Nigeria wastes
everything it touches. Wastage is an ideological, political, governance and
existential philosophy in our country.
Nigeria wastes lives.
See the statistics of infant and underfive mortality rates, pregnancy related
deaths, youth and adult death figures. Ill-equipped health facilities, armed
bandits, insurgents, bad roads, bad water and security forces take their turns
to waste lives. Reading about violent and untimely deaths in the newspapers is
a daily menu – building collapses on people, some gun others down, someone
throws or detonates a bomb, a tanker spills it fuels and roasts other road
users, a mad bus driver somersaults on the road, hospital mismanages a patient and many other woes that bring life to an
end. Lives are wasted at enormous rates in Nigeria. Life almost has zero value.
No one cares.
Nigeria wastes its
natural resources. No one seems to know exactly how much oil comes out of
Nigeria on a daily basis. Whatever revenue is earned is wasted. Gas is flared.
Oil is spilled when not stolen. Sea-life, which many countries depend upon, not
only for food, but also for income is wasted. Low-grade and formalin-loaded
fish is then imported for public consumption. We have no idea of the number of
trees felled a day in this country. Our rivers are polluted. Soil erosion is
considered normal.
This country wastes
even God-given oxygen. No one controls dangerous emissions by factories. Those
who live in the neighborhood of cement factories across Nigeria breathe any
other thing but oxygen. No one cares. Dust from untarred roads, plied by
smoking vehicles of forgotten dates of manufacture, convoyed by numberless
motorcycles has relegated oxygen in the cities to history books. No one seems
to know what it means to breathe unpolluted air.
Nigeria wastes its
own infrastructure. All major infrastructure either built by the States or the
Federal Government invariably get stuck before they reach service level. Then
they lay waste. Steel companies get built half-way and then get sold off to
cannibals, who strip them to the bones. Nigeria is one of the few countries in
the world, where telephony has been reduced to a nuisance of dangling wires and
broken poles. Nitel was wasted. I was dismayed during a recent visit to Warri
to learn that the multi-million dollar infrastructure that Shell Company built
in Warri has been abandoned to all types of reptiles after the company pulled
out. A monumental waste.
Justice is wasted in
Nigeria. Justice is bartered and sold. It has been let out of court rooms and
it wanders in the market place, where criminals and the guardians of justice
hag over its price. It is handcuffed to the tree of perpetual injunctions and
interminable adjournments where it wastes away. Justice is as much a victim as
other victims of injustice. In addition to genocide crimes, crimes against
humanity and war crimes, the ICC should consider introducing Crime Against
Justice in its books.
Nigeria wastes hope.
Hope that things will be better in the future is no longer a dream. No one has
such dreams any longer. And that is why some hold on tightly to the past. They
romanticize the days when it appeared there was hope. Very few people, if any
at all believe in the future of Nigeria or the competence of governance. Elections
have been reduced to a change of batons between the devil and the Red Sea.
Either way, one loses. And that is why many sell their votes for anything
tangible during elections. They prefer cash to nebulous campaign promises. Hope
is bartered and then slaughtered. The buyers of votes are the murderers of
hope. The sellers of hope are their unwary accomplices. Done away with earthly
hope of a functional society, the sellers of hope flock to religious houses,
hoping for a miraculous way to keep their heads above water in a hopeless
society. Their religious leaders, who are in cohorts with the murderers of
hope, oblige them. They hook them on heavenly hope and empty their pockets.
They take back the sellers’ earnings from the sale of their earthly hope.
Nigeria wastes
brains. Parents train their children in universities, polytechnics and
technical schools and put them at the disposal of the country. Nigeria ignores
the huge potential in these graduates. These smart graduates then export
themselves legally or illegally to Europe, the United States and other parts of
the world to practice their trade. There in these countries, some of these
bright people rise to great heights and we read of them in the newspapers. However, for every successful one, there are
many other Nigerian professionals wasting away doing menial jobs. Nigeria is
not bothered. The country is satisfied with the waste. Does the Nigerian
government know how many doctors, engineers and other professional we have in
other countries?
A Premium Times
report of 12th December, 2016 says, “President Muhammadu Buhari has
frowned at the high rate of illegal migration of Nigerian youths to European
countries through the Mediterranean Sea. The president, who was represented by
Audu Ogbeh, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, called for an
immediate stop to the action by Nigerians, saying it was unfair to European
countries”. Unfair to European countries!?! No Sir! It is unfair to Nigeria,
Mr. President. That is brain and muscle waste at its worst! The report further
states that “an average of 83 Nigerians crossed illegally from Nigeria to
Europe, daily, via the Mediterranean in the first nine months of 2016” and this
number does not include those who lost their lives in the crossing. Colossal
waste, Mr. President.
Locally here, we read
of young people who can refine crude oil in their backyards; we read of people
who can make guns; we read of people who can manufacture all sorts of useful
implements. What does Nigeria do? They arrest them. They put them in jail till
their creativity dies off under bad prison conditions. They waste them in
detention. No one bothers to see how these smart and creative people can be put
to use for common good. Nigeria prefers to buy guns from Pakistan and other
countries that are not in any way better than us. Nigeria prefers to import
refined fuel and other finished products.
The leaders of
Nigeria wastes goodwill of the citizens. This is our lot. The tale of wastage
of goodwill is a long one. Obasanjo came and frittered away all the goodwill he
had with an illegal third-term ambition. Goodluck Jonathan, who claimed he
didn’t have shoes when he was going to school, emotionalized everyone,
including those who did not have shoes as adults to win the election. He was
given a goodwill capital which he squandered in no time. He surrounded himself
with people who were in brain-rest mode and who didn’t care about wastage.
History has made its statement.
Mr. President, I did
not sell my hope during the elections that brought you into power. I still have
hope and still believe in you. Stop the wastage, Mr. President.
I am probably wasting
ink writing all this too….
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