Article published in The Nation Newspaper
09/06/2010
Nigerians suffer daily pain and 50 years is too long not to have turned pain to pleasure of living. Instant power is a matter of ‘Urgent National Importance’ for state and federal governments and not a luxury. Generators must be removed from government offices and homes. Imagine never smelling diesel fumes and turning off your generator forever–easily possible by a serious service-orientated government. Meanwhile harness the sun if you can. Solar energy is the future in sunless UK, so why not in sunny Nigeria? Solar is our saviour. They cannot take it from us.
Number 9 Northumberland Place, London, Nigeria’s High Commisssion, does show adequate poster evidence of our 50th anniversary. Hopefully the staff are ‘nice not nasty’.
The World Cup 2010 South Africa visitors must visit the MTN Science Centre. Google it. They should then demand, from MTN Nigeria such permanent centres for Nigerian youth, instead of promoting this mindless instant millionaires nonsence that contibutes nothing to development. Or does MTN think Nigerian children are not brainy enough to benefit? Dangote and Otedola, Nigeria’s ‘declared’ twin $ billionaires and the Babangidas of Nigeria should also build Dangote, Otedola and Babangida Science Exhibition Centres to compensate us for their wealth made from our ‘business’. We need Dangote, Otedola and Babangida Science Centres more than Arsenal needs Dangote’s $96-150m and more than Babangida needs the Presidency. So ‘I Beg Babangida’ to spend all electioneering funds on the youth of Nigeria. Let Babangida’s ambition be to die broke having given his money to Nigeria’s school libraries for a N100,000 ‘Maryam Babangida Library Shelf’ in the 70,000 schools-N7b. There are 50+ million Nigerian youth waiting to be stimulated intellectually-not subjugated politically.
It does not take much to please a suffering population. Why is it very difficult for Nigerians to be servants and not masters of the civilian population? Granted the word ‘servant’ is becoming political mantra. The idea that they are to serve and not extort seems a difficult one to get across. This must change through media and other Q & A policy, not personality, debates and meetings pre-2011 election. Politicans must present blueprints not bribes.
If you are ‘un’-fortunate enough to travel abroad to progressive service nations, you will weep for the unnecessary sufferings of our people just because we are Africans of low expectation. Africans have inflicted on Africans more punishment than the colonials and wars of ‘liberation’. Nigeria is a particularly bitter example as all we had to do was respect ourselves and work to models of democracy and modernity.
In the last twenty years there has been much more African Vs African conflict. The ethnic, myopic, criminal policies of federal and state powers have brought us nothing of stature as a country struggling to be a nation. We build ministries not buildings for public use. Travel shows one what others have done with power and visionary, honest leadership so we know the expecation and the possible. Because we have low standards must we use the bush and pit latrine forever or use candle, lamp and generator forever? Because we have a blind central rulership in spite of our wrong nomenclature of ‘federation’, we do not have to accept needless pothole deaths and billions of wasted hours in preventable standstill traffic on an obsolete road network. Four lane each side roads are routine intercity roads elsewhere!
Every country one visits specialises in visitors, except Nigeria where we face police checkpoints 20-30 times daily but are still unsafe. Abroad one checkpoint one felt very safe. Our consistently poor government concentratS on itself, ignoring the poor. Soon we will celebrate our poor government by giving high national honours, MON, GCON, to those whose policies have pauperised us and crippled our development. Na wa O!
If not for international pressure through UN-led MDGs, Aviation and Sea Port standards and ATM, AIDS, TB, Malaria controls do you seriously think any Nigerian government would have ‘moved’ forward in these service areas? Even the highest professional bodies fail to speak out and are crippled and subjugated to the lowest politician. Engineers could have solved the power thing merely by adding 1000MW annually. Nigeria needs 100,000Mw. The crooked or ignorant politician would still have stolen as they do worldwide but we would have had electricity for work, hospitals, education, research, enjoyment and reduced our power bill by 90%.
In one small town of other countries there are more power, bridges and flyovers than in the whole of Nigeria. Why? Because they are needed for the contentment and travel of the population, not politics or ethnicity. Where are our second and even third Niger Bridge? When will the Ore Benin road be permanently motorable and safe all year round? When will the East West road be completed? When will we have a multitrack vertical and horizontal railway system, local by state and interstate? When will the Federal government relinquish its strangulatory grip on our railways, ports, highways and give them to the states? Our feudal ethnic federalism must move into the 21 Century. Travel to the Middle East and learn the lessons of development. Those politicians who travel must come home to build. Development is about service. Every other country has grasped the value of high speed train. Stop stealing and start seriously serving the people. CountdowNigeria@50 urgently demands ‘fast’ motorable East-West, Ore-Benin and Lagos-Ibadan-Ilorin roads by 1-10-2010. End the agony of being a Nigerian.