The Future of Nigeria

Words are welling up inside me, albeit in a most unusual way. My thoughts are reeling in in my native Yoruba language.... 

I have actually attempted putting down this post in Yoruba but had to stop because my typing was not aligning with the speed of the thoughts so I was losing a lot of the words flowing forth from me.

I will liken the story of Nigeria to that of the prodigal son in the Bible. When he had it all, he thought not of tomorrow and he could have said to himself, ‘let us eat and drink for tomorrow we shall die’. But alas, after squandering all his inheritance that he got from his father, he did not die. He was wide alive to suffer the consequences of his action. What did we see happen to the prodigal son? He ended up living with animals and had to struggle for food with them.

It is no news that Nigeria is richly blessed in natural resources that can amount to so much money and notably among these natural resources is the crude oil which many have called ‘the curse of Nigeria’. Since the first oil was drilled in Oloibiri in 1956, Nigeria has been benefiting to the tune of billions of dollars from sale of crude oil. Our eyes saw unexpected wealth and our excess crude account was always a bounty to all concerned parties. 

However, in our days of surplus what did we do or rather what was done unto us. We know that a person that does not save in the days of abundance will undoubtedly suffer in the days of famine. In these budding days of global financial crisis, I wonder what is going on in the minds of those that have squandered the non-stop wealth that kept pouring in from the sale of crude oil particularly as its selling price kept climbing the charts.

In the days of our boom we refused, rather our leaders refused to establish schools, hospitals, roads, power supply etc. Instead, we were on maintenance mode living off on projects that had been implemented in the days when Nigerian leadership had not been hijacked by greedy and utterly selfish men and women. Intellectual reasoning was useful when it was needed for plotting the next move to defraud the nation and was never summoned for the use of improving the lives of common Nigerians.

I remember a book I read about Nigeria written by Karl Maier. He titled it ‘This House has Fallen’. Well, what do we expect from a house that is built on a shaky foundation of falsehood; it will certainly come crashing down. Falsehood will not last forever, the truth will surely surface. And to the ignoble leaders and people that have participated in depriving millions of Nigerians benefits of civilization, I say, one day the wind will blow and we will see the fowl’s anus.
I am writing this at a time when the naira is currently crashing fast, trust is dipping at our stock exchange, the price of almighty crude oil is at an all low and every time the picture of the president is shown on TV, I’m waiting for the presenter to start with ‘A sick president Yar’Adua... (I’m not blind!).

What’s going to happen to Nigeria if the economic crisis reaches its heights?

“Eni awi fun Oba je o gbo
Eni a soro fun Oba je o gba”