I noticed that many Nigerians, Biafrans and other nations in this nation are indeed hard working people. They [majority of them] look beautiful and adorable in my eyes. But up close, I noticed in the same token it is logical to state that these people have been corrupted at all level. Then I wondered what has become of her ten, thirteen years later when I was forced out of the country by Babangida/Abacha regimes.

Ten, thirteen years later, I finally visited these nations: Nigeria, Biafra, and others. Immediately we lighted Ikeja's airspace, our plane touched the Muritala Mohammed “International” Airport terminal soon after. I must confess, I was humbled with shame. I put international in parentheses because what I saw, dignified as International Airport was not by any means qualified to be called international in real sense of it. In fact, it is not even qualified to be called domestic airport. I immediately remembered that this enterprise called Nigeria pumps 2.5 million barrels per day [or more] yet its infrastructures, educational systems, population and much more have depleted to oblivion, and does not in all intents and purposes represent the enormous natural and human resources found within its walls. Our people live in the midst of plenty but grope in massive deprivation and decadence. My eyes immediately became wet. I was in tears. I was ashamed that I was born in this geo-political projectile.

Western individualism is smothering collectivism and has become the order of the day. Our peoples are rapidly turning their back[s] to the great tradition of virtue, good name, family; a tradition of communalism, and friendly relationship[s] exemplified by character of being our brothers’ keeper[s]. Its psyche has been brainwashed with anything Western is better: western materials and peoples are adored, while we humiliate, debase that which is ours. Our societies lacked anything called patriotism or nationalism. When you hear patriotism or nationalism watch-out, it is possibly bogus patriotism and/or nationalism. I quickly summarized that the majority of these peoples, politicians, clergies, and other professionals from all works of life believe or have a mis-feeling of the name Nigeria; and, in the meantime, ethnicity, regionalism, tribalism, increased in crime-as-we know-it, stifling corruption and such as these have engulfed the land and its peoples and have left her worse than I found her ten, thirteen years ago.   

Head-on from the airport, I began to witness that this society is begrudged by lawlessness and greed which, in my assessments are sometimes intentionally left in ruination and chaotic state to benefit the few: the rich and powerful. As disorganized and disparaged as this population has become, a criminally designed machination by those in power with their European Oil-multinational opportunists, who now take advantage of the lawlessness and chaos found in the land, to rape our young women: graduates and non-graduates and exploit our land with impunity. I was left to my self and sickened. I had a Yoruba friend who was on board with me, who was actually giggling at me with my way too many complaints. He ended up throwing lots of queries, lots of explanations my way [after asking me when I visited last] especially why the country reduced to this degrading, shameful circumstance. As if that is not enough, I looked up the airport building ceiling, it was painted green. I went crazy. What the hell are these morons painting the ceiling green-color for? My conclusion: the level of lunacy was/is incomprehensible to say the least. 

There is no organized transportation system. Molue is a death-trap. Under the orders coming from Washington D.C., IMF and World Bank to the Abuja lunatics, and without any verification, with its unprepared mechanisms or the lack of it thereof, rushed into liberalization, privatization and corporatization at the instance of these foreign expatriates. Amongst others: they were asked to reduce State assisted programmes or projects, open their markets for foreign made goods who in turn refused to accept homemade goods in the pretense that they are of low quality. Indeed, our people worship these so-called, foreign expatriate as better than indigenous anything in all ramifications. What a poor population without any good self-esteem-orientation[s]. Now, look at China, you cannot order her around, be it IMF, or World Bank, China is not interested in it. China is a nation. It is opening its market at its own pace to external partners and its operators based on its constitution and bilateral international relationship[s] with other member-States, especially those that are friendly toward her, particularly, those friendly towards its socio-political-economic benchmarks. 

But here we are el’Nigeria has rushed into whatever West ordered her to do; we are quick to write off debt and please the Europeans, while its population lives in abject poverty, below $1.00 per day. It has no benchmark for anything since anything goes. Someone pointed Abuja to me, as very organized and beautiful. I didn’t hesitate to response to this funny partner of mine. The response was, your Abuja is a national delusionalism of our national illusionalism. Abuja is a charade and shall remain so until we disperse or patriotically reorganized this immovable nation to become a movable republic with workable indigenous machines that does not depend on foreign ingenuities.

In Lagos for instance, there is no high-way or low-way. Automobiles regardless of their sizes move in all directions and from all directions. Most of these automobiles are not qualified to be on the road but they are on the road anyway. The so called High-Ways have been turned into marketplaces unperturbed by Lagosians — its users or law-enforcement authorities who collect bribes from these violators. In fact, in every 10 kilometers, you are confronted with not less than ten [10] Police Check Points.

Organizationally, there is organized Corruption and lack of shame: I was definitely shocked that Police and men in uniform were collecting 20 naira from every bus making its way up or down plying our dangerous roads. Shockingly so, the drivers of these “tokumbo”automobiles are readily handy dishing-out these twenty [20] Naira notes without questions asked or even without the police asking for it; with, the whole roads and many of its peoples filthy and unbecomingly dehumanized by these dehumanizing conditions. Lagos was in worse condition than I left it ten [10] thirteen [13] years ago at the behest of totalitarian regimes of Babangida/Abacha era. Permit me to say good bye to Lagos metropolis and its environs with its lawlessness as it is the case across nation’s frontiers. 

Entering Biafra territories, I notice similarities in operations or even worst with regard to give and take paralysis. Onitsha dual road had a sign of dualism but my dream of beautiful built dual road, along

From Benin City, to Asaba, Onitsha, Owerri, Aba-Ngwa, Port-Harcourt and what have you have nothing or word to quantify its filthiness when it comes to refuge dumps across these territories et al. In one State [name withheld] hundred million naira [100,000.000] are budgeted monthly, contracted with eighteen [18] sewage companies for garbage collections, yet the city remains filthy and unattended. Drainage system is completely poor and/or none existence, either due to poor planning or poor execution. I regret to inform readers that my route didn’t give me the opportunity to visit Arewa Nations up North. It is possible the condition up there is similar or even worst than the analysis above.

Constructions and Edifies: I observed that in one State Capital [name withheld] its Government House, everything from concrete to asbestos and what have you that was used to build this Government House were all imported running in billions of dollars. The question is why? Don’t we have builders and construction experts to provide such contracts and technical needs that suck in a staggering billions of dollars in cost?  I mentioned Government House just to mention but a few of these projects for all to see, re-evaluate and do their own re-assessments. 

Electricity and power supply: Same old story or even worse situations than it was before I left Nigerian shores. The canker-worm, of non-power supply has remained a thorn on my flesh and on those of millions of Nigerians. It is curiously beyond my imagination that we supply Togo, Benin, Niger and even Ghana with Hydro-power energy capabilities and cannot provide one for the "giant" of Africa. This lack of power supply I have written about before and the reason Bola Ige was assassinated. Unstable electricity comes down to even the Government Houses and Executive residential Areas. Information, shows, that residence of GH, more often than not, turn to stand-by generators when power-grid is not attainable. Which way Nigeria? Are you not finished? Tell me…

May I return to liberalization and privatization of nations corporate supposedly infrastructures. GSMs, V-Mobiles, MSN, GLOs and so forth are disasters. These foreign owned multinational tele-corporations have besieged our Tele-communication industries, and, our landlines—have almost if not totally disappeared altogether. If you buy a 1,000.00 naira in any of these fraudulent aforementioned tele-communication gargets, introduce by these foreign-profiteers, friends of Obasanjo, in just one phone-call, it tells you that your credit is finished, that you should reload additional credits. Sometimes, some of these cards curiously have nothing inside them to one’s chagrin. Small, small umbrellas with company’s inscriptions such as GLO, GSM and so forth are everywhere. When I ask what all these nonsense is all about, they quickly retorted, what do you do, it is Obasanjo’s administration, its part of job creation under the privatization project[s]. Worse still, hardly any of these companies belongs to Nigerians. The populations is so distressed and have nowhere to turn to, that they end up applauding the tele-communication scam, called privatization in the land as better than nothing.

In the villages, inner-cities, suburbs are characterized with individuals scooping for their individual gains and pockets, ripping open oil-pipe-lines that sometimes catch fire and kill many of them in their frustrated efforts to make a living either by crook or by hook. In these aforementioned areas there is no pipe-borne water[s] and were it exists, it is unclean for human consumption. Individuals and groups are dangerously resorting to water bore-hole[s] mechanisms, built inside their compounds for their individual consumption. Until we eschew ourselves of anything foreign, including materialism, greed, and appetite for anything west, especially Western individualism and behaviors and much more, the condition of things will get worse before it gets better. Prostitution and pornographic materials are wide-spread and increasing. Yet, we have more churches and Mosques more than any other nation in the world. Many of these individuals who profess some of these faiths have both Bible and Koran all together waiting for the most convenient opportunity to deploy them on the unsuspecting population. If they are caught in some fraudulent compromising practices, they sometimes deny their faith altogether and blame the preacher for their misbehaviors. Let there be no misunderstanding, some of these faithful servants are indeed good, and some of them are faithful individuals who practice what they preach but greater number of these are bad idea and misplaced religious practitioners. 

In conclusion, may I state in unequivocal terms few remedies as a way forward for our nations-inside-the-nation as follows: 

I] Those in authority must lead by example by restoring self-dignity for self-actualization in all that we do, whether we are in the homeland or in Diaspora we should endeavor to assist our population regain self-esteem once-again;

II] We must from today on eschew idolization of non-existing patriotism and restore regionalism as a way forward because pseudo-patriotism is an immovable malady. The earlier we acknowledge this pathology of immovability the better for us;

III] Seniors with colonial mentality [such as Obasanjo] that curiously believes that Whiteman is better, smarter and more intelligent than himself should for God’s sake leave the stage so that young and smart new-bred would speedily restructure the structure-less  society from thence;

IV] We must acknowledge that Nigeria is not yet a nation, rather it is a nation-less nation with many nations within its frontiers—and in like manner, it must appreciate these nations with their regional or individual/collective capacities for probity and accountability to reign supreme;

V] Foreign oil-multinationals with their expatriates should be speedily authorized or ordered to leave our land, air, and waterways. This will assist us to reduce the current pollution, global warming, ecological problems we face[s] today in Niger-Basin - these foreigners could careless about your pollution and so forth;

VI] We must accept and deal with it, the regionalism components of differing regions, before this time, each region, had a stand by regional Police Forces that was in existence before the 1914 criminal amalgamation of Southern and Northern regions and Lagos Colony by the British;

VII] We must convey a sovereign National Conference to discourse whether we want to stay together or to part ways respecting each others regional bloc and markedly partner at the international market, engage in trade and commerce based on equality and respect for divergent opinions rather than coerced unity that is not working;

VIII] Religious freedom across the country must be allowed and those found wanting flouting this freedom must be dealt with according to the laws of the land as enshrined in the constitution were it exists and were it doesn't exists one must be formulated; from Presidency to the common-man in the street, nobody should be above the law; all must be equal before the law — that is why United States of America, though not perfect, is performing better within sphere of civil society and good governance pendulum, when compared with other member-states in the world today;

VIX] The joy is enormous. It is always good to visit the homeland, siblings, parents and loved ones; at the end of the day we shall surely return to the land of our ancestors, the land of our fathers. 

Finally, permit me to state that respect, kindness, and reverence for the sanctity and divinity of human life are not too big of a thing to ask, since we are hopefully rational human-being[s]. It is all we can give to one another in order to preserve human values and human decency that would assist us evoke an organized, efficient and effective society.

Carlisle U.O. Umunnah

Is a New York Based Freelance Writer

Contact: cuu1_liberties@yahoo.com

July 2006 

Robot  # 1 | 10.08.2006 04:20

I noticed that many Nigerians, Biafrans and other nations in this nation are indeed hard working ...Read the full article.

Mutti  # 2 | 10.08.2006 06:23

Tedious. And I thought I had the exclusive preserve for writing long and convoluted sentences peppered with big words that you would need a dictionary to decode? Well me and maybe Xris Okotie. Even so, to borrow another's phrase, 'I feel you'. I feel you although i don't agree with your feeble attempts to introduce tribalsim into this discourse. the problems you identified are Nigerian and should be discussed accordingly. People's attitude to how the problems are viewed (half empty half full or even no use) has absolutely nothing to do with their tribal heritage. Conditions in Nigeria remain bad, there is no gain sying that, but there has also been some progress if only in an increased level of awareness. what we need is that critical mass that will tip the scals towards a revolution (non violent) unfortunately that is more tangible on the pages of this and similar boards than on the ground in Nigeria. I think we should accompany our talk our ideas with concrete action. individually we may be unable to do more than each one teach one, but that is still something. We however need to be careful about overly negative attitudes. A green ceiling has nothing to do with anything just a matter of preference, and green can be quite smart as part of a scheme so we should not see it in isolation. Other attitudes like a praying section with smelly rugs that stink up the whole place right after immigrations should elicit more comment. But that is only my opinion. The religion thing gets me, always, so forgive me for bringing it up yet again.

toy boy  # 3 | 11.08.2006 04:19

In as much as i agree wit some of the issues in your write up,i cannot but chastise your subtle introduction of tribalism into it. Nigeria as it is now is one indivisible country populated by diffent ethnic groups and tribe,not Nigeria ,Odua,Arewa....etal like you claim. Your being away for so long has not made you seen the extent of detoriation of facilities and structures on ground before the present administration.I am not holding forth for this regime neither am i giving them accolades for doing a very fantastic job, but in utmost sincerity,the Obj administration is laying a very good foundation for the speedy progress and development of the nation.