REDEFINING THE STATUS QUO

Nigeria Yet A Toddling Nation

Nigeria occupies a glaringly enviable locus on the continent of African, however it is saddening and unbecoming that the so-called giant of the continent could not hold in an emulating way the mantle of the leadership in Africa as the United State of America does in America.

The Face of the Status Quo

Recently one of the fourth republic governors of the myopia-infected-leaders-dwelt nation was publicly caught by officers of the EFCC, The Economic and Financial Crime Commission, a commission institutionalized by the two-term-served ex-president of the country, president Olusegun Obasanjo who ironically was caught with the commission's independently-spun web in the PTDF scam on the eve of his departure from Aso Rock. From the infamy of this monkey – the ex-governor can be called a monkey for the reason that he doesn't reason as a moral being – who calls himself a leader, one could perceive that the nation has not yet evolved fully. The pervading trials of these ex-governors who just left office on May 29 2007 have depicted to the whole world that in Nigeria, politicians are elected, through a series of election that could be called sham, to devour from the national cake - the revenue derived from crude oil - every four year or eight year[for the two terms].
It is quite unfortunate and ironical that the downtrodden who are the victims of the degenerating status quo are the ones in Niger Delta shouting against the monkey's incarceration after he has robbed them, in one of the states in the Niger Delta, a galactic amount of money meant for even development of the state. The notion that fueled the bawl of the gaggle of rascals who call themselves militants in the creek against the incarceration is nothing than an issue in APOCALYPSE I [AL FATIAH].
Illiteracy is a galling bane is Nigerian. However, the rampart illiteracy in the dwindling economy negates the famed illiteracy held wide across the economies of Africa. The one in Nigeria is known as Illiteracy of the Mind. The citizens, the majority among them, are educated both home and abroad, enlightened enough to be discerned along the streets of the nation. The politicians as well are literate, many of them are university dons before being elected in offices, came down at Harvard, Ibadan, Oxford, et al. However from the way they rule rather than lead the most populous nation in the Sub-sararah Africa shows glaring that they are illiterate in minds. Politics of looking gorgeous. Without a scrap of initiative in the craniums to initiate a radical development. Polities of misappropriation of public fund with the aim of living an aristocratic life-style when they leave offices. All these make the politicians illiterate monkeys who refuse, because of cupidity and vaingloriousness, to evolve into moral beings, sentient enough to mould the nation into a greater height.

The Poverty Circle

As a result of this, the economy is lopsided, badly balanced that the gap between the rich and the poor is too wide that it has deracinated the middle class, the bourgeois, comprises only the aristocrat and the downtrodden. Walking down the streets in Lagos, Abuja the country capital, one could see a fleet of stately Peugeot cars and Hummer jeeps owned by these literate but illiterate-in-mind politicians who believe in self-centeredness rather than even development of the human and material resources bestowed the nation, scudding up and down the streets. Along the same streets one could as well watch many moral beings among the citizens walking down the pedestrians' courts in rag and fairly-used cloth.
A politician who grows among the downtrodden, to be later an elected leader in the country as many of today offices-occupiers politicians in the country have their stories to tell, rallied around the cliché – from grace to grass .This is the circle, framed by the citizens themselves without even perceiving in anyway. A man or woman who comes up among these downtrodden to become an elected politician ought to first fill the hollows poverty has dug on his or her face before being elected. The politician might be filling these hollows when the four year term or eight year term will be complete, then finding it difficult to remember even development for their neighbors.

The Harebrain Politician’s Hiatus

Any economy that its mainstay is mono is not an economy but a market where fiddlers triumph. In Nigeria, the politicians are swindlers who flaunt their forks and knives to devour the nation’s the cake - the oil revenue.
It was after the nationalists who fought for the country’s liberation from the imperial hands refrained from the political scene in the early eighties that the hiatus emerged - diversification of the economy when into thin air. When the swindlers of the second republic between 1979-1983 saw crude oil, because of its lucrative price in the world market, as their only product and possession they could trade with rest of the world, they left the groundnut the likes of late Alhaji Ahmadu Bello had used the capital derived from it in building the northern Nigerian, the cocoa of the south- west the likes of late Chief Obafemi Awolowo had used in making the region most civilized race in the black race through the free education programme he facilitated with the cocoa capital, the south east could not be written off - late Dr Nnamdi Azikwe, the great Zik of Africa proved to the new generation of the country politicians that ordinary palm-oil could make available every basic facilities for the easteners. Today Nigeria has become a mono-product economy. The bane of the African society. The cause for unemployment. The mainspring of poverty. The incentive for illiteracy. An unemployed family seems to be poor, and finds it hard to provide for her children good education. This is the circle. Likewise: an indigent citizen who becomes an elected leader.

The Burden Of Being A Moral Being In Nigerian

These politicians have rendered many Nigerian helpless and hapless through their otiose policies they have been implementing since the nationalists’ departures from the political scene. Nigerian are talented people, little lower than the angles in reasoning. However the politicians straddle on a rostrum of power, making the blessed race a cursed one with the cunning hands they employ to hold the mantle of leadership given to them through election by the masses. Even before the years of the military rule , the civilian government imposed on the gifted citizens had taught the society that corruption was only a way to make the country developed, that by the time all the citizens became elected office holders with the a political ambition of embezzling the government fund, the country would have achieved even development. Nevertheless the mainstream is wrong as we can discern today with the lopsidedness in the economy. The economy policies wrath by these old politicians ,past military leaders, and today politicians have made Nigerians monkeys rather than moral beings. The harsh economy makes many Nigerians to be looking for a narrow way to eat, sex, and sleep - some animalistic tendencies x-rayed better in S U V in the story Beast.
Therefore those who aspire to be moral being in the country as the harsh economy prevents them to be , leave the shore of the country en mass to find a greener pasture for themselves. These are the two sets of classes in the society - the harsh-economy-stricken at home and the harsh-economy-chased- away moral beings in Diaspora. A citizen who refuses to be a monkey at home, despite the animalistic habits of eating, sexing (procreating), and sleeping, he who determines to render anything worthwhile to the status quo and his generation therefore resolves to be lost amidst the citizens of the world as for his dream to materialize. The likes of Philip Emegwali of this world.This class of Nigerians is called second class citizen in all the developed nations around the word.
The same resolution is as well embraced by the harsh–economy-stricken-turned monkeys at home whose self-centredness, brought about by the economy policies scribes, has made them to be oblivious of rendering their best to the society, thinking only on how to survive not on how to make the society evolve positively as their minds have been contaminated with the awry policies of the past and the immediate governments.

If It Has Been Re-Diversified

The federalism in Nigerian is to be called nothing than quasi- federalism. The principal foundation of any fully evolved federalism is to make the centre strongest by quota-contribution by the confederate states from their various resources, both human and material. However in Nigeria the status quo negates this – it is the central government that distributes the revenue allocation to the states. Out of the thirty six states only six among the rest sleeping thirty states make available the oil capital to the central government coffer.
Does it not seem foolish for the only six states to be providing revenue while the rest thirty-one including the capital territory sleep in waiting for the revenue allocation for the thirty-seven territories? This is what a sentient Nigerian is experiencing; and they tag it federalism. From a practical approach this even could not be called a quasi-federalism, term it anything whatsoever but nor federalism neither quasi one.
The widespread unemployment - poverty facilitator - in the populous country has been rooted in inability of the government to re-diversify the economy .If all these states contribute financially to the government coffer at the centre in Abuja, as the fifty states in the US do, nothing would have been called unemployment in the country. Even the country would have been by now done away with the so-called [TAC] The Technical Aid Corps, the programme that has made many professionals slaves abroad meanwhile these foreign countries would have organized such an aid for Nigeria in their various countries as to fill up some employment spaces the diversification would have procreated. In the blessed country.
He who is employed would never be demoted to be a monkey. The social amenities which would have been provided by the diversification principle would have made the monkeys little lower than the angels – moral beings, not in the diaspora but here at home.

Making Straight the Circle

In the late 2007 a thong of experts converged at the 37th annual accountants' conference of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) all tried to put an end to the paradoxical problem of the economy, poverty as its mainstream. Their convergence was not going to be the first, not the last on this thorny issue of poverty in the Nigerian economy ,it was lately discovered that we cannot be saying, writing,or emphasizing on the issue without a proactive gesture by the government.
Obasanjo government did what the previous governments, republics, and regimes in Nigeria had not done anyway - it observed a sacrifice to salvage the citizens from the degeneration status quo. No government has ever done this in Nigeria. A man, as a practical citation, could not be truly successful on earth without doing away with some pleasure - this is the sacrifice. The government in Nigeria is today building a nation in pleasure - a flop, I mean sham. This seems like building a house without mixing up cement with the white sand.
Until our elected leaders sit at a table, see the country as their pride and only treasure, the country shall still be lagging behind in the comity of nations of the world; until they put off the sewn-with-corruption agbadas, and put in khaki shirts and jean trousers like that of Tai Solarin that could be won to fight the battle.
The nation needs proactive-minded elected leaders who could sit down at a table as social scientists and proffer solutions to the ageing plight of the nation. Not the set of embezzlement-minded-elected leaders who daily cut the national cake voraciously and store up galactic parts in their refrigerators at home and abroad.
He who has been watching the political drama since the ridiculous death of late General Sanni Abacha must have perceived glaringly that there is an Unseen hand in the nation’s affairs. Nigerians at home and in diaspora must watch spiritually how God in His infinite power and prowess will salvage the most popular and populous nation in the black race from the pit it has sunk itself; perhaps before the apocalyptic coming.