"Nigerian leaders on Friday (28
February 2014) called on Nigerians to work harder towards ensuring the
country’s unity", with ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo averring that
Nigeria will not break up.
Former President, Chief Olusegun
Obasanjo, said for Nigeria to have survived the first 100 years despite the
various challenges of nation building, the country would not break up.
They should
tell us what they mean by ''to work harder''? To me, this means that Nigerians
should keep slaving and dying for their masters and oppressors to keep Nigeria
one for them to continue looting!
Also, recently,
the Senate President, bemoaned the continuous activities of terrorists ravaging
parts of the country and pleaded with citizens to revolt against the
orchestrated plot to destabilise the country.
Isn't it absurd
and crass irony that those destroying our nation are the same ones that lecture
the poor masses to refrain from destabilizing the nation? They want the poor,
common Nigerian that they have impoverished and debased to fight their war for
them. They want us to be their cannon fodder while they stay in their
comfortable mansions and drive around in their armoured cars.
The same Nigeria
that they love so much they plundered and are still plundering and failed to
build into greatness has its citizens scavenging for food to survive. The same
Nigeria, whose youths and young graduates are walking listlessly and idly on
the streets without jobs; the same Nigeria where their people sleep on the
streets; the same Nigeria where if you don’t have money to pay, doctors will
not treat you in the hospitals; the same Nigeria where the students barely learn
anything in the state schools because the classrooms are dilapidated and the
laboratories are not equipped; the same Nigeria where when you drive on the
roads in the morning, you are not sure of coming back home alive.
They are living
in the dream land. Our leaders are simply the greatest threat to the existence
of Nigeria. Many Nigerians have lost hope in them. My concern is how to awaken
the consciousness of the followers into action(s).
It pains me a
lot and wrecks my heart when I read utterances like these which smack of the
highest hypocrisy and insincerity. It is the same Nigerian leaders who are
messing the country up; looting the treasury, indulging in corrupt practices,
insisting on power at all costs; instigating and promoting religious and ethnic
animosities that can lead to break-up or destabilisation; disregarding the
calls and cries of their people for betterment, succour, development, and
progress, etc.
These are the
same people who, while decimating our education, build their own private
schools and universities, and send their own children abroad for education with
looted funds; who, neglecting the health sector, find it convenient to treat
themselves and their families in overseas hospitals; who, refusing to maintain
or construct our road networks, find it convenient to buy and fly in private
jets; who, neglecting the development of our agriculture and food security have
private multi-billion naira farms; who award our oil blocks to themselves and
their friends and families, etc. They are the ULTIMATE HYPOCRITES!! They are
the ones destroying and destabilizing Nigeria for a very long time with their
greed, selfishness, ineptness, crave for power and wealth and corrupt
practices; but listen to the tune they're all singing now that election time is
coming in 2019.
Now they are
calling on us - the despondent people whose lives they have plummeted into desperation
and impoverishment and have refused to improve and uplift - to work harder.
They are calling on us to continue to bear the brunt of their recklessness, bad
leadership, and corrupt practices at all levels of government and so on. They
are calling on us to continue to be tolerant as they continue their looting.
I am very much
convinced that God will not come down and save Nigerians (from their leaders)
because He has given us everything to have a comfortable life but we are too
passive, gullible and because we celebrate thieves and mediocrity. The
alternative is that we continue in a shameless spiral of dependence.
Quite frankly I
don’t see how Nigeria can progress until Nigerians are cured of their
self-hatred, or according to ex-President Obasanjo, restructure their attitude
towards their country and how it is governed. It is this self-hatred; this
self-deprecation that translates into the politicians’ and government’s contempt
for the abilities or capabilities of Nigerians!
We need to
amend our laws to give teeth to the agencies which are supposed to fight corruption.
Our laws are not strict enough to ensure that sentences are stiff even when the
rare conviction is achieved. We also need legislation on Assets Forfeiture
which places the onus on an accused person to prove that he rightfully earned
the income with which he/she acquired properties which appear to be beyond
his/her legitimate resources. If a public official cannot account for how
he/she earned enough money to own companies, shares in quoted companies, hill-top
mansions, fleet of cars etc., such properties should be forfeited to the
Federal Government by a Court Order.
Inasmuch as
kidnapping and other social vices is a crime and must be condemned I will urge kidnappers
to turn their attention to our (s)elected representatives! Because lack of
visionary legislation is what is denying good utilization of our laws...you
people kidnapping our money are killing us, and are the real rogues and enemies
of the nation.
A former Senate
President, once made a daft and inane comment that kidnappers are embarrassing
Nigeria. How would kidnappers not embarrass the government when all what people
in government (PIGs) do is to embezzle the resources that would develop security
infrastructures and arm law enforcement agents with the best and sophisticated
tools to combat crime? The hearts of Nigerian leaders are dark and evil.
Nigerians must wake up, stand up, and hold their leaders responsible and
accountable for their actions and inactions.
Nigeria has
become a mindless and mediocre-run country, built upon a cult of personality
and enforced by a reign of corruption and insecurity. George Orwell, in his
famous satirical book, Animal Farm, demonstrates how simple political dogma can
be turned into malleable propaganda and the “seven commandments” are replaced
with the maxims, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal
than others".
There’s a
popular Nigerian pidgin slang/saying as “Monkey dey work, baboon dey chop”.
Meaning: People in power putting in less work but eating off their minion’s labour.
Nigerians would no longer accept a situation where some people would continue
to feast on the sweat of the people in the country in order to fill their
pockets. We must be relentless in our resolve to bring to an end the era of
‘monkey dey work, baboon dey chop’, which had characterized the abuse of the
rights of the people of Nigeria.
A politician
who works for his own self-interest and not the interest of the people is known
as a “snollygoster.”, especially a politician, who is guided by personal
advantage rather than by consistent, respectable principles. So, snollygosters
we have in 95% of our politicians in Nigeria, and let’s call a spade a spade,
that’s what they are.
“Monkey dey
work; baboon dey chop”. They want the citizens to work hard so they can have
more to loot. No, we don't want Nigeria to break up; but the way the
"Owners and Looters of Nigeria" are going, perhaps it is better if
Nigeria breaks up sooner than later. They have to change their ways and show
the way, the right way, and we will follow and work harder for ALL of us
(Nigeria), not for them, the irresponsible and corrupt, opportunist rulers/leaders.
For all the
recycled politicians in our House of Representatives, the Senate, States’
Houses of Assemblies and other key positions, it won’t take long before their
cups are full. Things can’t, must not be allowed to continue like this any
longer. Young energetic bloods, if we can call them that, or trust them, are
doing the work, but the weak old hags are getting the pay!
How can unity,
peace and progress be achieved in a climate of social, economic, and political deprivation,
aberration, and injustice; a situation where merit and hard work count for
nothing, and form takes precedence over substance, and there is an inverse
relationship between effort and reward?
Let us have a
society that is peaceful, liveable, stable, sanitised, corruption-free,
equitable and governed and rationally re-structured? This is the only way to
progress and development that will take care of poverty, malnutrition, early
death and infant mortality, economic depression, crime and corruption and
fractionalisation due to tribe and religion.
We cannot
continue to do things that have not been working for us the same way and
continue to hope we will get different results. There cannot be change without
commitment and willingness to change.
Let the TRUTH
be said always!!!
Akintokunbo A Adejumo
MSc, Dip Mngt, CIHM, MCMI, FITP
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