Why 113 million Nigerians Are Poor

January 24, 2015 / Adeola / Leave a comment

Do you know that about 1% of Nigerians control more than 80% of the country’s wealth?

In 2015, Nigeria is listed among the world’s fastest growing economy whereas more than 90% of the population considered themselves to be poor already in 2010 and the figures are rising!

By Adeola Aderounmu

Nigeria still remains one of the most endowed countries in the world. In terms of natural resources, minerals and enormous prospects for agricultural development Nigerians stands out as a reservoir of abundant wealth.

Unfortunately and paradoxically Nigeria is presently home to about 113 million people living in absolute poverty. This figure represents more than 90% of the population.

Most of the blame for this anomaly lies at the doorsteps of Nigerian politicians and their partners in crime in the top military wing. A weak citizenry shares out of this whole mess.

At independence in 1960 the unprepared politicians inherited a structure that was built mainly for the purpose of colonization by the British. It was difficult to manage and the federation though functional crumbled in 1966 when the military interrupted the nascent democratic process.

In 1999 the military provided the basis for the democracy that Nigeria precariously thrives upon today. Again, this was not the foundation that Nigeria needed because of the enormous influence of the military and the enthronement of Olusegun Obasanjo ensured that the country even today is still in bondage.

To live in extreme poverty means that one barely has a roof over one’s head. In extreme situations people living in poverty have nowhere to call a home. Having food to eat is a difficult adventure and having money to buy clothes is a sort of luxury for those living in poverty.

Poverty is a broad term no doubts. It is also reflected in the lives of several millions of Nigerians through high infant mortality, high maternal mortality, inadequate vaccination in some parts of the country and an embarrassing life expectancy value.

Poverty extends to lack of access to essential public services. Nigeria is probably suffering from over population as well. The public schools are very few, inadequate and very dysfunctional as private educational institutions have taken over the initiation of providing quality but very expensive educational services that are out of the reach of the poor masses.

In the same vein, access to quality health service is also very expensive as public health care remains under developed and sometimes costly. The percentage of Nigerians with access to paid employment is appalling, it’s very low. It is not uncommon for people to state that they are hustling. Hustling covers a wide range of illegal and seasonal ways of making money which unfortunately include armed robbery, fraud and vandalism.

All the parameters for defining or expressing poverty are unevenly distributed. The Niger Delta which is home to the oil wealth of Nigeria is also home to some of the world’s poorest people. From low literacy level to access to health care and vaccination, the northern part of Nigeria is even worst hit.

The recent media hype coming from CNN-Money putting Nigeria among the fastest growing economy in the world does not translate to food on the tables, roof over the heads and cloth on the bodies of the people suffering from poverty.

It must be emphasized that the economic wealth or well-being in Nigeria is concentrated in the hands of a very few people. About 1% of Nigerians control more than 80% of the country’s wealth.

This 1% is a category that includes Nigerian politicians and several elites across Nigeria. They have directly and indirectly kept the remaining citizens under check through bad politics, bad policies and non-implementations of the programs that are structured to eliminate poverty and meet the Millennium Development Goals.

Among this 1% are those who control not only the political scene, but also manipulate the oil wealth. Until recently the oil sector was the only major foreign exchange earner for Nigeria. It is still the biggest.

To be fair, a few sectors emerged recently and gave the Nigerian economy a boost. The film and music industry, the financial sector and not least the telecommunication sector that were not developed before the 1990s were taken into consideration when Nigeria was declared as the biggest economy in Africa in 2014.

Still, there exist a continuous neglect and misuse of the all the natural resources that are locked up in the different regions across Nigeria and agricultural is yet to take its number one position as it was before 1960.

There are probably 5% Nigerians doing well on their own. By hard work, luck, rare opportunities and the invisible hand of fate, these people are living above the poverty level and they have some measure of comfort. s

Whilst they can count themselves as fortunate, they should never use their own rare successes to classify or generalize the situation in Nigeria. They must never try to eradicate the reality that there are more than 113 million people living in poverty.

The lazy, irritating, selfish central governments over the years under both tropical military gangsters and civilian crooks have shunned the responsibilities of solving Nigeria’s political and economic problems.

There is no political will to return to true federalism which will remove the power at the center and help to systematically abolish the grip of the 1% controlling majority of Nigeria’s wealth.

Therefore Nigerians continue to buy generators to provide electricity for themselves. When the whole world is taken into account Nigeria probably provides the lowest level of electricity per citizen. Less than 4000 MW for a population that nears 200 million people is a disgrace to the intellectual capacity of Nigerians as a people.

In recent history both Goodluck Jonathan, Olusegun Obasanjo and their cronies in the power sector squandered and embezzled the funds earmarked for electricity production.

Obasanjo promised 6 000MW. Yar Adua promised 20 000MW within 2 years. Jonathan wanted to do a magical 5 000MW in 2014. All the monies allocated for all these promises are gone! Nigerian rulers and those working against the progress of the power sectors (still part of the 1%) are pure criminals!

Apart from electricity millions of Nigerians provide their own water system, they find home for themselves or struggle to build one, they tar their own communal roads, they provide their own security systems and they find their own diverse ways of self-preservation.

The manner of unequal distribution of wealth is dehumanizing. The politicians have failed to stimulate the economy based on the distribution and spread of the resources in Nigeria. They relied too long on the oil wealth and they squandered and mismanaged the proceeds from it.

The postulation in 2014 that Nigeria is the 26th biggest economy in the world and the biggest economy in Africa has no tangible effects on the 113 million poor people. For a country suffering from bad planning, bad governance and an apparent overpopulation problem the economic indices are mere abstract figures.

Economic jargons like GDP of 1722 dollars per person in Nigeria do not put food on the table of poor people. How can one convince all the families of the unemployed graduates who died during the immigration examination scam that the economy is truly improved? What fates await the millions of unemployed school leavers and graduates?

In 2015 Nigeria entered an election year. In several articles l have warned about the postponement of the elections under several headlines and contents. This is something that the PDP cooked up a long time ago. It shocked me when the main stream media and the opposition finally understood a script that has existed for more than 6 months. O well, who controls the mainstream media if not the greedy 1%?

Irrespective of the decision that prevails the success of the election will eventually depend on the preparedness of INEC and the security situation across Nigeria. But I will never understand how it is business as usual in a country that entered an election year with so many uncertainties in the air including a war in some parts.

The credibility of the election is highly desirable but it will be like living in a fool’s paradise to expect a miracle afterwards. Nigeria does not have a simple solution anymore, not even as long as the almighty powerful center continues to exist.

The politicians have no political ideology. It has been too easy to move from one political party to another because each politician continues to look to butter his or her own bread every election year.

Remaining in the 1% bracket is crucial to the politicians; it is a matter of life and death. Call it do or die, you are still right.

It is more obvious that the political parties are almost the same as APC now looks like a party of PDP and CPC veterans and dropouts.

Nigerian politicians display clearly the mantra-no permanent enemies in politics, just permanent interests. They are liars and their permanent interest is to sustain the 1% club of national cabal and elites. Since the institutions of governance are weak or destroyed, they always seem to have their ways in the end.

The solutions to Nigeria’s problem may lie with the enlightened populace but they have refused to act appropriately. Many of them look forward to belonging to the club of the 1% that owns the economic wealth of Nigeria in their hands. Alternatively they look forward to belonging to the wider 5% through hope and rare opportunities. They don’t care about the rest!

This sad trend (that people are quiet as evil continues to persist) is one of the reasons for the increase in the number of people living in poverty from 55% in 2004 to 61% in 2010.

Hence regardless of the economic growth widely reported recently, the wealth remains concentrated in the hands of a few.

In 2015, Nigeria is listed among the world’s fastest growing economy whereas more than 90% of the population considered themselves to be poor already in 2010 and the figures are rising!

Nigeria’s wealth is looted daily. More than 140 billion dollars were transferred illegally out of the country between 2002 and 2011 only. Where were they: Obasanjo, Sanusi J, Soludo, Yar Adua, Sanusi L, Jonathan and Mrs. Iweala? They are part of the 1% keeping the money safe for personal use at home and abroad!

Nigeria needs both a political and an economic way forward. It will not come from the 1% that controls 80% of the country’s wealth. It is not forthcoming from the less than 10% that thrives in the midst of this anomaly.

The politicians are part of the 1%, they are unwilling and it appears they will never change the useless political system that keeps them rich and above the law (with the immunity clause of life).

When the poor, more than 90% of the population of Nigeria, have nothing to eat, no clothes to wear and no roof over their heads anymore, they will one day pounce on the rich. For it seems that unless they stage a revolution they will never be free.

aderounmu@gmail.com

Reference: Nigeria’s goes to election in the shadow of Boko Haram, by Henrik Angerbrandt 2014

A Remarkable Pact

January 18, 2015January 18, 2015 / Adeola / Leave a comment

Buhari and Jonathan signed a peace agreement. Historically this is a very remarkable pact-that a peace agreement was signed before a war or in the absence of war between 2 factions.

A Remarkable Pact

By Adeola Aderounmu

The ugly tradition of politics in Nigeria remains and is madly sustained.

Several politicians flock from the PDP fold into the APC fold as the February 2015 elections draw closer. This massive, aimless exodus of purposeless, selfish and greedy politicians is unprecedented in the history of Nigeria.

Nigeria is peculiar.

I have emphasized before that there are rewards for political prostitutions in Nigeria. As it stands now, it is impossible to find the definitive line that separates the two main political parties in Nigeria.

A good friend based in Southie argued that APC is different from PDP: that when the PDP members cross carpet to the APC they will act differently because people are influenced by the type of company that they keep.

I disagree on this one because APC is increasingly becoming a party of PDP dropouts. So the party continues. Where is the change? Who is fooling who?

Every four years people fall to the same political scam. It’s like a ritual. For those who are entering into political awareness for the first or second time, they will soon learn the name of the game.

For several others suffering from political myopism because they have not been paying attention for a very long time, they have refused to learn that the system of politics in Nigeria is remarkably dysfunctional.

Since the clarion call for the abruption of the faulty political system to allow for the re-actualization of the dreams of the fighters of the Nigerian independence is not yet popular, the follow-follow majority continue to hold on to false hopes every four years.

As the national existence in denial continues, there are probably 3 scenarios that may emerge depending on if peradventure the forthcoming presidential election, against all odds, reached conclusion, or not.

The first scenario is that Goodluck Jonathan may continue in power. This is possible because global democracy has a nasty history of what is called the power of incumbency. Umaru Yar Adua missed out by his untimely death.

Despite the gross incompetence and laziness of corruption-laden Goodluck Jonathan, he may persist to extend beyond 2015 the worst post-military years of the Nigerian life which began with Obasanjo in 1999.

It is not only the power of incumbency that could tilt the votes in his favor. There is always a difference between what people might consider as social media popularity and the reality. Sweden and in fact the rest of Europe provide classical examples.

Racists and extremists’ political parties are winning more votes and finding their ways to European parliament despite the upsurge of campaign against them on the social media.

So the question is why do they keep getting so many votes? In Sweden the racist party is the third biggest political party. The party may not be popular online but it garnered massive votes on election days.

A lot of people think that Buhari will sweep the Nigerian presidential elections. How many of those who support Buhari at rallies have the cards to vote? Many Nigerians like to attend political rallies just the same way they attend religious crusades.

Nigerians are very good lookers too. If taxes are collected for looking, a lot of money will flow in to the government coffers daily in Nigeria. But the money will be looted anyway.

If we assume that Nigeria conducts a free and fair election, the social media denigration of Jonathan does not necessarily imply that the coast is clear for Buhari.

But there are crises and mayhem already in Nigeria that may escalate and hinder a free and fair election. The success of Boko Haram is an additional catalyst to any chaos that may trail the 2015 elections in Nigeria.

The second scenario is that Buhari too can win the election. If the massive support on the virtual social media and at the physical rallies translates into non-pretense active participation, then Buhari may win.

In addition if all the PDP prostitute politicians who cross-carpeted to APC can successfully convince their followers to do the same and if they all have the voters’ cards to exercise their rights, then Buhari may get a land-slide victory, l think.

The third scenario is what many people don’t want to talk about because it is highly undesirable, but not impossible.

If Nigeria reached an unresolved stalemate, say, as an outcome of the interplay of inconclusive presidential elections, violence around the country and escalation of the Boko Haram war on Northern Nigeria, then the future of Nigeria may be decided following long-drawn battles that will take place both on the political and war fields.

I maintain that it is very risky that Nigeria entered into this election season with many prevalent problems unsolved and many questions unanswered. The dirt under the carpet is massive and stinking.

Nigerians must know that there was a reason for the peace accord that was signed in Abuja in week 3 of 2015 by the principal members of both APC and PDP. If anyone thought that it was ordinary eyes, they better go wash off their eyes to see the handwriting on the wall and the reason for the peace agreement.

Again, Buhari and Jonathan signed a peace agreement. Historically this is a very remarkable pact-that a peace agreement was signed before a war or in the absence of war.

Nigerians must hope that this peace accord spreads to everyone including Boko Haram before the election. It is in fact a good deal and it is better to use it proactively than to try to use it by hindsight.

In the meantime isn’t it about time the intra-and interparty uprisings in Rivers State are stemmed before they spread to other parts of the country? We know that Amaechi has been promised a number of ministerial slots and the elimination process by murder had started in earnest! Wike and Amaechi will need their own peace accord before the River burns!

Nigeria faces her biggest challenge ever since the end of the civil war because an election is planned amidst a long list of uncertainties and in the face of Islamic fundamentalists waging a war in the northern region.

When, and if the dusts ever settle, the bigger challenges will remain because the future of any nation is more important than where she is now.

There are outstanding problems that are partially independent of whoever becomes the ruler of Nigeria as I call them.

Summarily, as a matter of urgency, Nigeria needs to:

End the war in the north and disarm the terrorists in the south and elsewhere
Find a permanent political solution
Face the current economic reality from a global perspective

The political solution ace lies with the National Assembly all the time. Instead of doing their jobs, they have over the years allowed themselves to be overshadowed by calls for Sovereign National conferences and all kinds of ruses called CONFABs.

The Nigerian National Assembly has, for so long, neglected its role of debating the political structure of Nigeria and how to systematically remove or reduce the power concentrated at the center. This negligence reflects the evil nature of the extreme selfishness of Nigerian politicians.

The system works for their pockets, makes them billionaires and promotes their ineptitudes. The system that has destroyed virtually all important organs of governance, probity and accountability makes Nigeria probably the most corrupt country in the world.

As the National Assembly continues to ignore this role, corruption persists as the most organized activity in Nigeria.

Hence successive corrupt governments continue to institute or plan own convention and conference. Mr. Jonathan wasted a fortune from tax payers’ money on this recently. The real National Assembly must start to debate even if the debate outlives a certain government.

It will not matter how long Nigerians beat about the bush. One day in the future, they will be forced to discuss reasonably through the national assembly. If it becomes too late the third scenario highlighted above may be triggered.

Then they’ll again have to bring their representatives who will discuss and negotiate the future of Nigeria by force so that they can come forward with a functional system of government.

On the economy, let me remind Nigeria that the future of crude oil does not look bright. The world is looking and it is finding alternatives to fossil fuels including crude oil. The argument is to reduce the extraction and refinery of crude oil to the production of raw materials that are related to medicine and household needs.

So it means that the diversification of the Nigerian economy cannot wait.

Solving the political problems and allowing the different regions in Nigeria to plan their survival and economic future are some of the ingredients that can move the country forward as a true federation the way it was before the ugly coups of 1966.

Nigeria must make use of her honest historians and political scientists to show the proper road maps.

All the fools, nonentities and dunces running to politics solely for money making need to be stopped!

Apart from an effective military that is well trained and combatant ready, the removal of the excess power at the center is probably the other most effective check to the nonsensical ambitions of Boko Haram.

This suggested political option is also probably the most significant check that can remove violence/chaos that characterized the election campaign seasons. For if the power at the center is removed or reduced, the hassles for it will almost vanish.

Definitely functional law and judiciary systems play their unquestionable roles.

All that is needed to put Nigeria among the best countries in the world in the next half a century, which also includes eradication of corruption at all levels, cannot be discussed in one essay.

The people must be educated, live in manageable planned family, learn the civics of trust, co-existence, tolerance, selflessness, dignity of labor, patriotism, nation building and commitment to humanity and nature.

These virtues will avail much and their acquisitions are not dependent on religion or any remarkable political agreement.

aderounmu@gmail.com

Obasanjo’s Medicine: Shake After Use

December 14, 2014December 14, 2014 / Adeola / 1 Comment

Obasanjo’s is shaking after taking his own medicine. He will not be canonized. He ran a corrupt government too. If it took him 8 years to realize he also handed over to corrupt people like him then he may have suffered from a form of premature dementia

Obasanjo’s Medicine: Shake After Use

By Adeola Aderounmu

Adeola Aderounmu

Around 1988 my physics teacher at Festac Grammar School Mr. Olatunji, a civil engineer by training told the class a joke. He said there was a man who was given a prescription by the doctor. So the man went his way, bought the medicine and took it.

After a few days his condition did not improve. So he picked up the bottle of medicine and read the instructions carefully. Somewhere on the bottle it stated “SHAKE BEFORE USE”.

When the man discovered the instruction, he started to jump up and down, whirled his waist and shook his belly at the same time. He wanted to ensure that all the medicine he had taken mix thoroughly inside of his body.

You’re guaranteed of getting wiser for every lesson you attended with Mr. Olatunji in front of the classroom. He told us at that time that with his knowledge and education-he should be sitting on the 35th floor of a civil engineering firm.

But he was stuck with us for a while, teaching and giving us hope for a brighter future. To make ends meet Mr. Olatunji also ran a private coaching outfit popularly called lesson. A very clever man with excellent skills in mathematics, I learnt later on that he found a job outside of teaching. I hope life treated you well, sir!

Now I look forward to reading General Obasanjo’s book. But I have seen a few of the previews that early birds have posted online.

Sometimes in late 2007, several Nigerians started the process of canonizing Obasanjo. It was either he controlled the media or the impatient people were doing an early comparison of his tenure as the ruler of Nigeria with that of the puppets that he almost singlehandedly installed after his failed third-term bid.

Some believed that Obasanjo brought in Yar Adua and Jonathan because he wanted to show Nigerians that they would have been better off with him as a life president. There are still many theories on why Obasanjo brought 2 peculiar political invalids to rule Nigeria.

I am trying to place Obasanjo in the positions of both the doctor and the patient in Mr. Olatunji’s narration.

As the former ruler of Nigeria for a total period of about 10 years, are there pieces of information in Obasanjo’s book that he could have applied in making Nigeria a better place for all? Were there prescriptions he didn’t read out loud when he addressed Nigerians for 10 years?

What efforts did Obasanjo make to minimize corruption under his regime as a military dictator and a civilian ruler? Does he have the justification to accuse other people of the same crimes that he committed? What efforts did he make to stop the introduction and implementation of extreme Islamism in Northern Nigeria?

Why did he employ the services of a criminal in the person of James Ibori to spearhead the change that would have ensured that he ran for the office of the Nigerian president for a record third time?

Then when the third term bid failed Obasanjo oversaw that Ibori continued to drain the resources of the people of the Niger Delta in promoting Yar Adua. Ibori, an ex-convict was almost going to become Nigeria’s vice president under Obasanjo’s watch, a road map that could also have placed him in line to the presidency.

Obasanjo is like the people he criticized in his new book. How did he get Otta back from scrap to a multi-billion naira project just after emerging as the military’s choice in 1999?

What happened to all the billions of naira spent on power generation under his watch? I hope I will read about his shady deals in his new book of revelations because from space Nigeria is still one of the darkest places in Africa today. What about the funds meant to equip the police force that ended up with his family members?

Obasanjo and some of the people mentioned in his book like Atiku where co-criminals at the helm of affairs in Nigeria. They even went a step ahead in their criminal pursuits in the international Halliburton bribery scandal. It was only in Nigeria that the criminals involved in this scandal were not punished. The criminal law system in Nigeria is a huge joke.

Obasanjo can win accolades for his book, for the gladiate contents. He likes to play to the gallery and that sort of excitement is what most Nigerians want.

They want to accept one form of evil above another. They want to agree that Obasanjo was better than Jonathan because the law system in Nigeria does not query, try and send people for prison for serious crimes like state murder and looting of the treasury with good governance as the opportunity cost.

How has the larger Nigerian populace benefitted from Obasanjo’s wit and tricks since he emerged as a PDP politician?

I am not thankful to Obasanjo for his contributions to the misery of the Nigerian life. I cannot appreciate him for his roles directly and indirectly in the demeaning of the Nigerian life.

In terms of establishing institutions and empowering people that will contribute to the progress of Nigeria Obasanjo is probably more clueless than Jonathan.

If the law and justice system in Nigeria are fair, would Obasanjo be a free man or a prisoner today? Who takes the responsibility for the political assassinations under his watch? Who killed Bola Ige? Did he provide the hints in his book?

Obasanjo enjoys having his hands and voice in everything. The preview of Obasanjo’s books that I’ve read placed him in the category of the people I described in my column last week-the people with foolish expectations.

He led a corrupt government and imposed another clueless corrupt government yet he’s out there crying over a foreseeable tragedy. What hypocrite!

In the same vein, when I would have read his book, I might still find it difficult to remove Obasanjo from the category of Nigerians on Lagbaja’s scale of mumuism.

Millions of Nigerians also fit in to the patient role in Mr. Olatunji’s story. They are now jumping up and down and wriggling their bellies because they have taken their medicines without reading the label where it state shake before use. We’ll see where this takes them in February 2015.

Obasanjo knew that Jonathan was incompetent as the governor of Bayelsa. Everybody in Bayelsa knew his deputy was in charge when he was a governor. If Obasanjo was not aware of that then he must have suffered from a premature dementia. If it took Obasanjo 8 years to realize that he handed over to a corrupt government like the one he managed, then he needs a quick help.

Millions of Nigerians were basking in 2011: we are voting for Jonathan, not the PDP. It was laughable, yet very sad to read the collective reasoning of a people drained of both mental and physical strengths. What options were available anyway? An endless dilemma it must be.

It sounded as foolish as when Babangida said he did not cancel the results of the 1993 elections, that he only annulled it. It’s the same rigmarole when he said he was stepping aside when he ought to have been arrested and imprisoned for treason.

It was that fateful cancelled elections that Obasanjo benefitted from. He even campaigned on behalf of the treason perpetrators like Ibrahim Babangida. Obasanjo said MKO Abiola was not the messiah.

Obasanjo’s messiah for Nigeria since 2009 was Mr. Jonathan. When did he detect the truth that now set his wicked mind free?

I am making efforts to get Obasanjo’s books to my domain. I look forward to reading Obasanjo’s explanation as to why he collected the Halliburton bribe. Also I want to know how much he got. Was it a third of $74m or a straight N27b?

I will like to read Obasanjo’s book so I can mock his gullibility-that at his right and ripe ages in 1979 (Shagari), 1993 (Abiola), 2007 (Yar Adua) and 2011 (Jonathan) he was fooled or he fooled Nigerians.

Obasanjo’s is now shaking after taking his own medicine. Too late I am sorry.

When Mr. Obasanjo is done with whirling his waist or shaking his belly, I hope someone can tell him that some people actually read the labels and instructions on their medicines before they swallowed them.

If he ever gets another chance in his life time, one hopes that he reads the label before prescribing or taking the medicine himself.

For now he should stop crying over the milk he spilled as the search for true and exemplary leaders continue in the rising struggle to liberate Nigeria and Nigerians.

aderounmu@gmail.com

The Cost Of Freedom

October 5, 2014 / Adeola / 1 Comment

Unless a country or a group of people are willingly to genuinely give their today in the name of true freedom, their children will never be free tomorrow.

The Cost Of Freedom

Which Way Nigeria?

By Adeola Aderounmu

Nigeria’s 54th year as a so-called independent country was marked in several ways. One headline that caught my attention was the one that stated that poverty in Nigeria has been reduced by 50%.

The headline is first class fraud.

Statistics was one of my favourite subjects during my first and second degrees at the University of Lagos. It is one of those subjects that I really felt comfortable doing. At Idiaraba it was Medical Statistics and oh, how I enjoyed every bit of it and the lecturer was awesome.

Poverty may have been reduced by 50%, it depends on the sample size or the part of the population where you draw your samples from.

So I can conclude that if we take the population of the follow-follow people flocking Aso Rock since the inception of Jonathan’s administration, he has successfully tackled the poverty among 50% of the ass-lickers including the expanding society of Aso Rock Bull Dogs.

If I cast my dragnets at the places that I know like Oshodi, Ojuelegba or Okokomaiko, my data will produce a result that will make nonsense of the results produced by some drunkards in Aso Rock. More than 90% of the people will be below poverty level and living on less than N500 a day.

For more than ever before majority of Nigerians groan under an increasingly senseless and insensitive government. Increasing the death rate and lowering the life expectancy of a population does not mean that poverty has been reduced.

In several essays I have depicted the nature, spread and characteristics of poverty in Nigeria as one of the worst hidden tragedies in the world. I have also been very quick to dismiss the claims of the few people who escaped the threshold of poverty sometimes through luck or unmerited opportunities that their situations cannot be used as the yardstick.

The title of this essay came as a result of my feelings in recent months. I’ll approach it.

I do know, and convincingly too that there are a few people in Sweden who have cultivated the habits of reading my articles, not because they want to be “my readers” but because they “enjoy” this culture of gossiping about “what did he write this week”?

I am happy for them, that they found a weekly delight.

I’ll keep them in the dark by not defining their range but amongst them are people who need to understand though that I have the right to my views about Nigeria no matter what they think or feel.

I cannot help those who found out too late that they had been talking to someone who has been writing about Nigeria since 2001.

One of my pictures on Facebook must have tilted the table over. I had a T-shirt with the inscription Oduduwa republic on my mind. It is one of my ideas of freedom. The image must have gone viral among some folks. I am still happy for them and I hope they get a pat on the back when they make their reports.

I wonder how much shock my Swedish-Nigerian readers suffered in the last 4 weeks when I had written stories about love. I will choose love any day over a failed country under the bondage of crazy and deaf rulers.

The love stories came to me after a recent trip to Finland. I think my ancestors love nature and they prefer the solitude of a calm sea to bring me teachings and guidance.

Today I wanted to write a story about “The Dreamer Boy” but I thought some people will like to know if I am still in tune with Nigeria and how the drunkards have reduced poverty by 50%.

What is more interesting than this blatant lie is the growth and spread of individuals, groups and associations that are intensifying their doubts about their continuous recognitions as Nigerians.

They are weighing the options of bailing out of a jaga-jaga Nigeria. There are many t-shirts nowadays with a lot of messages and one boy even tore his green passport and posted it on YouTube.

I have a lot of reflections on this emerging trend especially among “Nigerians” who are far away from their regions in Nigeria, based mostly in Europe, Asia and America.

For the Nigeria we have today became a total mess as a result of our collective failures as citizens and participants or onlookers in the successive corrupt and useless governments in Nigeria over the years and even to this day in October 2014.

The Nigeria of today was not the dream of the men and women who fought collectively to wrestle the country from the colonialists.

The reason we write or recite or even highlights repeatedly our failures as a country is because some people need the education at some point on what has happened and what we expected. Where Nigeria is today on the scale of human development and quality of life is a complete disgrace to the intellectual abilities of the African race.

One failed government blames the other and the cycle of idiocy rotates as nobody tackles the menaces of corruption, federal character (yes, it is a menace), nepotism and tribalism.

It was the greed in Nigerians and the corruption in their veins that exposed the madness of the colonialists who married different nations into one entity. “Irreconcilable differences” is an expression made in Nigeria. The crazy rulers destroyed the institutions of governance and many crazy people in government stole for themselves, their friends and their unborn generations-even to this day.

Since the mid-1960s, no government has made efforts to return power and freedom to the regions just the way it was when education, health and technological developments were functional until greed and outright stupidity reared their ugly heads.

The process of divide and rule, looting and total disregard for the rules of law continued and reached a new dimension since the inception of pseudo-democracy in 1999.

For Nigeria I have oscillated between hope and hopelessness and my understanding of statistics says it is time to try something else.

I am all for the freedom and the emancipation of the people who are currently enslaved in Nigeria.

It is imperative to define the modalities and the cost of freedom so that the sycophants and the major players of today do not ruin the future of our children and grandchildren the same way they ruined our parents lives and displaced us to different places around the globe.

I wish that all the groups and associations around the world will emerge from their clandestine positions and start to talk openly. The Scottish people just had a vote. The outcome was not as important as the action they took but it will define the things to come in the future. Their children will grow up feeling more secured.

It is old fashioned to seek freedom in the dark rooms. It is very primitive to seek independence through confidential emails or social media closed groups.

If you want something, make it open, make it plain. Go for it and carry the people who need the change along.

Healthy debates, open groups, open discussions and other form of transparent dealings may help to check some of my personal fears regarding the stakeholders in all these clandestine groups scattered around the world.

What is the cost of freedom?

The cost of freedom lies in service to humanity. It is not looting the treasury and telling stupid lies about security and poverty.

The cost of freedom in public service lies in willingness to die at the altar of truth. It is not in building houses of gold on the polluted land across Nigeria.

The cost of freedom is the deprivation that comes with the belief that humanity comes before self.

The cost of freedom will be correlated to conventional free thinking and explorative mindedness.

It will not be locked to dying for the sake of acquiring virgins in an imaginary place. It will not have anything to do with deadly assembly at the feet of gangster mortals called prophets. The cost of freedom will rid a nation of the defenders of evil.

Unless a country or a group of people are willingly to genuinely give their today in the name of true freedom, their children will never be free tomorrow.

For the nations entangled in Nigeria these sacrifices are non-negotiable. Along with the irrepressible truth, they will be the ultimate cost of freedom.

aderounmu@gmail.com

Criminals and Looters in Government Are Not Distracted

June 8, 2014June 8, 2014 / Adeola / Leave a comment

By Adeola Aderounmu

It is the people of Nigeria who have turned all their attentions away from what brought them to the present predicament that threatens the totality of their existence. The thieves in government have kept their focus intact.

In almost every part of the world one of the most talked about phenomena these days is undoubtedly the “bring back our girls” campaign. It is this sort of scenario that some opportunists (individuals and groups) have waited for to bring them back to public space and to win sentiments borne plainly out of hypocrisy and eye/lip services. Some are simply capitalising on the situation to give their own agenda a lift.

Meanwhile as the government of Nigeria was perambulating and talking rubbish everyday and buying the time it doesn’t have, the business of stealing and cover-ups in government are going on as usual. It is possible because stealing according to Mr. Jonathan is not corruption and because the people are suffering from the Nigerian syndrome. I have defined the Nigerian syndrome in a previous essay.

One thoughtless fellow called Maku spoke on behalf of the government and said that it is the main opposition party that is organising the “bring back our girls” campaigns. I didn’t know that all the people bouncing on the trampoline of the campaign around the world including notable celebrities in Hollywood now belong to the Nigerian APC. The APC of Nigeria must be the biggest political party in the world.

The people of Nigeria are easily distracted. This is a recurring dilemma for them. They cannot keep up with the loads of distractions provided by the failed and selfish governments since 1960. They don’t asked questions once you load them with deceits. When they asked questions, they move onto the next thing without seeking answers to their questions. Stupid answers are often satisfactory. These are parts of the reasons why nobody has found the courage to call Babangida a thief and initiate his prosecution for all the missing oil money during the gulf war.

Invariably, from one failed government to another the stories are similar. Oil money is always missing. If it is not at the NNPC, it will be among the execu-thieves. This oil money is so slippery it can also get missing at the state and local levels. As a tradition, oil money is always missing in Nigeria.

Now Nigerians have forgotten about the unanswered allegations of several billions of dollars that the Jonathan government also cannot account for. This confused government set up a committee to look into the matter. That in itself is a partial admittance that something is missing anyway. Then in the middle of the entire wahala Mr. Jonathan went on air during his chat to tell the world that “America will know” if billions of dollars is missing.

Why did Jonathan set up a committee to ascertain the allegations made by the central bank? Mr. Jonathan should just have asked “America” since “America will know”. Anyway the senate committee has now dismissed the allegation and concluded that “no money is missing”. This is despite the fact that there is absence of proper coordination between Nigeria’s financial bodies concerned with the sale of crude oil. We can now turn off the sound of Fela’s music-Oil money is (not) missing.

In any case the Nigeria house of representa-thieves and legis-looters are not unfamiliar with the way the corrupt government of Nigeria operates. Nigerians have myopic memories and are long-suffering. Nigerians are the most distracted group of citizens in the world. They suffer from their own syndrome-the Nigerian syndrome.

Many arguments, verbal or written efforts to make Nigerians reason are lost on many grounds not least on the tribal cards. Don’t argue with an average Nigerian on the tenets of good governance. The Nigerian syndrome is yet incurable. Yea right, the problem of looting did not start with Jonathan…why should we complain now? Why did you leave out Obasanjo? What of Shagari? The reasons not to start and finish the war on bad governance have been integrated into the cycle of idiocy in downtown Bongo.

The ethnic card will even be used to justify the crimes committed by one governor Akpabio. This man has ruled for 7 years in Akwa Ibom and as he prepares to leave the seat of government, he ensured that his financial future is secured. In Nigeria, criminals continue to parade the government houses in different forms and shade.

The selfish and self-serving Governor of Akwa Ibom, Mr. Akpabio (This man has no record of mental or physical disability to support his pension. But he will get:N200 million per annum, basic, N100 million, medical allowance, 5-bedroom maisonette, Accommodation allowance of 500 per cent of annual basic salary, Medical allowance not exceeding N12 million per annum for one surviving spouse)

There is definitely going to be an argument that he was a good governor or that he could have looted the money anyway like Babangida and others. In Nigeria a critic may never win any argument. The Nigerian syndrome is vast.

In Uyo and across all of Akwa-Ibom, I’m looking forward to the following campaigns, #akpabiobringbackourmoney

#no-pensionforakpabio

#socialjusticeforall

#socialsecurityforakwaibomites.

Nigeria remains in a big mess today for several reasons that some of us are not tired to write about every week. It is very important that the collective intellectual consciousness of the people do not give in. It must not dwindle. It must tarry and persist. For in relenting, evil will continue to rise and subdue good totally.

Nigerians must know that there will be no messiah in Abuja, not now, not in 2015. The system of government is so ill-structured that Abuja would not be a major factor for the eventual freedom and stability of Nigeria. Hence it is very important that we don’t forget to tune up the ways that may end the senselessness in government whilst we point out the persistent evil and crimes in the land,

Nigerians must ensure that the non-corrupt intellectual class rises up to do the needed. In several states in Nigeria, former criminals, former thugs and former riff-raff hold sway in governance. Government has been used to reward insolence and barbarism. In government it has remain impossible to be above board. All who come into it exit it as criminals or with criminal tendencies. It’s worse for those who came in as criminals. Regardless they all ruined Nigeria!

In every region, in every community, in very part of Nigeria, there is a need to change the mentalities of the people. I am aware of the agitation of the people from Western Nigeria. They are seeking self-determination or autonomy. But they must know that some people amongst them were part of the problems with Nigeria. They have been part of this nonsense going on in Nigeria since the fake independence in 1960. Therein lies a huge danger ahead should Western Nigeria emerge today.

The autonomy of Western Nigeria should not be sought as a license for the elongation of criminalities in the Oduduwa region. Before dawn, the Yorubas should have a full functional road map and blue print that will ensure that their self-governance does not lead to self-destruction.

In the end all the geo-political regions of Nigeria should be allowed to determine their own future. The benefit or probability of marching on Abuja/Aso rock by criminals and terrorists should be zeroed.

I strongly hold the personal view that irrespective of the aims of the Northern terrorists, and irrespective of the primary goals of their sponsors, the dismantling of the useless unitary government will promote the emergence of regional autonomy and make a complete mess of their ambitions. Who will march to Abuja or throw bombs in Abuja if there is no government there to be overthrown or if the power in Abuja is ceremonial?

I reiterate that no group of people would allow its own race to self-destruct or to be persecuted unjustly when the conditions for social justice and fair play are the rules and not the exceptions. A word is enough for the wise goes the Yoruba adage. When received, it becomes whole within.

Talking about social justice, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. I hope that Mr. Akpabio has made plans to ensure that all the unemployed people of Akwa Ibom will enjoy some benefits. If the people of Akwa Ibom have no social security in place, they have the right to sack all the dummies who rubber-stamped Akpabio’s looting largess.

If the people of Akwa-Ibom remain quiet and passive, they are drowned in the Nigerian syndrome. They are probably distracted as the looting continues. They are not alone, Nigerians are all guilty of the lack of will to sack corrupt governments and make them face proper justice. They are guilty of being at home with a system that is not working. It beats my imaginations!

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(After publishing this story, there are now more information that some ex-governors in Nigeria started this criminal activity of milking the states they ruled over, so Mr. Akpabio is not the only governor with criminal tendencies. There are many of them in Nigeria)