This write up may be long but it is worth reading. The source is from Facebook where the author by name Pius Adesanmi posted it. Read and share your thoughts.

OJO TO RO S’EWURO LO RO S’IREKE
By Pius Adesanmi

I’ve been thinking.

Madam Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, the one Nigerian who should never have left Washington to happen to Nigeria with her lethal IMF cocktails, has told us that we are flat broke and that she and her staff have run out of ideas.

She says that she has high blood pressure.

She says that members of her immediate staff have high blood pressure.

She says that we are now effectively Unoka of Things Fall Apart. Unoka worries about paying only his big debts first. Unoka does not tolerate it when people he owes chicken change come to disturb his sleep. The Nigerian economy pays the gargantuan salaries, perks, and allowances of the most indolent and parasitic fragment of our population – the one percent otherwise known as Ministers, Governors, Senators, and the like. Those are the big debts that the Nigerian economy now pays exclusively. As for little debts like the salaries of teachers, pensioners, nurses, civil servants, and messengers, the Nigerian economy, like Unoka, does not worry. After all, the sun will shine on those standing before it shines on those kneeling beneath them.

But the Madam with the awkward gele is not done with us yet. She says that even the big debts of the big Ogas that she is paying, we are borrowing money from pillar to post to settle that one. She says that our Nigerian black behinds are so broke that we are borrowing money to pay the big Ogas while the rest of us, the ninety-nine percent, rot in penury

So, Ogbeni Aregbesola in the state of Osun is tactically manoeuvring out of every promise made to the people of Osun faster than Major-General Chris Olukolade’s trickster tongue has been manoeuvring in and out of Boko Haram scenarios. Ogbeni is no longer feeding the pupils. Ogbeni is no longer paying salaries. Ogbeni says he has no money. He says the remittances from Madam Okonjo in Abuja never come.

But Ogbeni is thankful that his own case is even still better than that of his friend, Idris Wada, in Kogi state. With Idris Wada, Kogi is in the running to clinch the gold medal for Nigeria’s most misgoverned state. After donating millions to the Jonathan campaign in Abuja, Wada returned to Lokoja to sack workers because he could not pay salaries. And now he has announced that the workers he has not sacked are entitled to only sixty percent of salaries he is not paying.

Yes, you heard that right: a state Governor in Nigeria is announcing a forty-percent cut on salaries he is not paying. Idris Wada says he has no money. He says the remittances from Madam Okonjo in Abuja never come.

But Idris Wada is thankful that his own case is even still better than that of his friend, Ochendo, in Abia state. My young friend, Mitt Okorie, insists that Kogi is the younger brother of Abia when we are talking about underdevelopment, backwardness, and kwashiokored governance. Personally, I don’t believe that it is possible to be more underdeveloped and more horribly governed than Kogi state. Anything worse than Kogi state ought to attract the attention of the international community for humanitarian intervention but I will take Mitt’s word for it that Kogi should not be beating her chest over her poor governance creds in the presence of Abia. Apart from running Nigeria’s dirtiest and filthiest state capital, Ochendo pays salaries by ballot and lottery. Ochendo says he has no money. He says the remittances from Madam Okonjo in Abuja never come.

Case after case after case: no state Governor is paying salaries in Nigeria because Madam Okonjo says we are broke. She says it is the fault of oil. Oil is not selling. Where it is selling at all, prices are not good. And we are losing customers left, right, and centre as those who used to buy our oil have either found other sellers or are gyrating towards cleaner, safer, and more efficient alternative sources of energy. They are investing in tomorrow whereas we are still fighting barbaric wars over the Niger Delta’s oil.

Madam Okonjo has been abusing the father and the mother of oil for being responsible for all our woes. Oil is why we are so blest; oil is why we are so underdeveloped; oil is why we have no light; oil is why we have no roads; oil is why we have no hospitals; oil is why our schools belong to the 19th century; oil is why we have no potable water; oil is why we cannot pay salaries; oil is why life is shorter and more brutish in Nigeria than it is for lions and hyenas in the
Serengeti; oil is why ours is such a bitter life.

That is Madam Okonjo’s explanation.

And I start to think about the matriarch’s song. For Mama Isanlu, my grandmother, sings and sings. The matriarch sings:

“Ojo to ro s’ewuro lo ro s’ireke”!

“Ojo to ro s’ewuro lo ro s’ireke”!

The rain falls, sings Mama Isanlu. The rain falls on sugar cane and falls on bitter leaf. There is not a different rain for sugar cane and bitter leaf. Both plants receive the blessing of the same rain from nature, sings the matriarch. The same rain falls on sugar cane and bitter leaf. Sugar cane takes its own share of the rain and travels the path of sweetness while bitter leaf takes its own share of the same rain and travels the path of bitterness.

“Ojo to ro s’ewuro, lo ro s’ireke!”

“Ojo to ro s’ewuro lo ro s’ireke”!

The rain of oil falls on Dubai and falls on Nigeria. The rulers of Dubai use their own share of the rain of oil to launch their people on the path of sweetness while their Nigerian counterparts take same rain and condemn their own people to the path of bitterness. The rain of oil waters sweetness and abundance for the people of Dubai and waters bitterness and penury for the people of Nigeria.

“Ojo to ro s’ewuro, lo ro s’ireke!”

“Ojo to ro s’ewuro lo ro s’ireke”!

And that is why you, President Buhari, must not allow Madam Okonjo Iweala’s gele to block your view to life after oil for Nigeria. She has been offering you advice lately from her location on top of Africa’s most disgraceful gbese economy. We have seen how well her advice to Obasanjo and Jonathan has worked since she happened to our lives.

President Buhari, do not listen to her o. We cannot continue to rely on this single resource controlled by a feeding bottle in Abuja. We have squeezed enough bitterness out of it. Let us see if we are imaginative enough as a people to squeeze sweetness out of agriculture and the hundreds of other resources that litter our patch of earth called Nigeria.
Mama Isanlu’s dirge rings still in my ears:

“Ojo to ro s’ewuro, lo ro s’ireke!”

“Ojo to ro s’ewuro lo ro s’ireke”!

Mhen dis guy nailed it! Kudus!!!

Nice one! I can see talent here

Kindly vote me as Miss. Nairaland 2015

I was really impressed with the article...Didnt have any hesitation putting it up

This is very well written and it captures the messy situation we find ourselves while at the same time offers alternative solutions to solve our problems.

Lalasticlala Seun Ishilove, please promote this to the front page.

chookudi:
I was really impressed with the article...Didnt have any hesitation putting it up

Why not credit the source/owner?

I thought I have done that by stating where I got the article from (source) and who wrote it (the author).

PassingShot:


Why not credit the source/owner?

Painful,insightful,bittersweet and succintly captures the nations dilemma.

Baba has his heads well screwed on, he won't allow feminine wiles derail him.

I'm a woman but I pray no woman is given any position of great impact in Baba's govt.

The problems this country currently faces were exarcebated by the fat cheeked gele woman who went from a Saver/gatherer under OBJ to a squanderer under Jonathan and the frog eyed temptress who turned the nation's oil coffers to her personal ATM and dispenses as she so desires.

Shepopo's matter is one for another day.

An oyinbo maga gets conned easily cos of naivety and greed.

So also was GEJ conned by the frog eyed, pomo lipped, madam cos of his kleptomaniac tendencies and epic stupidity.

Such a rare combination of failures

PassingShot:
This is very well written and it captures the messy situation we find ourselves while at the same time offers alternative solutions to solve our problems.

Lalasticlala Seun Ishilove, please promote this to the front page.

This is the best article I read on nairaland this year, followed by your verbal and venom laced biography of Barcanista a while back. I'm sure you remembererd.

Nice one people.

Mizmycoli, Tallesty, MrPresident1, Trusted, Okija_juju.

Hmm...the harm has already be done but we still have an opportunity to tread the path towards sustainable development as the greatest resource Nigeria has as a Nation is Nigerians. When Political offices becomes less attractive, twisted minds would have no incentive to want to vie for positions.

We need smarter people in government, people who know we can empower a community with energy generated from the same waste they generate. Who knows that there is so much possibilities beyond oil, that we would earn more when policies are right, policies that would transform our huge population who have become wholesale consumers of what others produce, to become productive minds that generate wealth for themselves and their communities, also feeling a sense of accomplishment.

Our present leaders feel stealing public funds put under their trust is their entitlement. Stealing is not just only corruption, it robs one of the possibilities ahead.

According to the late highlife musician, Akunwata Ozoemena Nsugbe 'Witchcraft and Stealing are siblings'

Great write up...

Guess its time for Seun to put up a strictly "intellectual" section on Nairaland. Criteria should include; minimum of first degree (second class upper or equivalent). others are Masters and doctorate degree respectively.

To be a member, individuals would have to apply online to intellectuals@nairaland.com and I bet you would have another class in this forum.

The issue is that the current public domain is similar to a fuel station where everyone is carrying kegs and jerrycans and queuing up waiting for an attendant to dispense the product. Transporters, mechanics, fish sellers and the likes....

Pls make your remarks...

K

Ogbeni is no longer feeding the pupils. Ogbeni is no longer paying salaries. Ogbeni says he has no money. He says the remittances from Madam Okonjo in Abuja never come.

But Rauf has enough to pay himself and his close friends, he also has enough to go globe trotting. This former refrigerator repairer knows where he's going after the next election >>>> back to being Tinubu's boy boy.

imagine the level of mis-management under jonathan/PDP...imagine if we had allowed this level of ineptitude to continue...i am sadden that africa greatest nation is been plundered in this manner....
But Idris Wada is thankful that his own case is even still better than that of his friend, Ochendo, in Abia state. My young friend, Mitt Okorie, insists that Kogi is the younger brother of Abia when we are talking about underdevelopment, backwardness, and kwashiokored governance. Personally, I don’t believe that it is possible to be more underdeveloped and more horribly governed than Kogi state. Anything worse than Kogi state ought to attract the attention of the international community for humanitarian intervention but I will take Mitt’s word for it that Kogi should not be beating her chest over her poor governance creds in the presence of Abia. Apart from running Nigeria’s dirtiest and filthiest state capital, Ochendo pays salaries by ballot and lottery. Ochendo says he has no money. He says the remittances from Madam Okonjo in Abuja never come.
imagine leaders like wada and ochendo ...God help us

yes na........i beg wetin e talk?

Twaci:
Nice one! I can see talent here
Kindly vote me as Miss. Nairaland 2015

he's a prof at carleton university canada

Some article this is. GEJ and his goons certainly have a case to answer.

Twaci:
Nice one! I can see talent here

Kindly vote me as Miss. Nairaland 2015

Why should we vote you as miss Nairaland? I'm seeing your campaign everywhere....

Thank u very much for this article am highly impressed i know some mofos will come here and say rubbish

This is a very nice piece. A clear picture of the present condition of our economy. May God bring the glory of Nigeria back. We have suffered enough...I know Nigerians will laugh last like that determined man in the picture below. After failing 3 times and being labelled a serial loser, God put a bright smile on his face and crowned his effort, wiped his tears and wrote his name in Gold at his 4th trial. So shall Nigeria and Nigerians experience such turn-around.

Aunty Ngozi sabi lie!

I didn't even bother to read it

Nice piece.
Sit here in Yemen nd wonder how Nigeria's gone dis bad.
Maybe am neva comin back home

It is a daft article because it abdicates responsibility and makes a scapegoat out of one person. The country has been an oil binge for its entire existence and then you blame the withdrawal symptoms on one person! Ridiculous!

The truth is, all the levels of the Nigerian state are convulsing and the so called masses are responsible for the people that govern them even if autocratic.

Nigeria cannot cope without oil. Thats the painful truth.

Besides, I'm tired of everyone blaming Ngozi for our problems. She is not you president, governor or local government chairman. As a minister of finance, she does what the law requires of her and nothing else. Ngozi has done nothing wrong, let her be.

I think the time I spent reading this was worth it. LOL @ "anything worse than kogi state ought to attract the attention of the international community for humanitarian intervention". #whichwaynigeria

A professor was asked to give the opening prayer in a meeting back then in school, and one of his prayer request was that Naija's crude oil should dry up. We laughed after the prayer but today i'm beginning to see the sense in that prayer

Nigeria is buckling under the weight of it's overbloated beauracracy, that much is true....but that is NOT the reason we are in penury.

And an over-dependence on Oil is also not the reason we're so poor...even though it looks that way.

We are poor simply because the amalgamation of 1914 was a mistake of epic proportions.

By forcefully merging several previously sovereign and culturally disparate nation states into one, the British inadvertently created a never ending struggle for power and resources among the 265 ethnic groups, that has manifested in the forms of corruption we see today: Nepotism,theft and Militant ethnic jingoists.

The race to Aso rock has now become a race to plunder, with the Efik man not giving two fvcks about his countryman from Gombe, and why should he? He is Efik first, and Naija for life at football or when bragging to the Ghana man.

It is too late now to break Nigeria up into smaller more governable fragments, but what we must do at least put Nigeria on the right path is to truly federalize the Government, by devolving more powers from the centre and moving it closer to the grass roots.

We need to foster economic and infrastructural competition between states, with the Federal Government taking more of a 'Big Brother' approach.

This is not the way to fix the country, but in my opinion, it's the best way to start.

TheFilmmaker:


This is the best article I read on nairaland this year, followed by your verbal and venom laced biography of Barcanista a while back. I'm sure you remembererd.

Nice one people.

Mizmycoli, Tallesty, MrPresident1, Trusted, Okija_juju.

Is resource wealth the cause of underdevelopment?

No, the true cause is poor governance system. States that have good systems manage their resources better. Examples UAE, Saudi Arabia, Norway etc.