NAIJA PALAVA!

I woke up listening to my dad's conversation with my grandfather about Nigeria. Not like I intend eavesdropping or anything but somehow I got wind of their discussion. And all granddad was saying was that "Nigeria is going to be a better place". Now, putting my pen and paper together I discovered this was 15years ago. Then I began to ask my self- when will Nigeria ever be the ideal country? When will it be super-cool for Americans to come over for vacation in Nigeria?When? When? A lot of "when?" Came to my mind; then my hope for Nigeria began to falter. In a bit of boredom, I began to scribble down the major problem I felt Nigeria had Let's talk about leadership- one major synonymous word to leadership in Nigeria is simply "corruption"- that word alone has done enormous harm to the country in general, it has become a canker-worm that has eaten deep into our economy. There seems to be an impossibility in making a concise description of this topic, because it is an entire lecture or better still a course on its own. Governance has been relegated to fraudsters who intend to embezzle money for themselves, their family and even their unborn child. How outrageous! These bastards have totally turned governance to a family business. Its more like; "Saraki and Co Nigeria ltd"-laughable right? But also pitiable. What bothers me and gets me furiously mad is the fact that they selected a cabal of thieves to apprehend thieves, so a thief steals some money and some thieves apprehends them, send them to some ridiculous years imprisonment and gives them a redcarpet welcome when they come back. Now this brings me down to the next challenge Unemployment-this challenge is obviously not nascent. Its been for a very long time. Unemployment has become a global concern and of more dire consequence is youth unemployment. In Africa, youth unemployment has become a threat to socio-economic peace and stability. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country. Unemployment rate in Nigeria for the year 2011 stood at 23.9 percent with youth unemployment rate at over 50 percent. I listened to d finance minister say: "According to the National Bureau of Statistics, each year, about 1.8Million young Nigerians enter into our labour market and we need to ensure that our economy provides jobs for them. In fact, some people ask, 'What keeps you awake at night, with regard to this economy?' I say it is the issue of job creation. And I know this is what keeps Mr. President (Goodluck Jonathan) awake at night as well. That is why we have responded to the challenge of creating jobs by trying to transform several sectors of the economy; from agriculture, where we're expecting to create 3.5m jobs and where the progress of reaching our goal of feeding this country is already well advanced." This is ridiculous! I say cut down their salaries. How will a minister's annual allowance be higher than that of the USA president? Am short of words to explain this state our so called leaders has put us into. It is a pitiable " dismal bismal " just like honorable Patrick will say. In conclusion, time will fail me to say a lot more about the babaric state Nigeria has found itself- infact a lot more need to be told ranging from insecurity to inadequate infrastructure. To be honest, the problem of Nigeria looks too large to be surmounted. Enough of camouflage concept like "rebranding" all this has taking us no where but the same state we found our self in when my grandfather and my dad had their discussion. However, one adage keeps me going: "there is always a light at the end of every tunnel". One day Nigeria will be as great as her counterparts. Long live Nigeria!