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“My People Are Destroyed For Lack Of Knowledge” -By Agboola Osabia Esq.

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Agboola Osabia Esq

This was God’s admonishment to the biblical Israelites for their immoralities. Herman Hesse, asserted that “wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else. Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it”.

Even though knowledge can be communicated, the main point is for the recipient to embrace it wholeheartedly and when it is not embraced, the recipient is destroyed for lack of it.

Poverty can be seen as an integral factor that comes to play concerning the rejection of knowledge. It is a state of being extremely poor, inferior in quality and insufficient in amount. Where poverty becomes protracted, it attacks the cerebrum, the large outer part of the brain that controls reading, thinking, learning, speech and emotions. It also controls vision, hearing and other senses.
Africans are enmeshed in poverty because of the wickedness of whiteness, colonization, and its incorrigible corrupt leaders across the continent, but this essay will focus around some of the prevalent issues in Nigeria the sleeping “giant of Africa”.

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Voting Pattern

One tends to wonder why quite a considerable number of voters always cast their votes for the same sect of politicians that stole and dehumanized them? I read an article recently in the punch newspaper titled “2023: Pastor Bakare will be put to shame” the writer Tunde Odesola applied a slight satirical twist to this essay, but his message was that Nigerians are attracted to the people that stole from them, truncated their parents, self and children’s futures.

The same thing happened in one of the street television programmes that I saw recently on the topic of Bakare and Tinubu. Many of the respondents said Bakare should focus on his pastoral work and let the politicians do their work. It begs belief that scores of Nigerians think that once you are a pastor you cannot seek elective political positions. The Christians among them should go back and study the bible and see the roles played by Deborah, Gideon, Samson and Samuel among the other Judges who ruled Israel and were prophets of God. The reason why scores of Nigerians will continue to give their votes to their oppressors is simply because they are suffering from poverty syndrome, an attack to the cerebrum. This is a syndrome reminiscent of Stockholm syndrome. I have been exposed to politics since age 7 and by the time I turned 10, I knew not only the politics of Nigeria and the continent of Africa but British, European, American and Chinese politics. But if you asked me to stand for election in Nigeria, I would politely turn it down. It is much easier for me to win an election in the UK than in Nigeria. In the UK, some of the racists will even give me their votes pretending to love me but in Nigeria no matter how much I shout, how nice my programmes are they will still fall on deaf ears and the reason being that “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”.

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Fulani herdsmen/Farmers clash

Nigerians have turned the clash between farmers and herders into something of a quadratic equation or sending a man to the moon. Nigerians have conveniently placed the blame at the doorstep of the presidency. The agile minds are beginning to ask questions like: what is the job description of governors, legislators both at the States and Federal? What is the cost of building a ranch?

If I were the governor of a State, I would erect a ranch in every local government and the cost would be pegged at N25 million per ranch. As the man in charge of the land, I will earmark 10 hectares for every ranch. The ranch will be situated near a settlement that is already electrified. On the ranch, there will be two dwellings; one for the herders and the other for the cattle. There will be a dug up well with a pumping machine to provide water. A designated area on the ranch will be the cattle market with a taxi rank, toilet and food outlet. Another patch will be designated for farming staple crops such as corn, carrots and any viable crops to serve as food supplements to the traditional elephant grass. Among the equipment to be provided for each ranch, is a 4-wheeled lawnmower which will enable the ranch to collect grass from schools and government institutions within the locality. Once that is completed, I will ask two members of the State assembly to sponsor and co-sponsor a bill that will put a stop to the herding of cattle in the State. The punishment for transgressors will be both forfeiture of cattle and 6 months imprisonment.

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Security Issues

Kidnapping, armed robbery, cattle rustling are among the security issues facing the nation. The governors are the chief security officers and thus, the bulk stop at their desks to see to the security of lives and properties. The Governors Forum which is behaving like a social club should wake up from its doldrum and pay attention to their constituents.

The security sector waiting to be tapped is a multi-billion-naira industry which will eventually be metamorphosed into over a billion-dollar industry. The governors should have a meeting with the leadership of the national assembly and come up with a plan where armed security guards will be birthed. The security guards will have no power of arrest but their primary function is to secure lives and properties. Once this has been set up, all police officers who are currently illegally securing the lives and properties of the elite should be brought back to their job policing the streets to secure lives and properties. To be successful with this new security outfit, the government should embark on a public-private partnership where the private sector will provide not only the funds, but the technical knowhow. Businesses and individuals can then access the services provided by the armed security personnel.

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Agricultural sector

Farming is probably the oldest profession that is still relevant in today’s technological world. Our sustenance depends on food production and where there is arable land there is food and wealth. Nigeria is blessed with arable land but the problem is the act of tilling the land. Nigerians have grown accustomed to prosperity preachers and their antics to the extent of not paying attention to what God told Adam at the garden of Eden:

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil, you will eat food from it all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it, you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust, you will return.”

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In the new testament, two of the miracles performed by Jesus the turning of water into wine and the feeding of the multitude were in line with the prayer he handed to us “give us this day our daily bread” the bible never said the crowd went home with takeaway packs. He did the miracles out of his compassion by providing for the people on that given day. The interpretation of what God said to Adam and the miracles performed by Jesus, simply mean you have to work to put food on your table. The problem with Nigeria for being unable to provide for its people is because the leadership cannot harness the land with the vast human resources at its disposal and the people, on the other hand, are subjected to poverty syndrome.

Did you know that in one year, you can create 200,000 crop farmers, 20,000 livestock farmers and 5,000 fishing personnel? The new minister for agriculture who is riding on his high horse offended Nigerians recently with his foolishness by saying there is no hunger in Nigeria. The question now is how do you expect a man that says there is no hunger in the land to create agricultural jobs for the unemployed, or to build barns that will be filled with crops? You will only apply a solution to a problem but if a man says there is no problem then equally no one should expect a solution from such a man.

APC the “progressive” party

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A young man Olamide whose name translates to ‘my wealth has come’ roams the street begging for food. If you asked this man to rename himself, he will probably call himself Osibamidele which translates to ‘poverty has followed me’. It is not a name that defines a man’s character and destiny but your conduct. The same applies to any organisation. A few months ago, I wrote an article published in the online news outlet, opinionnigeria.com and in the said article I castigated Sowore for being disingenuous by arranging a protest shortly after he lost the presidential election he contested to the incumbent.

In a democratic setting amongst the pillars that hold it is the rule of law. Where any of the pillars is missing or found to be wanton, that society is devoid of democracy irrespective of whether the name democracy appears in every page of its constitution. In Sowore’s case, the court put up stringent bail conditions probably hoping this would not be met but eventually these conditions were met by both Sowore and Bakare but as usual the DSS which is a State with its own rules, blatantly refused to heed to the court’s instruction of releasing the men.

The question now is why is APC the “progressive” party continuously looking the other way, and allowing an agency under its government that comprises of a professor of law at the pinnacle, to diminish and ridicule the nation’s judiciary? Sheikh El-Zakzaky and his wife, Dasuki are among people who are in incarceration under this government despite been granted bail by the court. A member of this party in the senate has sponsored an inhumane and obscene bill to gag our freedom and rights, is this really a democracy or is it a ‘demonstration of craze’ that I strongly believe it is. APC and PDP are two parties that no sane minds should support, because technically they are the same but in a society that is rife with poverty syndrome, they are the two parties that glitter like gold and henceforth attract millions of voters.

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As for me, I will not desist from educating the people, after all, knowing what Herman Hesse said, I will continue to educate my people, and maybe one day they will realise that Nigeria and Africa need men like Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Dubai, UAE, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani the Father Emir, Qatar and the Sultan of Brunei. These men built their nations and their countries are respected all over the world, unlike the despotic scoundrels that infected our people with poverty syndrome and thus turn our nations and its people into ridicule among the comity of nations.

Corruption and indiscipline are rife amongst our people and the moment is now, to appraise and or reappraise our policies, strategies and political system in order for the system to work for our people right across the continent. Chinua Achebe reminds us “A new patriotic consciousness has to be developed, not one based simply on the well-worn notion of the unity of Nigeria or faith in Nigeria often touted by our corrupt leaders, but one based on an awareness of the responsibility of leaders to the led – on the sacred-ness of their anointment to lead – and disseminated by civil society, schools, and intellectuals.” It is solely on this premise that a new breed of leaders will emerge and forge a rainbow future for the good of our people.

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