Nigerian politicians play the marginalisation card to get into power or privileged positions so they can start the looting spree. Marginalization in Nigeria, if you ask me, has no ethnic, tribal or religious colouration. It is the norm everywhere and anywhere you go in Nigeria. It is caused by corruption and the refusal of the ruling elite, even down to the local government chairman, to act with justice and fairplay- to know that whatever resources you are managing, are being held in trust for the whole state and every town and hamlets in the local government, and not your money to be wasted and stolen with impunity with out consequences. The truly marginalized Nigerians are;

The Nigerian people as a whole, east or west, north and south, who have been persistently lied to and denied their fundamental human right to choose their leaders, even during so called bogus democratic rule.

The 40 million unemployed Nigerian youths, some of them with second degrees, with no work to do and no earning, no income in their prime age where their productivity to the nation would have been greater, but are allowed to pine away with no hope and faith in Nigeria. The ladies who end up as local prostitutes and those “lucky” enough become international prostitutes in Italy, Holland and other European cities. Many of them go through illegal emigration in desperation, some never seen or heard of again, probably dead of hunger and thirst in the Sahara desert, or dead as they try to cross the Mediterranean Sea with ram shackled boats into Europe.

The low paid Nigerian workers who are expected to live on a minimum wage of N18,000 a month, many with nuclear and extended families to cater for their needs in a country where staggering unemployment statistic is hardly of any bother to the political leaders. And this salaries are not even assured at the end of the month.


The lower ranked military personnel- who have to defend the territorial integrity of Nigeria and fight for our freedom on very low pay as well as, yes I do mean it, police officers- those who are forced to take N50 in road checkpoints, some of them illegally placed roadblocks for extortion and oppression of mostly commercial road users and drivers. Their higher ranked officers are the criminals that steal even monies meant for their uniforms and sometimes deny them their low wages for months because of their greed!

The vulnerable people of Nigeria: Amongst these are the children, many forced into child labour, out of school due to no fault of theirs, denied the innocence of their youth, especially those raped by rampaging male/female wolves (it could be both sexes); the old age people who should be enjoying a pension or some form of social security but are denied these by the excessively greedy politicians at all levels, at a time they were supposed to enjoy the remaining part of their lives.

All other Nigerians denied basic infrastructure like a decent hospital for treatment of their diseases and ailments whilst the rampaging elites take themselves and their wards to foreign clinics at the berth of a headache; those denied a properly funded schools for their children and many Nigerians who die or are maimed daily on dilapidated poorly funded or ill maintained roads.

These are truly the marginalised peoples of Nigeria- not the political wolves that use “marginalisation” as a smokescreen to commit more atrocities on the peoples’ of Nigeria, and so long as these ills and abnormally are not addressed Nigeria will be plunged into a wild wild west!

k

All this would be curbed in a restructured and we'll civil govt. Let's get the act right and every good thing shall follow.