Blessed Beyond Excess, But Wallowing In Destitution -By Kareem Itunu Azeez

If you ever get the opportunity to get to Riyadh, in Arabia, ask them of the fruit planted by the sadauna of sokoto, in the year 1974, the Asian country side might worship you, base on the little kindness done by the sokoto caliphate of blessed memory, this fruit tree isn’t up to 6inches tall but has been kept and watched basically because of the poor state of the soil in giving this food tree the much needed luxury it need for survival, the late sadauna might never think it’ as a big deal then during his lifetime, because back here in his homeland, a drop of an orange seed, if not washed away by flood would grow even if not attended to, a blessing much of Nigerians failed to recognize because all these are normal to the life we expect and live in. An excerpt from a sermon giving at a nearby mosque, along Festac, mile two.

Water Rodney might have produced a master piece with his work, “How Europe underdeveloped Africa”. But I still have a great doubt in my heart, if Nigeria was part of the said underdeveloped countries long after the demise of the said Europeans, statistics don’t lie, let’s take a look at this, an excerpt from the US news.com, “Nigeria is a key member of OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Oil is its primary export and has been the lifeline to the country’s economic growth . Other exports include cocoa and rubber.

Gross national income has seen incremental growth for at least 15 years, but the Nigerian people do not see much of that revenue. A majority of the country’s population lives in poverty. One-third of the nation’s children are never enrolled in school. Nigeria also has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS related deaths in the world.”

A country blessed with so much yet hunger for broad and wine.

Why then is Africa’s most populous and most famous country dropped to a level where it’s now rank as arguably the poorest country in the world, with over 80million people living in destitution, with not even a hope of a better tomorrow, while perhaps one percent of the country’s enormous population controls the future of so many?

The ungrateful is the one who looks around and see nothing to be thankful for, I did give thanks to the maker up there, for the less earthquakes in my country if there seems to be any, for tornadoes who seems to be in hiding, for hurricane, of which we only know most by documentaries in other countries, but as of today, Nigerians living without home, are quite more than the population of certain countries whose name I detest to mention, for respect sake, my brothers and sisters who don’t even know where nightfall would hit them, are even larger than the population of two states put together in Nigeria here, it is a tragedy we know, How did we get here today, I ask myself, how has the ghettos and the slumps across all states of Nigeria becoming worst at geometric progression of times five, while development is crawling at a point zero yearly.

Few months ago it was reported that the Nation was free from recession, while the life of an average Nigerian still remain miserable, sometimes all a graduate do is just keep breathing for survival, we have been managing this trouble, yet the world is too much with us, Nigerians in diaspora keeps making us proud, even though some do let us down sometimes, but if home isn’t age anymore foreign lands should suit us better, and no matter the pains and hardship, we would always know it’s from foreign land. What then is our problem?

The trouble is leadership.
Th people of former times, still ask the question, which have almost dominate all previous articles I have pioneered, “when would this independence end” this simply implies,when are we ever going to be colonized again, the average man is frustrated, he wants to see everyone suffer the same faith as he’s, but unfortunately there would be no more colonialism, except for mental slavery which seems to live in the hearts of today’s Nigerians.

The leadership was structured in theory as Democracy, a government of the people, by the people and for the people,as emphasis by Lincoln of blessed memory. The country use to be on the right track till tragic days came in, parties with justice as mantra but greed as code of conduct begin to emerge, great men started leaving from the world beyond, and in their stead e arrived at what we have today and where we are this moment.

It’s a shame, barbaric and terrible to see the current crops of leaders decide the fate of so many, as we have today,because they have failed us, the national television station might give you the edited side of the country but the truth is never far away about how unfortunate we are to be punished by the kind of leaders we have, from the very scratch to the apex point of political power, they are failures and have failed us.

The first thing that comes to the mind of any politician today is how to secure an office, for his benefits, no wonder one political leader aired his opinion about been neglected for a political office, after his struggles to get the current party in power nationally, if equity was to prevail things like this won’t arise, but they are birds of a feather.

We have so much more than we want, but frustration ad hunger has led many to discover how good they are in some field they never might chose, everyday we have stories about one sad event or the other, everyday we have stories about about corrupt political leader or the other and none has been publicly punished this is Nigeria indeed.

What to do..
This write up is just to wake the spirit of Nigerians up, we have within us all that is Needed to make things good and if necessary to change all this current looters of our treasury moreover, leadership isn’t just some selected few birthright,using my country as a sad case study, here now.

Left to the dejected human in me, my advise would have been to storm their abode, governors, president, Senates, local government chairmen, any politician, who in one way or the other has ruled Nigerians before, not forgetting the ministers hold them to ransom and account for all they have done, if any is do in guilty of which I m.almost certain of, they publicly be punished or rather executed, but this is democracy, and we are more of moral we believe so much in the writings of the Qur’an and the Bible, which is another reason we are where we are today.

ikareemazeez@yahoo.com
08134249115