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Nigeria@61: Should citizens remain patriotic, hopeful and resilient in the face of massive deterioration?

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By Gabriel Patterson

Many countries that achieved independence together with Nigeria in the 1960s have many things to celebrate for during the commemoration of their “Independence Anniversary” but it is factual to say that same cannot be said about Nigeria. What will reasonable Nigerians be celebrating? Is it economic, political, technological, scientific and security woes? The last time I checked, the Obama administration smuggled into power a destructive President knowing the damage he would do to Nigeria becoming a regional and continental power block.

This is because the class of 1966 Military Gestapos under whose stewardship our hard earned Westminster style democracy fell to ruin, refused vehemently to relinguish power. Although they concocted a Washington style democracy, but with military culture of dictatorship and insensitivity which has imperiled human rights, came the loss of the sanctity of human lives. A large population of the Nigeria’s citizenry became “Bloody Civilians” thereby promoting unending misery worse than colonialism and slavery of pre-colonial era.

A large catchment of Nigeria’s population consists of youths who are not properly captured demographically and planned for, youths who were never allowed to hold sensitive offices by the 1966 military Gestapos class that is still holding onto power with many of them lacking simple understanding of global best practices under whose stewardship railways, airways, science and technology died in Nigeria. This people are responsible for the continuous migration of endowed Nigerian youths to Western Countries (US, Europe, Canada, Australia etc) with accumen and capabilities that would have been channeled to national growth.

We have leaders that lack enterprise and that believe that the only way money will come is to rob Peter to pay Paul or to borrow and beg for councellation after squandering the borrowed funds from China and elsewhere. Leaders that go plate in hand to beg for borrowing even at the gathering where nations talk about their achievements. We have leaders that borrow money from China but give back that money to the lender for the building of railway infrastructures thereby empowering the lender financially through the building of an infrastructure we could build by ourselves without importing any raw or finished material, and then pay them back the bulk of what we borrowed after servicing the debt for years.

We have a country that believes in the demeaning of it’s people and that a section (North led by the migrant Fulani and Berbers of North Africa) believe strongly in the political subjugation and undermining of it’s benefactor South (it is for the economic strength of the South that Lord Fredrick Lugard amalgamated the North to the South for the former to survive). As such, any section of the country that prides itself with having a large population index, should as well produce the largest chunk of funds to administer the country before priding itself as such.

A young military leader of Burkinafaso, Thomas Sankara built railways without the help of any Western Nation yet in Nigeria we have a President from the class of 1966 Military Gestapos who believe that it is more economically viable to borrow $1.5Billion to build railway from Kano to Maradi in Southern Niger Republic than to complete the railway from Itakpe in Kogi State to Abuja, and or to stretch the railway from Lafia in Nasarawa State to Abuja.

Whereas, if Warri to Itakpe is taking in about 12Million Naira every blessed day, then think about what Calabar to Lagos or Lagos to Abuja via Warri will generate on a daily basis? We should not forget that the highest revenue earning instrument in India is the railway of that country but the unproductive political power hungry elite have kept Nigeria down on its knees by overloading her with unnecessary debt.

It should not be suprising to any reasonable mind that the highest item of Nigeria’s Budget today is DEBT SERVICING which has taking about 75% of government spending yet the RUBBER STAMP National Assembly is still comfortable with the present destructive President whose threat to soak dogs and baboons in blood, if he does not rule Nigeria has imperiled the economy, security, infrastructural development and national investment.

There is Covid-19, yet with all of Nigeria’s education, the Institute of Human Virology is under lock and key and has not strived to produce any medicine not to mention vaccine for the safety and survival of Nigerians rather we have a debt begging President who is still looking to the West to dash him vaccine. A man that is never prepared for democratic office has been allowed by “notice me and follow follow population” to hold us dangerously to ransom.

With the foregoing, how would any reasonable human being be patriotic to Nigeria and this flawed system? How would any sane man or woman, boy or girl be hopeful and how would any civilized citizen be resilient? The way forward is to get this guys out of those offices including the rubber stamp representatives who act larger than God; and see those they’re meant to represent and serve as pests.

At least the new generation of youths who chanted “Soro Soke” has learned properly through bitter experience, hence, I do not need to shout too much on the need for a better way forward that those who aren’t prepared for governance should not come near it. The ancient ideology of the North structured by the colonialists to suppress the South must stop in other for us to have a better society, otherwise, as it stands, we’re only celebrating insecurity, massive loss of lives and under advancement.

Rt. Hon. Comrade Gabriel Patterson Unyeowaji
National Coordinator/Spokesman
Niger Delta Youth Association Worldwide.

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