FEATURE ARTICLE

Temple Chima UbochiFriday, November 17, 2017
[email protected]
Bonn, Germany

NIGERIA: A COUNTRY UNDER SPELL (3)

Continued from Part 2

When an apology is due, give it freely, then follow your apology with action (Judy Ford)

Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past (Tryon Edwards)

This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice (Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.)

You know your country is dying when you have to make a distinction between what is moral and ethical, and what is legal (John De Armond)

he genocide called civil war changed everything for Nigeria, but, unfortunately, we haven't been able to do the right thing thereafter. We, Ndiigbo, say that "he, who doesn't know where the rain starts beating him, would not know where it stops (beating him)". Since the time the Nigerian government and the military forces, serving the interest of their Fulani (feudal) Lords and their foreign masters, committed genocide against the people of the old Eastern Region, thereby killing even women and children, who were defenceless, the country has seen no progress and has known no peace, as it has being engulfed, at one time or the other, by interethnic bickering, strife, and animosity. And there will be no peace and progress until Nigeria apologizes for the genocide and other senseless killings, and the people who paid the ultimate price are recognized. That will be the brave thing Nigerian leaders should do now, just as Elmer Davis (1890 -1958) wrote that "this nation will be the land of the free only (if) it is the home of the brave".

As I noted in the preceding part of this article, the innocent blood wasted since the genocide till date are crying for justice, and nothing good will come out of Nigeria until justice is done! The blood of the innocent wasted want recognition; the whole of former Eastern Region and some other parts of Nigeria are of blood; those innocent people killed want a decent burial. If those people are not pacified (not diabolically, not ritually), Nigeria will be groping in the dark for a long time to come! Blood is too precious to waste, and the after-effect is what has been affecting Nigeria till now. You can't be destroying what you didn't create and go scout-free (Only God is the giver and should be the taker of life, and not any human being). That's why Nigeria is a land of paradoxes: A land of intellectuals with an illiterate president; a land with oil but imports refined petroleum products; a land surrounded by sea with no drinking water (boreholes everywhere), and is importing fishes and other seafood; a country with arable land but can't feed itself; a land that produces engineers, but has only dilapidated roads and infrastructure; a land with courts and judges, but there's no justice, as money rules everything.

The spell makes Nigeria a land that has no industrial base; as such, it exports its agricultural commodities for peanut, and pays 100 folds to import their finished products; a land, 57 years after independence, still imports toothpicks; a land that's struggling to produce pencils, in this century, when almost all the other countries it started the race of nationhood with are sending satellites into orbit.

Because of the spell; Nigeria's a land with churches or mosques in almost every street, but human parts can be purchased with ease, and other crimes are rife, there; a land that sends it soldiers on peace keeping missions abroad, but has no peace at home; a land with so many of its doctors all over world, and people go abroad for medical checkups - Nigerians at home are heavy in laziness while the Nigerian migrants are forcefully productive in rich America and European countries; a land where unemployment is the baptismal name for graduates.

Due to the spell, Nigeria's a country where leaders assign more importance to the perpetuation of themselves in power than to the collective security of the people. Babangida, as a military president, in other to prevent would be coup plotters from laying their arms on weapons, turned into a Father Christmas by giving away our warplanes and armored vehicles to other countries such as the Republic of Congo etc. when our forces then didn't even had enough, and years later, Nigeria started looking for where to buy warplanes and military equipment to fight Boko Haram.

The spell made Nigeria a land that once had a lot of money, but, Gowon, who was the then head of state, didn't know what to do with it, and he went on to pay off the debts of some other countries, instead of using the money to put the country on an industrial pedestal. He should have built more universities, refineries, fertilizer companies, steel complexes etc with the money wasted during that era.

Nigeria has proved that the difference between poor and rich nation does not depend on available resources. Until Nigeria gets the genocide committed against the Easterners behind it by apologizing and pacifying the souls of the dead, it will continue to be a rich country, in all ramifications, but with poor citizens. As someone pointed out to me, in WhatsApp, Japan has limited territory, 80% mountainous, unsuitable for residence, agriculture or farming, but is the third largest economy in the world. Japan is like an immense floating factory, importing raw materials from across the whole world, and exporting manufactured products.

Switzerland is unable to grow cocoa, yet produces the world's best chocolate. In their small territory, Switzerland rears animals and cultivates the land only for four months in a year (due to winter), nevertheless manufactures the best milk products. A small country which is an image of security that has made it the strongest banking system in the world!

South Korea doesn't have oil but has the world's largest refinery. It exports refined petroleum. It has no grain of Ore, and yet it's the world's largest shipbuilder. It has no copper, but it's the world's most electrically and electronically wired country.

As I noted before, the spell makes Nigeria a country where the leaders steal everything while leaving the people in penury. Look at this:

LIST OF MINIMUM WAGES BY COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD:

1. Nigeria - $50 (N18,000)

2. Algeria - $175 (N62,000)

3. Belgium - $1,562 (N553,000)

4. Cameroun - 36, 270 CFA ($75) (N27,000)

5. Chad - $120 (N43,000)

6. Denmark - $1,820 (N655,000)

7. Libya - $430 (N155,000)

8. Japan - $1,000 (N360, 000)

9. Cote D'Ivoire - 36, 607 CFA ($72) (N26,000)

10. New Zealand - $2, 520 (N906,000)

11. Luxemburg - $2,500 (N899,000)

12. Spain - $760 (N273, 000)

13. Switzerland - 5, 620 francs ($1009, 69) (N363,000)

14. USA - $11 per hour (N4, 000 per hour).

(Figures, in Naira, can change based on the exchange rate at that point in time)

Ironically, Nigerian politicians earn the highest salaries in the whole world. In Luxemburg, where the minimum wage is $2,500, their lawmakers are paid $7, 400. In Libya, where the minimum wage is $430, law makers earn $3000. In Nigeria, where the minimum wage is $50 (N18, 000), law makers earn about $65,000 (N23m). How long will this continue?

To be continued!

TIT BITS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6QKqFPRZSA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF5oldfSpJI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwEQoVJOcI8

THE THANX IS ALL YOURS!!!

Continued from Part 2

IMAGES IN THE NEWS