Date Published: 10/01/09
A Wake-up Call to Conscience
OCTOBER 1, 2009 PRESS RELEASE
NIGERIA @ 49-WHAT FUTURE!!!
Forty-nine years ago, we were granted Independence by the British Colonialists. That Independence in a sense signified freedom. But here we are, forty-nine years after; we still aren’t free or independent. Instead of Independence and freedom, what we’ve got is simply a substitution of colonialism with neocolonialism and nepotism. The vast majority of Nigerians today found themselves stacked like sardines, smothering in an airtight cage of poverty, and rinsing their mouths with spittle in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. Many, of our fellow citizens can scarcely eat three decent square meals daily, not to talk of clothing for their bodies, shelters over their heads and education and culture for their minds. Nigerians have become exiles and slaves in their fatherland, and the bitter truth is that the slave masters of today are our own fellow Nigerians – they are the ones that have plunged us into these socio-political and economic conditions through long years of neglect, of injustices and of what doing what is right for the common good.
The whole of the economy is in shambles. No energy, education paralysed, healthcare moribund, food crisis, massive unemployment and the transportation sector is in comatose.
The energy problem is very crucial and is responsible for the myriad of problems we face as a people, and as a nation, because when there is no energy supply, it sets up a chain reaction which triggers to all sectors of the economy. This is the reason why industries are folding up and why there is massive retrenchment in our industries. Over the last ten years, over a thousand companies have shut down, and at least 300,000 Nigerians had lost their jobs.
Our education sector have not fared any better. Teachers and Lecturers at all levels in the public sector are on strikes. Students in the primary and secondary schools as well as in our Ivory Towers have been at home for over three months now due to the industrial action.
The nation’s transportation sector is totally in a coma. Only the roads appears to have any semblance of life but that too is on its deathbed unless something is done and done in a hurry
As at today, about 80% of Nigerians are unemployed and countless others are merely trying to eke out a living daily; barely trying to survive.
The nation’s healthcare is still the same; grounded. Nigerians do not have access to affordable healthcare. Even the President himself, his Cabinet and indeed all political Officers seek medical attention from Oversea.
Despite the huge revenue from oil, we have nothing to show for it. Our oil wealth has been mismanaged by a few corrupt and inept men who have constituted themselves into a cabal. In the last few decades since Independence, over $400bn according to the World Bank and the United Nations have been diverted from our shores to secret accounts overseas by dubious and inefficient officials.
The Nigerian situation is so appalling, sad and hopeless; there appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Nigerians in the last forty nine years have become victims of blasted hopes and deferred dreams. The future is indeed is bleak.
As a result, everywhere, paralyzing fears harrow Nigerians by day and haunt them by night. Deep clouds of anxiety and depression as Martin Luther King will say are suspended in our mental skies. Nigeria today is now a ghost of its former self that can’t even live on its past glory anymore. The country is all messed up. The nation is sick. There is trouble in the land; confusion and despair all around. And so many of our people are asking; when will this long night of injustice, of deprivation, of neglect and suffering end?
Now is the time for us as Nigerians to start answering these questions honestly. And we truly believe that to do this, we must search ourselves, because for so long we’ve looked up to Aso Rock or rather relied on Aso Rock for answers. But we submit that the change we seek will not come from Aso Rock; change will not happen from the top, it will come from bottom-up. The Nigerian people must take change to Aso Rock.
Eneruvie Enakoko
(CLO Chairman in Lagos)
