Few weeks back, I read about India, going to space-the fourth nation, after America, Russia and China, to do that! After, reading it, I wrote the following, on an Ekiti Intellectual Forum, to which I belong:
India became independent of colonial rule, in 1947, just thirteen years, earlier than Nigeria. Just as it was in Nigeria, true nationalists ran post-independence governments, in India, leaving their footprint on the sand of Indian political history. In Nigeria, in a twinkle of an eye, an impatient military had struck, in response to some minor constitutional crises, here and there, not unusual of teething ages. They regimented the whole system and took advantage of a cowed people to bleed the nation to stupor. Tempted by the unusual wealth acquired by the pioneer coupists, generation after generation of soldiers came out of the barracks to stage coups to have their own, undue share of the nation’s enormous wealth. They systematically destroyed the press and the academia, the two most informed organs, and hence, the most difficult to repress.
On departure, after several decades, keeping the citizens under the jackboot, they have lost their esteem as military governance became unfashionable. In a hurry to depart and with uncompromising civil right groupings, notably, the fiery NADECO, the military had no choice but to handpick some of their crook-contractors (ill-parented children, con men, wayward and ruthlessly-vicious people, all) and foisted them, political novices, on the nation.
The humongous wealth these guys made, then was what they deployed into establishing political parties, turning politics into an investment with profit motives. The existing political parties, today, are products of this cash-and-carry politics school.
Today, Nigeria, classified, third world, by De Gaulle (1963), alongside India, Malaysia, Brazil, and other African countries, remain the worst place to live in. Our country is home to the richest politicians and the most deprived citizens, who, today, remain the hungriest and the angriest people, anywhere. India, Malaysia, Kenya, Ghana have, all moved on, Botswana (with a 30-year-old, Bogolo Kenewendo, minister of investments, strives to become one of the best managed economies, in the world. Paul Kagame and John Magufuli, are each cleaning up their countries, of Rwanda and Tanzania, respectively. Nigerian youths are dying, daily, trying to cross to Spain, a country that had no television when Awo started the WNBS/WNTV, all in search of minimum comfort! AK 47 wielding herdsmen are burning houses, all over the country, trying to chase people out so their villages can become cow-ranches and Boko haram is trying to stop education.
India, today, is home to IIT, one of the two most highly rated technological institutions in the world, established after UI was!.
How we got here is no longer a relevant question, rather, what’s the way forward? -Can we move forward using any rational political arrangements, especially with the newly-introduced cash-for-vote electoral system, first of its kind in the history of politics?
A retired senior diplomat, fellow member of the forum, responding, wrote:
One can go on and on. Malaysia came here to learn how to grow palm, we now import palm oil from there. The Arabs were coming to Ibadan in the 60s, for medical treatment, we now go to Dubai, as medical tourists. UAE when the component units that it was made up, wanted to federate they came to study our constitution in the 60s. They have successfully been operating a federal constitution that has turned the UAE from a barren desert to a near paradise on earth. A place where our thieving leaders now take pride in owning real estates with our stolen money. The list of woes that have befallen us post 1966, is endless. Yet all we get from our leaders are just endless corruption-ridden elections that are doing no more than to dig us deeper into the hole of morass and stagnation. And a vast arrays of praise singers, urging on a bad and unfair system of governance, and a merry band of unprincipled and visionless leaders that run things. The way out is a return to a true federation that has the advantage of liberating the energies of our federating units. In the UAE there is a federating unit as small as the Wuse District of Abuja, freely charting its own cause and making tremendous contribution in shaping the UAE. The UAE is a Muslim federation that de-emphasizes religion in running its state of affairs.
A visitor to Dubai will be amazed at the secular ambience that pervades the place. Meanwhile, comparing the giant steps that India has been able to take, and it continues to take, is sufficient to break the hearts of Nigerians that may be hurt by the fact that Nigeria is only 13years younger than India and, with Nigeria being much more endowed with resources.
A US-based, female professor, also a member, also, wrote:
India got the science, we got the religion. They held on to their gods and established Indian Institute of Technology, more competitive than MIT. It is the arrowhead that launched Indian tech dominance in the world today.
We threw out our gods, adopted Oyinbo god, and did not invest in science. We are reaping what we sowed.
Our people have gone ballistic into religion while regressing. Others who valued science are moving forward.
CONCLUSION
Nigeria isn’t working, in fact, it’s a failed state, despite the abundance of intellectual and natural endowments, only because of mediocre leadership, in the hands of crooks, who dominate the riotous political landscape, too hot for the godly and decently-groomed. Moving forward, we desire to fund education and meticulously, monitor the managements of those funds, too.