Daily Independent (Lagos)
Edward Osagie
6 July 2009
opinion
Lagos — I am Nigeria. I have millions of acres of arable land and billions of cubic litres of water, but I cannot feed myself. So I spend $1 billion to import rice and another $2 billion to import milk. I produce rice, but don't eat it. I have 60 million cattle but no milk. I am hungry, please re-brand me.
I drive the latest cars in the world but have no roads. I lose family and friends everyday on roads for which funds have been looted. I lose my young, my old, and my most brainy and productive people to the potholes, craters and crevasses they travel on everyday. I am in permanent mourning, please re-brand me.
My school has no teacher and my classroom has no roof. I take lecture notes through the window and live with 15 others in a single room. All my professors have gone abroad, and the rest are awaiting visas. I am a university graduate, but I am illiterate. I want a future, please re-brand me.
Malaria, typhoid and many other preventable diseases send me to hospitals which have no doctors, no medicines and no power. So my wife gives birth with candle light and surgery is performed by quacks. All the nurses have gone abroad and the rest are waiting to go also. I have the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world and future generations are dying before me. I am hopeless, hapless and helpless, please re-brand me.
I wanted change so I stood all day long to cast my vote. But even before I could vote, the results had been announced. When I dared to speak out, silence was enthroned by bullets. My rulers are my oppressors, and my policemen are my terrors. I am ruled by men in mufti, but I am not a democracy. I have no verve, no vote, no voice, please re-brand me.
I have 50 million youths with no jobs, no present and no future. So my sons in the North have become street urchins and their brothers in the South have become militants. My nephews die of thirst in the Sahara and their cousins drown in the waters of the Mediterranean. My daughters walk the streets of Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, while their sisters parade the streets of Rome and Amsterdam. I am inconsolable, please re-brand me.
My people cannot sleep at night and cannot relax by day. They cannot use ATM machines, nor use cheques. My children sleep through the staccato of AK 47s and see through the mist of tear gas. The leaders have looted everything on the ground and below.
They walk the land with haughty strides and fly the skies with private jets. They have stolen the future of generations yet unborn and have money they cannot spend in several lifetimes, but their brothers die of hunger. I want justice, please re-brand me.
I can produce anything, but import everything. So my toothpick is made in China; my toothpaste is made in South Africa; my salt is made in Ghana; my butter is made in Ireland; my milk is made in Holland; my shoe is made in Italy; my vegetable oil is made in Malaysia; my biscuit is made in Indonesia; my chocolate is made in Turkey and my table water made in France. My taste is far-flung and foreign, please re-brand me.
My people are cancerous from the greed of their friends who bleach palm oil with chemicals; my children died because they drank 'My Pikin' with NAFDAC numbers; my poor die because kerosene explodes in their faces; my land is dead because all the trees have been cut down; flood kills my people yearly because the drainages are clogged; my fishes are dead because the oil companies dump waste in my rivers; my communities are vanishing into the huge yawns of gully erosion, and nothing is being done. My livelihood is in jeopardy, and I am in the uttermost depths of despondence, please re-brand me.
I have genuine leather but choose to eat it. So I spend a billion dollars to import fake leather. I have four refineries, but prefer to import fuel, so I waste more billions to import petrol. I have no security in my country, but would rather send troops to keep the peace in another man's land. I have 160 dams, but cannot get water to drink, so I buy 'pure' water that roils my innards. I have a million children waiting to enter universities, but my ivory dungeons can only take a tenth. I have no power, but choose to flare gas, so my people have learnt to see in the dark and stare at the glare of naked flares. I have no direction, please re-brand me.
My people pray to God every time, but commit every crime known to man because re-branded identities will never alter the tunes of inbred rhythms. Just as the drums of heritage herald the frenzied jingles, remember - the Nigerian soul can only be Nigerian - fighting free from the cold embrace of a government that has no spring, no sense, no shame. So we watch the possessed, frenzied dance, drenched in silent tears as freedom is locked up in democracy's empty cellars. I need guidance, please re-brand me.
But then, why can I not simply be me, without being re-branded? Or does my complexion cloud the color of my character? Does my location limit the lengths my liberty? Does the spirit of my conviction shackle my soul? Does my mien maim the mine of my mind? And is this life worth re-branding? I am not yet born, please re-brand me.
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It is so sad and almost regrettable (God forgive me) for being a Nigerian. Nothing seems to work expect the staggering and mind boggling pervasions of all sorts that our leaders parades with impunity. The problem of Nigeria is purely that of genetic malfunctions, comparatively to less priviledged, less educated, less endowed African Nations, in the likes of Ghana where elections are hinged on partroitism, transparency & purposeful zeal to produce a candidate that is worthy of such a position. Now, tell me what kind of followership can you anticipate from such a system? If you get an answer, then, you will know what the problem is with Nigeria! Simply, MISPLACEMENT OF PRIORITIES BORNE OUT OF GREED! & LACK OF DIGNITY!!!
Part of the problem is that your nation's economic thinking is several centuries behind. Mercantilism must give way to capitalism for your people to become wealthy. Serve the export market less, and the domestic market more. The foreign money that you get from selling your non-renewable resources can be used mostly to employ foreign labor. You need to employ your labor. Export should be from surpluses from your production. That's what the outside world is doing to you. Your non-renewable resources should be used to solve your own problems and conserved for your descendants.
Two specific suggestions: Harvest your Typha infestation for fuel both at the low-level (pit-made charcoal) and the high-level (big company ethanol or fuel gas); Rain barrels and container gardens everywhere.
This is so perfectly correct I can,t stop reading it.Those who,ve sent that once prosperous country on the way to decline will never know sleep nor rest because millions of innocent peace loving citizens right now know no rest or happiness. Man,s inhumanity to man has rendered Nigeria comatose and in dire need of internal resistance,that,s on the way coming.The polit-criminals have in collaboration with the imperialist dogs brought down a once upward and progressive country,who said a prosperous Africa is a threat to the imperialist! that sound,s true now than ever before.The African has survived centuries of onslaught from invading aliens, this will be the case again, we will survive and reach for our due rights to grow and progress like everyone else. All Nigerian youths must put hands together and support the activities of the Niger delta militants to bring those responsible (polit-criminals) on their knees and then subject them to interrogations and prosecution to redeem the future generations from the activities of a bunch of retards the west festered on the masses of a country abundantly blessed with both natural and human resources.If we don,t get their fathers, we,ll surely get their children, to serve as deterrent.
It is unfortunate that most Nigerian leaders and followers, alike, do not read ideas that this article tried to convey and the suggestion of this opinion-maker. Rather, all we care to read and comment on is about "Who killed Lucky Dubey?" "Where is Obama going or not visiting to send a message to so and so…" more or less, what can foreigners do for us instead of what can we do for ourselves. It is this kind of helplessness and misplaced priority that kill independent thoughts that focus on national interest and cause outsiders to walk all over us as we imbibe their ideas geared towards their own national interest that include empty-shell “democracy” as if it guarantees freedom and growth. Unfortunately, the answer lies in conditioning, the teeming Nigerian poor seem helpless because we have been conditioned to be tough under overwhelming suffering. However, I am afraid that when we finally wake up from this doldrums, the vent of emotion will make the French Revolution look like a tea party – but when???