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of politics and coming full circle


dear reader,

i wont even acknowledge that it has been a long time since i last wrote a blog. i eventually lost all motivation as things went from bad to worse in the country. i was not foolish by supporting the current political party in power. it was based on the hope for a better future. they were apparently very good critics but now we have given them a chance to make things better, things have never been worse.

for the first time in my short life, the intelligent, educated, middle class, working citizens of this country are migrating to Canada en masse. and i don't mean a few people who just feel like they have no jobs here and can go there and drive taxi cars. i mean senior lawyers, engineers, people with quality education and who in many cases returned to the country because Obasanjo made things look like they were about to work. the refineries, the airport, the exchange rate, the Paris club debt, agricultural export, banking and telecommunications sector.

we even had savings. Nigeria, the same Nigeria, met stringent conditions to have our debt forgiven and we saved from high crude prices for the rainy day. well, by the time the rainy day hit us, here we are...savings squandered and dug right back into more debt that we ever had. this is us that were exporting cassava to china. now drenching under terrible economic policies and helplessly drenched like local chickens without shade. i recall when the Niger Delta militancy started back then and we thought the country was over...well, in only three years that feel like forever we have survived uprisings in the east, in the north east, Fulani herdsmen killings in the middle belt. scores of Nigerian citizens have died needlessly. yet here we are. battered beyond recognition but here we are.

increasingly despondent, i know at least 12 people who have now gone off to Canada with their families. never to return again if they have their way. the elections are upon us again and after three whole years the current government still acts like a hapless opposition party. they campaign with promises of what they 'would do' when they get into power. its like someone forgot to turn on the switch in a dark room. they complain about the same country they have been running for years and point fingers at everyone else. Nigerians are actually now legitimately considering returning to the former political party they actually voted out because we thought those were the worst things that could happen to the country. Alas, hindsight.

oh and lest i forget to tell you, there are minor clampdowns on opposing voices using apparatus of state like the army, the police and the anti-corruption agency. it sends chills down the spine of any citizen who lived through military rule. trumped up charges that appear to disappear once the accused joins the incumbent political party in power and the sudden disappearance or refusal of witnesses to attend trials is really too close to a painful blood soaked past that we hoped we had moved away from.

it is often said that children never go wrong in the presence of elders. our elders have been sold and bought. they are all quiet and are actually telling us, against the direct feelings of our stomachs, that things are not as bad as they seem. our pockets, roads, electricity, hospitals beg to disagree. and yes, a well acclaimed pastor is vice president so clearly God must have a hand in our current state of affairs surely? i mean we are breaking world records for largest churches built in the world do surely? no? too far? okay.

let me end by reminding people that many years ago when America predicted that Nigeria would be a failed state by 2020, we all snapped fingers above our heads and collectively proclaimed "God forbid". to be honest, the Americans are known to speak from a position of intelligence, logic and science. and that is where they get their credibility to predict world affairs accurately time after time. sadly they couldn't predict the emergence of their current president. let us hope that in the spirit of human fallibility, they are wrong on this one count. our collective lives depend on it.

#Sad.

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