No Tears for Looters!
By Paul I. Adujie
Lawcareer2007@aol.com
New York, United States

Tears for looters, are wasted tears! Cries and tears for looters are, as such, wasted tears and cries! We should not tear, or cry for looters of our national wealth! Those who looted our patrimony, the equivalents of our life’s savings for several generations! We should be impatient with looters. We should agonize and be sad, for those who suffer as a result of the actions of looters. We should be adamant and vehement hot-pursuit, of looters’ ends, even, apocalyptic ends!

I cry for my beloved country Nigeria, I cry for missed opportunities for development, advancement and greatness! But I never, ever cry for looters and, I never cry for those responsible for the ruination of Nigeria. I never cry for those who cause many Nigerians to mass migrate from Nigeria. We must not cry or shed tears for looters!

But if any Nigerian must shed tears, such precious tears must be reserved for the deserving average Nigerian pretty girl, pretty girls with college education, who are now in Italy or France, engaged in the demoralizing indignity of prostitution or sex trade, in order to keep body and soul together, due to unemployment and economic hardships and desperations that have permeated Nigeria for decades!

By all accounts and by all measures, Nigeria is a country that is brimming and has always brimmed with abundant human, natural, and material-mineral resources. Sadly, it has been the case, that these abundances have not had positive benefits and desirable impacts on citizens of Nigeria.

Corruption has been unanimously diagnosed as the cause of our abject poverty! Nigerians have been described as poorer than field mice or rats, all this, astoundingly, in the midst of acknowledged abundance! While some Nigerian public officials corruptly acquire 172 houses or engage in cosmetic-plastic surgery, some other Nigerians have nothing to eat!

To worry about those who plunder and pillage Nigeria of abundant resources is to worry about our national enemies! Why would we lose a night sleep over the ones who have no love lost for us? Why would we worry about our enemies who do not care whether we are alive or dead? How come we are not worried or crying about those who cause unemployment and hunger amongst our populace?

I stay awake and cry for the unemployed persons in Nigeria. I cry and weep, when life’s hopes are snuffed out by fitfully power generation. I weep for every Nigerian who has die or may yet die, as a result of poverty of health facilities and poverty of equipment and poverty of pharmaceuticals!

I weep, and cry tears of agony and sorrow, when I learn of Nigerians being denigrated as they besiege embassies in Nigeria, in efforts to migrate out of the economic desperations, hardships and hopelessness that have pervaded our land for too long.

I weep and drench myself in tears, when I read of the extraordinary indignities that Nigerians are subjected to in their everyday lives in our homeland.

I cry, I tear and I weep some more, as I read that our highways and byways, have become death-traps due to the fact that these highways and byways have been subjected to wanton abandonment and neglect, for almost twenty years.

And yes! I do not weep for looters, I do not waste my tears on those who have robbed Nigeria blind and have inflicted bodily and psychological harm on Nigerians one and all!

I cry and weep and bawl, when I learn of the immeasurable, and yet, needless sufferings and hardships that are endured by countless Nigerians in their daily lives, all these as a result of unbridled corruption in both our public and private sectors!

I want looters tried fairly and jailed and punished for all the immeasurable harm done to Nigeria by them! I want those who plunder and pillage Nigeria of public wealth and resources, punished perfectly and imperfectly, where perfect punishment my get in the way of getting a pound of flesh from those enemies of our nation!

All Nigerians must ask why Nigerians and Nigeria are maligned, denigrated and lampooned by some Nigerians and non-Nigerians regarding corruption, spam, advance fee fraud, or 419? And Nigerians must as why Transparency International and CNN routinely smear our national and international image with unsavory opinions about Nigerians and Nigeria. Nigerians must further ask, what we must do about it, to remove ourselves from unpalatable lists at Transparency International and CNN bashing fests!

Nigeria must reject and repudiate pariah nation status. And the first step in that direction is to punish perfectly, where feasible, and then, punish even imperfectly! Those, who besmirch Nigeria’s good name, image and collective reputation;  Nigeria must learn to be singularly focused in these endeavors, as Singapore would and regularly does, when it comes to enforcing its laws! Singapore gives no hoots to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the United Nations, pleas from Nigeria or anyone else, when Singapore is determined to enforce its laws! It worries not and about who is looking in, or who is complaining or appealing to public galleries about the emotional sentiments of clemency pleas! Singapore punished an American Michael Fay, for vandalizing a car, Singapore similarly meted the ultimate in supreme punishment to Iwuchukwu Amara Tochii, a Nigerian accused of narcotics smuggling. Despite, appeals for clemency, and despite fine and very good politicking internationally to save our Nigerian brethren. Singapore enforced it laws!

Nigeria must learn to enforce Nigerian laws against Nigerians and non-Nigerians and worry, less about criticisms, but, instead worry more about the contemplated public objective, for example, of ridding Nigeria of corruption and its perpetrators! The aims and objectives of laws, of statutes, and our constitution, should not be detracted by public criticisms of our enforcements. Those who criticize crimes such as corruption, those who criticize lawlessness, are sadly, the same folks, who would be quick to criticize vigorous enforcement techniques and sundry enforcement methods! Nigeria must focus on eliminating crimes and lawlessness, even if that attracts the ire of those who think and expect Nigeria to only eliminate crimes and criminals who perpetrate crimes, only and only when the conditions are perfect! There is no perfect country that we know of, and the job at hand, eliminating crimes and criminals, must proceed according to plans!

I want those who are corrupt, and  those who make the bulk of Nigerians suffer, punished, punished, because of, and, through their egregiously corrupt misconducts, and bad ways, have shown that they do not give a hoot about majority of Nigerians, I want such corrupt Nigerians who care-less, about the lives, the feelings, the worries  and the aspirations of us, the average Nigerians, to receive their just deserts, as severest of punishments and consequences for causing such great pains and psychological scars and loss of self-esteem and pride in our Nigerian-ness, to be punished perfectly where possible, and be punished by every means necessary, where perfection is not possible in efforts to punish them for the ruinations that their actions have caused Nigerians and Nigeria.

Cry, my beloved country! I cry for Nigerians who suffer deprivations, hardships and desperations borne out of hopelessness. I weep over Nigeria’s arrested development. I bawl over Nigeria’s stunted economic, political and cultural growth. I sob, yes, I sob inconsolably, when I think of the many what could have been, in the lives of Nigerians who die young, Nigerians who die avoidably and needlessly, all because of corruption.

I have no tears for looters, I have no tears for those who pillage and plunder Nigeria, I have no tears to those who have cause my country to be on her knees, I shed no tears for those who compel Nigeria to become the laughing stock among nations and the butt of all dinner jokes! I have no tears for those who have caused Nigeria to be tagged a sleeping giant! I have no tears for those who have delayed Nigeria’s destined rise and leadership of Africa and peoples of African descent. No tears for looters. No tears for looters. No!

I cry over Nigeria’s missed opportunities at development, advancement and greatness.