By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi
The heading of the article would no doubt shock many compatriots, but believe me yours faithfully is one unapologetic Nigerian, and I challenge anyone to prove me otherwise.
First and foremost, Nigeria is a country that a couple of years ago, a world wide survey found it to be the most religious country in the world. Another global survey found the country to have the most Muslims who have memorised the Holy Quran over and above all other Islamic nations. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most corrupt in the world, a situation that works against, and defies all efforts at development.
More than sixty four years after removing the york of colonialism, Nigeria’s, ‘development’ has not gone beyond considering the constant supplies of water and electricity as a luxury. In this country of human and mineral riches, water and electricity remain within the constant reach of the few in the society who can afford them.
Nigeria is a country with many leaders who, however, act and behave like rulers. Rulers they in fact are, not the leaders they were democratically elected to be. The former think about themselves first, while the latter think about the people first. Moreover, our ‘leaders’ feel so insecure that they surround themselves with all manner of security personnel, leaving most of their people exposed to the real and imagined danger of insecurity in the land. And with the ‘yes’ people around them, they saw themselves as more important than everyone else in the society.
It is also a country where confessed followers of traditional religion live most of their lives in foreign lands, particularly the western world. It is also a place where those who parade themselves as ‘haters’ of the western countries and their cultures, could hardly speak their languages, but the borrowed tongues of the people they claim to ‘hate’. Such people also lap up some aspects of the bad side of the foreigners’s culture, pridefully.
Though abundantly rich in oil, gas and many other material resources, Nigeria remains a country with a very insignificant number of wealthy people, but a preponderance of poor people. Most of the poor ONLY manage to survive daily, because the country lacks the good leadership to attend to their needs, over the years.
It is still a place on the African continent, blessed with the sufficient population and the material resources to make it the envy of the other countries in terms of development, but persistently short of the patriots to make it happen.
Our country is also a land with retrogressive locals, most of whom would cooperate with the white people to sabotage it at the slightest chance, if there was money to be made. They and their immediate family could leave the country at the start of trouble. They had the ill gotten money to afford the quick exit from the ‘burning’ land to safety, and return only when things have returned to their liking for further rape.
Nigeria is yet another country where owners of unexplained fortune, regardless of how it was made, are celebrated in the society, because of the craze on its shores to out accumulate the next person. Hence, the blind rush to accumulate even from the Commonwealth, which is often the case.
We all believe that there is death, from which no living thing could escape, and, for the Muslims, the belief in accounting for all that was acquired while in this world. Yet, many of us appear not to believe in the latter but only the former.
This might best be observed in the blind quest to accumulate riches, without much thought on how it was acquired. Legally or illegally. And Nigeria is supposed to be the most religious country in the world, with the highest population of Qur’anic memorisers, well ahead of second placed Indonesia, which has the highest population of 241 million Muslims twice the Nigeria’s 104 million.
It is in Nigeria where the petty thief, whose crime is no more than what he would use to buy what to eat once, is sent to many years in correctional homes (prisons), while those who stole billions are treated with ‘respect’ by the judges and the prosecutors, who appear to drag their feet in the matter. Sometimes, the government even agrees to what is called a ‘flea bargain’ with the ‘thieving’ person, to return a percentage of what they stole from the public till.
Some unfortunate innocent people are even swapped with ‘condemned’ criminals, who have the money to buy their way out of the noose of the hangman. The innocent persons were often arrested on trumped up charges on the street on the night before the execution of the actual condemned criminal.
This was the confession of a retired uniformed officer, who spoke of his greatest regret while in service. Paid his monthly salary from the public till to protect the society from the evil activities of the criminal, the official ended up arresting innocent citizens, who knew nothing about the crimes of the condemned criminal or the criminal offence they committed to warrant their arrest.
The quest for the western knowledge in Nigeria, and with Nigerians is legendary. Yet the university teachers, under the auspices of the Association of Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) was most of the time on strike action, in a country where paper qualification is given more recognition over practical know how.
Ironically, the university lecturers are among those who take their children to foreign lands for degrees. The children who have the head are sponsored to the best universities in the world by the parents that could afford to pay. Those who could not afford, either financially or academically, go to any length to ‘BUY’ even half baked degrees from half baked universities in half baked nations, so rich in crooks who have little or no conscience at all.
During the First Republic, the military administration of General Murtala Ramat Mohammed, of glorious memory, and a few of his successors, both civilians and military, assisted other countries to develop financially, economically and environmentally, as well as gain freedom from colonialism. Saudi Arabia and South Africa, to name a few of the beneficiaries of the benevolence of our yesteryears leaders to fellow under developed nations.
But their successors over the years have continued in the opposite direction, where they prefer to build themselves rather than build the nation. The truism of the claim could be gleaned from the stark contrast between the stupendous wealth possessed by some of them, against the backdrop of the under development of the country, after many years of political independence.
Again, Nigeria is a country where most compatriots, not necessarily the competitors, are not happy, and therefore do not help in the growth of the business interests of fellow citizens. Instead, they try to assist in sabotaging such endeavours, which most of them could not do, even if they have the means.
The International Oil Companies (IOC) try all the dirty shenanigans within their armoury to strangulate the local refinery built by dollar billionaire, Alhaji Aliyu Dangote. The biggest single-train refinery in the world, the Dangote refinery was built at a staggering cost of 20 billion US dollars ($20 billion), with a view to producing 53 million litres of petroleum products daily.
Yet, the IOC, with the active collaboration, connivance and support of some Nigerians was not happy with this gargantuan effort of the richest black person on earth, to enrich the country, add value to the country’s image and reduce the hardship faced by his poor compatriots. The poor who daily troop to the fuel stations to join the ever present cues to purchase fuel with difficulty, due to the scarcity caused by the deliberate unpatriotic actions and inactions of some opportune nationals, in cohorts with their foreign collaborators.
Nigeria is abundantly blessed with petroleum resources, but the lesser mortals among its over 210 million people pay through their nose for fuel when and where it is available.
Most grown up Nigerians with a measure of education knows that the IOCs are not here to make money only, they are in the country as representatives of their mother countries to ensure that their host nation remains at their beck and call all the time.
They will therefore do whatever they could do to prevent the development of the host country, and from becoming a strong and independent nation, that will not depend solely on the white person for survival.
Finding conflict of interests among working Nigerians is not a rocket science, since there are many ranking people on the land who do other businesses that ‘made’ them very rich while ‘glued’ to their official positions. They always claim to ‘make’ their stupendous fortune that way. Even if they did, why was it done while doing what the government was paying them for?
This was the confession of another public uniformed personnel who openly boasted of being worth N20 billion that he ‘allegedly’ acquired ‘legally’ while serving the country. He made the boast to a mammoth crowd during a reception for him one day after his retirement from public service.
The issue of ‘contradictions’ in Nigeria is a vast field that only the academics and the other studios type, like my very good friend, BOZO, can really do justice to it, not an ordinary mortal like yours sincerely.
Malam Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.