other hand, all our children now live in a state of lockdown! Nigeria has become like Somalia. In the whole north, you could hardly move a hundred metres without encountering military barricades – with soldiers and police fully bedecked in war gear. In the entire south, you risk running into armed robbers and kidnappers at any point in time. Our children now see dead bodies daily, and in school, bomb scanners greet them first thing in the morning.
In summary, these are what we have stolen from our children. Their innocence, their rights to grow up with open minds and love for their neighbours, the vision to cooperate amongst themselves across tribe and religions, the monies we should have used to develop their future, their peace of mind. In fact, we stole their present, and mortgaged their futures! I hope they will have the boldness to take back what is theirs – from us!
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