It’s amusing to see the same people who jailed Mandela several years ago falling over themselves to eulogise him at his death. This is not only because he showed in his life time that he is made of better material than all of them put together but also because we Africans allowed them to take centre stage.

Africans always allow Europeans and their American cousins to call the shots. It was Europeans who sent Mandela to jail and the same Europeans released him after he was considered more dangerous locked up than free.

They dismantled apartheid when it became an embarrassment to them.

Now they are the ones telling us Mandela’s life story and all the efforts other African countries, especially Nigeria, played to set him free have been carefully deleted from history.

A wise man once said, “history is merely a piece of fiction written by the Victors”.

When Mandela left prison a wiser and more matured man than when he was thrown into jail he confounded his captors who quickly switched gears and became his best friends.

On the other hand, a disappointed Mandela was hoping to find an independent Africa with progressive leadership but what he discovered was that most African countries were actually in a worse state than they were under colonial leadership when he went to jail.

It was only natural for him to become best friends with the same people who jailed him especially after he discovered that the economies of most African countries were still tied to the apron strings of their former colonial masters.

If Nelson Mandela died with any regrets it’s probably the fact that he was the only African leader that Europeans and Americans had any respect for.

Take for instance his memorial service where America’s president was given centre stage to read an eulogy. President Jonathan was at the same memorial service but no major media organisation acknowledged his presence.

Yeah, nobody acknowledged the presence of Goodluck Jonathan, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria at Mandela’s memorial.
Nobody remembers that Nigeria spent millions of Dollars to support the African National Congress (ANC) members in exile.

It was Nigeria that led a successful boycott of the 1986 Commonwealth Games in protest against the attitude of the Thatcher led Conservative government to apartheid South Africa.

Nigerian passports were issued to opponents of the apartheid regime so that they could travel around the world and drum support for release of Nelson Mandela and dismantle apartheid when the South African government wouldn’t issue them passports.

For several years, Nigerian Civil Servants were contributing a part of their salaries to support the struggle against apartheid.

What we got paid in return is not appreciation but a complete airbrush from history and it’s not because Mandela and South Africans are ungrateful but because they are too ashamed to associate themselves with our leaders.

Mandela would sooner travel to a country where there is stable power supply and security; make friends with Clinton and Blair, who were held accountable to the people they governed, than hang around those who would treat him like a god while oppressing the people who elected them to office.

Mandela would rather associate himself with a country where a cabinet minister resigned over accusations he insulted Policemen on duty than hang around a President who refused to sack a minister facing legislative probe for spending $1.5 million dollars on bullet proof luxury cars.

Madiba avoided Africa because the state of affairs in so many African countries reminded him of how black South Africans were treated by white South African only worse because it’s now black Africans oppressing other black Africans.

When the tide turned around for Mandela, the organised western world – the same people who jailed him – made a decision to claim his legacy while his African brothers, who paid a price to get him freed, were busy tearing down the good work they built.

The same way he realised that the way forward for South Africa was forgiveness and reconciliation he also realised that the sensible thing to do was to fraternise with the people who jailed him and not the profligate and corruption ridden African leadership.

We pushed “our” Mandela back into the arms of his jailers even after he had been set free from a physical prison because he realised that African leaders may be parading themselves around in luxury cars and private jets but they were still ideologically imprisoned.

Since he didn’t want to go back to any kind of prison he aligned himself with those who put him in jail because they did not only set him free from a physical prison they also had the power to set him free from the ideological prison that other African leaders were still trapped in.

They are now the ones re-writing Mandela’s life story and thanks to our leaders our children will probably never know the role we played in setting him free from jail and South Africa from an evil political system.



- See more at: http://www.urnaija.com/nigeria-airbrushed-out-of-mandelas-life-story/

I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift,nor the battle to the strong,neither yet bread to the wise,nor yet riches to men of understanding,nor yet favour to men of skill;but time and chance happens to them all.

This is my time to be FIRST TO COMMENT.

you better rejoice with me so that your own time will also come.

CLICK LIKE if you believe that you'll achieve your near dreams before the end of this year.

Nawa o, everybody running away from Nigeria nowadays.

Great!
R I P mandela!

Tayad of dis stuffs

.

Hehehe! Nigeria my Nigeria, GIANT of Africa.

we all have a collective responsibility to fix this country.
but to do it aint as easy as it seem, cos we have to start fighting our greed first.

hmm!

@op is regrettable what nigeria as a country have to pass through because of the fact that nigerians are greedy. Makes me wana cry but I won't cause today is my birthday....happy birthday to me.
Y was I banned for 1 week for uploading my pic I can't see were is an offense in nairaland rules

Aw dis 1 tak concern me na.....

Hmmm.... 9ja

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So true

Slimceezy: .

mustaphagreens: .

dedons: K

Mota1: .

satowind: .

fighting for position...

Ok

he is dead and thats the end.
history is never complete. the remaining piece can either be lost or removed.
this is plain disrespect i will never read his biography cuz its of no use for me.

That's why we ought to concentrate more on "National Policy" than "Foreign Policy"..There were many challenges in Nigeria from the 70s upward.Even though we had a buoyant economy,instead of developing our country FIRST,we started helping others.
Not that it's wrong but we spent millions of dollars fighting colonialists in South Africa,Mozambique,Angola and a host of others.
Today,SA is more developed than Nigeria.They played host to the world cup years ago while we are still dragging to host cadet competitions like the U-17 Championship.Their schools are world class yet,here in Nigeria,we are still battling with strike,dragging for who will fund our schools..The same FG that started helping others in the 70's took over our "regional varsities" and started "under-funding" them.No thanks to the Military men who never knew the value of education.We posed a GIANT POSTURE to other countries yet we failed to apply the principle of "NIGERIA FIRST before others."Our roads,health and power sectors are nothing to write home about..It's high time the Nigerian govt rise up to it's challenges.It's never too late to turn things around.It's hign time we kick away ethnicity,come together,build a national government we all can be proud of and above all,retain our status as the true giant of Africa..!

why are you surprised? its not a new thing under heaven for you to help people and they turn arround and pay you with evil. Not Just civil servants contributed. they came to my primary school back then under Shagari that we should contribute. I remember giving the 50 kobo i hard on me that day. Even when i never knew what the struggle was all about.

South Africa in recent times has seen Nigeria as a rival in everything. i am not surprised at all.

We African are the ones debasing ourselves. A french man can never insult a fellow french man for not speaking fluent spanish, but here, we so much glorify the queen of England that fluent English is misconstrued for intelligence. If Germans, the fastest growing economy in europe and china, the worlds fastest growing economy had dissipated much time on Flawless english, I doubt if they will be where they are today. I know my fellow country men will crucify me here for this statement, but as you type on your device, remember that 90% of the components of your device are mathematical derivatives/programmes.

Ok..Op, what do you suggest can be done?

Its a pity....

Bag of sense

And so things fall apart and the centre can not hold

I had refrained from joining any school of thought on Nigeria's political arena for many reasons but after reading this piece I am forced to express my utter disappointment and disgust in the way Mr. President is running the affairs of this great nation called Nigeria.
Even under military rule, Nigeria used to be much feared and respected by other African countries and most western states but what do we have today? Widespread disdain for anything Nigeria even among the ranks of its citizens.

In a saner society, the 'vote of no confidence' letter written by Mr. Obasanjo alone is more than enough to make a president resign!

My 10 cents!!

so.......in conclusion?

Bank Manager: .

murimoney: .

satowind: .

mustaphagreens: .

dedons: K

Your respective comments better make some sense.

Thats a worldclass write-up.. Best ive read in awhile..

Pls,can we talk abt some tin else and stop painting a larger dan life picture of dis man Mandela. Its true he did a lot and Nigeria did a lot,bt pls let's move on.We can continue to live in past glory.

Obviously Nigerians are not ready for any concrete development, Nigerian do not any political ideology that is people centred. Instead Nigerians still preferred to be guided by ethnicity, religion and tribalism. I will say it emphatically Nigerians are not ready for any meaningful development.

One Thing I've Noticed About Nigerians, We Never Get Tired Of Anything. For Days Now We've Been On This Issue Of Being Neglected At Mandela's Burial And In His Story. Point's Been Made.

F*cking Move On.

Don't You Guys Get Bored? Its Not Like The Burial Ceremony Will Be Rewinded Or His Story Re-written.

Kai!