Nigerians love to talk. They like to complain about things they don’t like. But when it comes to putting their money where their mouths are, they simply make up flimsy excuses and find a way to chicken out.
Swallowing things – hook, line and sinker – without asking questions is even worse than not doing anything at all. The former has become the hallmark with which the Nigerian masses have come to be identified.
Truth be told, though, Nigerians are amongst the smartest people on Earth. They love the good things of life. They love freedom. They love justice. They have resilience and inbuilt capacity to bounce back.
Beyond this façade exists the real Nigerians.
Nigerians are not willing to work hard, staking their lives to actualize the life they desperately crave for. They have tacitly accepted the status quo in exchange for tacit acceptance of their obedience by their oppressors.
And this is why everyone craps on Nigerians from left, right and centre.
The maltreatment of Nigerians comes in different forms, including lies and brainwash. Nigerians, for the most part, know what’s being done to them. The fact that they cannot stand up against the system that oppresses them makes them slaves in their own land.
In Nigerian churches, the poor are robbed of their hard-earned money by smooth-talking pastors, who have brainwashed them into believing that tithes and offerings are the only sure ways of buying a space in heaven. In these churches, everything pastors preach about boils down to three things: tithing, offering and donating.
Some of these evangelists even connive with the powers-that-be to steal from the coffers of the people.
How can these pastors freely sleep at night knowing they live flamboyantly and only watch as their congregations live in penury? How does one justify the fact that some pastors maim, kill, rape and impregnate members of their congregations? If not motivated by insatiable greed, what would make pastors specialize in encouraging and praying for 419ers not to get caught just so long as the scammers give them a percentage of their loot? Rather than being more interested in tithes and offerings, why can’t pastors speak out against pen-robbers or politicians whose corrupt practices have brought Nigeria to its present sorry state? And how come Nigerian pastors do not question the sources of the huge tithes, donations and offerings they receive on regular basis, for which they pay no taxes? Through their actions, are these pastors not aiding and abetting Nigeria’s endemic corruption, which has destroyed the country’s economy and forced a decline in the living standard of most of those they preach to?
What about the man or woman who jumps and dances around, shouting “Amen!” to “One Nigeria” in the church but won’t let a young man marry his or her daughter or hire him for a job he’s well qualified for simply because he’s Igbo and not Yoruba, Ijaw, Efik, Hausa or any of the more than 250 other distinct ethnic groups that make up Nigeria? Shouldn’t these Christians, who help perpetuate tribalism in Nigeria, by not practicing what they preach, know that everyone is equal in the eyes of God? Do members of the police and their military counterparts, who kill the innocent civilians they swore to protect with reckless abandon, not worship in these churches? Does one need a college degree to know and recognize that human life is a sacred thing?
The hypocrisies of Nigerian imams and Muslims are not any different from those of Nigerian pastors and Christians.
And do you think Nigerians would question the modus operandi of these preachers?
Heck, no!
They swallow their messages, just like that, and are willing to use “Leave the matter to God” and “Do not judge” to fight anyone who dares try opening their eyes to truth.
Nigerian politicians like things that way because pastors, imams and traditional rulers help them tame and control the people, so they would never have the courage to fight for what’s rightfully theirs, or even ask simple questions, let alone think for themselves.
In Nigeria, the people do not have jobs, money, schools, electricity, water, food, health facilities, good roads and what have you. People are simply walking dead.
Yet everyone is afraid to talk about the system, even the media which is supposed to be the voice of the voiceless.
Since its creation in 1991, Abia State has been bedeviled by rogues in the guise of governors. But the state has never had a leadership as bad as it currently does.
Under its current administration, Abia is only alive on the pages of the newspaper, on television screens and the radio airwaves.
Nothing more!
Members of the state house of assembly, who, ordinarily, should act as a check and balance on Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu, have sold out. Favours – monetary and otherwise – are being granted to them by the governor in exchange for their silence on the maladministration of the state. The governor even allow the most powerful ones amongst them to nominate some of Abia’s key officials. All that these officials do in turn is award inflated contracts to dubious companies where these legislators have business interests in.
Abia is in a state of comatose!
Abians must rise and take back their state!
No matter what it takes!
But one would never read the real Abia stories in the newspapers. People will never see them being shown on television or hear them being talked about on the radio. Rather, all one hears and sees and reads about Abia are carefully crafted lies, treachery and deceit, all because Nigerian media outlets have been bribed by the state officials not to speak truthfully about what’s going on in Abia State.
In fact, instead of chastising Ikpeazu – for not paying gratuities; for not paying pensions; for not paying salaries; for not clearing garbage; for not putting finishing touches to the government house his predecessor built, allowing the state to continue paying rent on a government house since its creation; for building no infrastructure in the state; for always gallivanting around developed countries, leaving his job on autopilot – the Nigerian media flood him with awards every year: The Best Governor of the Year, Most Media Friendly Governor. Just name it! Ikpeazu has got, maybe, bought it all.
And Abia people themselves are not willing to do the needful: fight and put a stop to these shenanigans like some other states in the federation have done. They sit back – and only complain – while their governor and his very narrow cabal ruin their beloved state.
Fela was right when he sang: “My people self dey fear too much…We fear to fight for freedom…We fear to fight for liberty…We fear to fight for justice…We fear to fight for happiness…We always get reason to fear…”
Until Nigerians are willing to stake their lives and fight against the system that has reduced them to nothing but derelict remains, they should “suck it up, Sally!” and quit whining.
