The festival of life (FOL) is London ’s equivalent of Holy Ghost night - the monthly gathering of Christians in Nigeria , irrespective of denominations, at the redeemed Christian church camp to offer prayers and praises to God. Although the FOL is held twice a year at the Excel centre in East London , it is already turning into a ritual similar to the one at home. The turnout is always massive and the passion generated at the event is just typical of any gathering of devoted Nigerian Christians.



Politicians, clergymen from the Church of England, and other non-governmental organizations have started to associate very closely with this event. This somehow underscores the socio-political significance of the gathering. The former mayor of London , Ken Livingstone, once used the occasion to campaign during an election period and was given a tacit endorsement by the Nigerian churches but still lost anyway. Yes, he lost, partly because the Nigerian population in London is hardly significant to guarantee him any success at the polls. Besides that, the British electorate are not as dumb as those in Nigeria . That statement is actually my own hypothesis.



According to official statistics released in US, Nigerians are rated amongst the most highly educated foreigners. It is likely to be the same in the United Kingdom . But we are easily one of the most stupid also. We might be one of the most educated but the level of ignorance on display by even the educated lot is so amazing that I don’t think anything can salvage the country from her destined self-destruction. The horrible smell of our collective stupidity has reached high heavens and I think God can no longer stand the stench and that probably explains the type of leadership in every sphere of our lives. I know I have a lot of explanations to give for this generalization.



Wait! I don’t think I need to go far before getting evidence to back up my hypothesis on our collective stupidity, For example, if less than one million rogues are able to suppress the will and aspirations of over one hundred and forty-nine million people, what better explanation can one give for such a scenario? Well, I trust Nigerians they will give loads of reasons. But, I don’t really care about the reasons. I am only stating a fact.



For a start, my intention is not to discuss why the few stupid rogues are able to overwhelm the huge majority and push them into a state of unbelievable docility. Other people can talk about that. I am more concerned about the stupid one hundred and forty–nine million who believed that it is God’s will for the majority to live in abject poverty in the midst of plenty.



There was even a poll conducted not too long ago that gave justification to our stupidity, which gave further credence to my hypothesis. The poll claimed that we are the happiest people on earth. Jesus Christ! There is nothing more sinister than such ridicule. How could any group of people stay happy when they are in pitch darkness for twenty out of twenty-four hours in a day? Infant and maternal mortality rate is continuously one of the highest in the world. And of course life expectancy is about forty-five years for male. This means that if you are forty five, male and reading this article, you are one of the lucky few who are still alive because most of your mates who could not leave the country are already dead, and you are likely to be dead before the end of the week either through a ghastly motor accident on those death-traps called roads, or through ingestion of fake drugs or one equally stupid and mad police man would simply blow your brains out and nothing will happen. Anyway, never mind; just be happy, you are just another stupid Nigerian.



As I mentioned briefly earlier, one of the most compelling evidence of our level of stupidity can be seen in our attitude to religion. It is always God’s will. If Ya’Ardua suddenly drops dead tomorrow, as he likely would eventually anyway, (renal failure is a terminal ailment, and only transplant and not his stupid faith in some miracle can save him) and a few morons decided that Good-luck Jonathan is not from the North and therefore cannot become the next president, it would simply be God’s will. We would all write articles and scream on the pages of newspaper about the unconstitutionality of the decision but nothing would happen. We are clowns in Nigeria and the whole world is laughing at us. We all know that clowns act stupidly to make children laugh. So you can see that my hypothesis will eventually take shape.

Therefore, I daresay that religion will remain one of the greatest impediments to our greatness in Nigeria . Alternatively, if the influence of religion is effectively utilized it can actually be a useful tool for development,



Take a look at the North where Islam is the dominant religion. The wretched religious clerics in that part of the country can easily mobilize more than five million street urchins to wreck havoc on all Igbo traders because an unidentified person used a torn page from the Quran to wipe his bum after defecating. Has anyone ever wondered why it was always the Igbos? Meanwhile, they have never ever organised a peaceful rally to express their displeasure at the lack of development in the area.

The North is probably only second to the Stone Age in terms of human capital development. Even those in that age used their brains to fabricate sophisticated tools for hunting purposes. And then the joke of the century is when Forbes magazine suddenly came up with the story that the only billionaire from Nigeria is actually from that part of the country. Well, he is not the government so what is he supposed to do? I beg to differ, This guy has one of the most potent clouts in any government in Nigeria . He can advocate and strive to see that something is done. Bill Gates has used billions of dollars of his money to fight malaria. There is no malaria in America but it kills millions of children in Africa every year.



Christianity is the fastest growing industry in the southern part of the country. The pastors are growing fat while the congregation are burdened by the harsh economic conditions. All the rogues in government are elders in one church or the other. The churches are like second homes to looters of the treasury. They are chairmen or chairpersons of one church building committee or the other. The pastors are always saying special prayers for them and have no scruples about taking their stolen money.



The churches now buy private jets for their chief executive officers (oh sorry, pastor) and are shameless enough to claim that it is for evangelism. Meanwhile, half the congregation of those churches live on less than $1,000 in a year while most of the youth are jobless. Yes, the pastors are not the ones to provide jobs; but how many times have they criticised the government for not creating those jobs? How many times have they told them that they cannot continue to loot the treasuries and then come around to the house of God to make some bogus claims of God’s blessings in their lives?



During the last American election, religious leaders were very vocal in their criticism of one government policy or the other. They do not keep quiet and say it is God’s will. Barack Obama’s pastor, Reverend Wright, was so vocal about his criticism of America ’s racial divide that he became a big threat to his election prospect. That is the job of a pastor- saying the truth as it is, and not only collecting tithes and junketing about in private jets in the name of evangelism.



Pastor Tunde Bakare is the only pastor that I respect in Nigeria . He told Obasanjo to his face that he is evil. That is a real man of God. I worship with RCCG but not impressed that all manner of past and present rogue governors and ministers tend to associate with the overseer. They are always present at the Holy Ghost nights. They have probably repented and God has forgiven them and they are free to enjoy the loot till they die. A thief is a thief. I don’t care if God has forgiven them. What manner of forgiveness is that anyway? How about the thousands that died on the roads that he refused to tar? How about the thousands of kids that died because there was no free Medicare?



The Yorubas of South-West are the most pathetic. They are quick to boast of their education and sophistication. Meanwhile, Adedibu and Obasanjo were the best they could come up with as national leaders. The former was the head of street urchins while the latter has a reputation for sleeping with his children’s wives.



I am actually fed up discussing and writing articles about our thieving leaders. They will never change anyway, at least not through our lengthy articles or criticism. If you believed that Ya’Ardua and his PDP cohorts will not rig 2011 election, then you are even more stupid than an average Nigerian. Your own stupidity is extra-terrestrial. If you believed that the electoral reform would lead anywhere, I despise your sense of reasoning. If anyone believes that Nigeria will wobble and fumble (a la Fanny Amun!) into greatness, then I leave you alone to perish as a nonentity who only came to this world to look at Eko Bridge . (Or London bridge) The Igbos and the Ijaws are probably the ones that have been most rebellious, the least religious and hence the least stupid. Maybe that is where the hopes of Nigeria lie. They would never accept that something is the will of God simply because somebody said so. They are difficult to subjugate and that is one of the reasons there was a civil war in the first place. Ojukwu remains a true hero. Why would some group of murderers continue to kill your people over some flimsy excuses? If I was an Igbo, I would be a low-life not to fight under those circumstances. He fought for what he believed in and the Igbo people followed him because they are not stupid like my people, the Yorubas. Although they lost the war and millions of lives were lost, but I know that they live to fight another day as long as some people continue to deter the progress of others.

The Ijaws have taken over the struggle and though there have been some criminality in the struggle, that is not unexpected, but by and large they have shown that people’s destiny is in their own hands and God’s will has nothing to do with it.

Yar’Adua and the looters of the treasury, both at the federal and state level, have started to panic as MEND cripples the oil industry. MEND, a ragtag bunch of militias have exposed the weakness of the Nigerian government. They quickly and with lightening speed offered them amnesty. They knew if there is no more oil, there wouldn’t be any Nigeria . They planned to kill twenty million Ijaws to satisfy the lust and cravings of those vampires in Abuja .



Nigeria cannot continue to be the butt of jokes in the world. We cannot continue to believe that everything is the will of God. It is not God’s will to lack the basic things of life, and certainly not his will that our children should still be dying from malaria because there are no good hospitals. Untimely death from accident on death traps called road is not the will of God. All these things are the creations of the rogues amongst us and we have aided and abetted their actions because we have kept silent and didn’t act. Our lack of action is construed as acceptability; we are therefore very stupid collectively.

I have not seen a Nigerian write so much undiluted truths in a very long time.

Talk talk talk as usual.

Come home and lead a revolt sir, we have read so much of this, and thank you for calling Nigerian electorates silly and stupid.

Word!!

Another honest Yoruba man.
I tell you, if I can find 5% of Yorubas who think like this man, there is hope for Nigeria.

I want more voice for folks like this in Yoruba land.

i hate when nigerians ramble on the internet and think they're writers when they're saying NOTHING the average nigerian illiterate isn't saying

i rarely see american writers post 'articles' like

"America is a rich country"

"America is a stable democracy"

"Americans are wealthy compared to others"

cause they're all givens and who doesn' t know them

in nigeria all i read is

"Nigeria is a poor country"

"Nigeria isn't a stable democracy"

and

"Nigerians are poor" (doesn't even have the professional dignity to say compared to others cause the writer is usually poorly informed)


this is why i think Soyinka is a fraud. The guy has said nothing new in all his years of existence and is the godfather of all these 'writers'

Absolutely nothing new here. just a typical Nigerian armchair critic with a crafty use of the English language telling us what we all know - Nigeria has failed (so far) as a nation. But just like I've come to expect from the nations harshest critics, he fails to point a way forward or prescribe a panacea for the failures he so easily could see, so I'm surprised at the queuing up in support of an article that thinks its audience are collectively silly! If as he claims, the Yorubas are, well perharps he's speaking as an insider I wouldnt know but to say Nigerians are collectively silly, I beg to differ and I take an exception to that. Also I dont see the sense in an article that seems to believe our biggest handicap is our collectiveness as a nation. The writer fails to realize that a problem we cant overcome as a nation would not be overcome as separate entities. If one million ppl can hold d rest 149 million to ransom in Ngr, then why wont 500,000 hold fifty million to ransom in an Odua republic? Our greatest strength is our collectiveness and i refuse to see it as our greatest handicap, of course it has cost us dearly as a nation and set us back in more ways than not, but the challenge of every great nation on the planet today is rising above its most difficult challenges to attain its true potentials which even our harshest critic can not deny we do have.

Enough talk!
Our major problem is our inability to sacrifice, until we all are ready to die for what we believe in, nigeria has no hope!
and to hell with all these useless and cowardly yoruba proverbs " ENI TO BA FI ORI RE FAGBON, KONI BAWON JE NIBE!"

@Chosen,,,Can you pls provide a link to this article for me,,,,I will deeply appreciate!!!!

wesley80:

Absolutely nothing new here. just a typical Nigerian armchair critic with a crafty use of the English language telling us what we all know - Nigeria has failed (so far) as a nation. But just like I've come to expect from the nations harshest critics, he fails to point a way forward or prescribe a panacea for the failures he so easily could see, so I'm surprised at the queuing up in support of an article that thinks its audience are collectively silly! If as he claims, the Yorubas are, well perharps he's speaking as an insider I wouldnt know but to say Nigerians are collectively silly, I beg to differ and I take an exception to that. Also I dont see the sense in an article that seems to believe our biggest handicap is our collectiveness as a nation. The writer fails to realize that a problem we cant overcome as a nation would not be overcome as separate entities. If one million ppl can hold d rest 149 million to ransom in Ngr, then why wont 500,000 hold fifty million to ransom in an Odua republic? Our greatest strength is our collectiveness and i refuse to see it as our greatest handicap, of course it has cost us dearly as a nation and set us back in more ways than not, but the challenge of every great nation on the planet today is rising above its most difficult challenges to attain its true potentials which even our harshest critic can not deny we do have.

Nna guy i dey feel you! Nice one wesley!! 95% of Nigerian articles consists of negativity and criticisms failing to proffer solution to the 50year old crises living presently amongst us. WE NEED FRESH IDEAS, INSPIRATION AND TACTICS TO WIN. This is possible if we look beyond our problems rather than singing the same old song. Action speaks louder than voice

He's a fooking tribalist.why did he have to bring up the attack on IBO in the North ? Are ibo the only Nigerians being attacked anytime there is a problem in the North.His comments are inciteful and not geared toward anything but to cause further disharmony.
Most people think they have to hate the system and incite one tribe against another through spiteful comments to bring any change they have in their anus.

REAL TRUTH:

@Chosen,,,Can you pls provide a link to this article for me,,,,I will deeply appreciate!!!!

Sorry for not providing it before now.

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue/browse_thread/thread/145ef3f2f75342a1

~Bluetooth:

He's a fooking tribalist.

Tribalist Yoruba man? for saying the truth undiluted? . . . . , . .I guess, he would have been a great Yoruba man if he has diluted the truth like you and others. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .No wonder Boko Haram will continue to strike!

~Bluetooth:

.why did he have to bring up the attack on IBO in the North?

What a horrible mind set! He should close this eyes and congratulate the murderers because your kinsmen are not involved?

~Bluetooth:

Are ibo the only Nigerians being attacked anytime there is a problem in the North.

.
Can you cross examine the percentage of tribes (Persons) affected by these attacks before RANTING?

~Bluetooth:

.His comments are inciteful and not geared toward anything but to cause further disharmony.

Truths are inciteful and geared towards disharmony? . . . . . . . . . . Am not surprised! because you have always shown and exbihited your WAN.K.ERISH tenderencies before now.

~Bluetooth:

Most people think they have to hate the system and incite one tribe against another through spiteful comments to bring any change they have in their anus.

Coming from a Humbug? Am not surprised! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . They should live in denial like you?

aasog1:

Who doesnt know Nigeria is hopeless. Na today?

And what is his crime for reconfirming a well known fact?