What an awful time to be a Nigerian!

Vanguard

5 February 2012

What an awful time to be a Nigerian!

By Douglas Anele

Since the creation of the colonial amalgam called Nigeria by the British colonial power in 1914, the country has gone through periods of relative peace and prosperity and periods of turmoil, anguish and violence.

There is no scintilla of doubt that the time immediately before the declaration of independence in October 1, 1960 and the years before the civil war in 1967, except for the coups of 1966 and the pogrom against Ndigbo which reached its omega point the same year, were years of unprecedented optimism in the potential greatness of Nigeria.

+++

This is not surprising: some of the people responsible in previous administrations for the decadent status of Nigeria and who ought to be imprisoned for corruption and maladministration are still either in government or very influential in the portals of power.

+++

Even so, Mr. President and his crowd of ministers and advisers etc. are yet to wean themselves from the toxic breast of sybaritic lifestyles which necessitate disgusting waste of over 80% of the nation’s resources on less than 2% of the population. The same abomination, mutatis mutandis, is replicated in the states and local governments.