₦airaland Forum

The difference between Kwame Nkrumah and Jaja of Opobo before him was that one tried to first build a Continental while the other tried to build an Economic independence. The Rooted Threats were knocked down. Man needs certain amount of money to live a simple decent life. How much is enough after that is subject to individual goals and wants not needs. People that are obsessed with growth and realization of a nation or people are not driven by money but motivated by self-esteem, actualization, freedom and independence. Not foreign glitters.

We have lost focus and political will to put our house in order by shopping for foreign forms of governments and economic theories knowing full well that our crooks would find loopholes on how to defeat their goals. Every form of government has failed us because we are not sincere. Our service in the government is based on how we can exploit the system rather than what we can contribute into it. Once we are caught defrauding the people, we raise hell: ethnic backing.

In a cultured community, anyone living above his means or salary is enquired to explain source of his riches. It is not about aggrandizement but how to take folks out of subjugation, poverty and suffering into a nation, as a country or continent. Only very few would believe that after Jaja of Opobo and Independence later, the chain of Africans economic dependence remained unlock. Ironically, the keys to the chains are not in the hands of our colonial masters but in the hands of African puppets whose taste and selfishness indebted us, draining African resources.

When we declared what are essential and non-essential commodities. World Bank and IMF are encouraging odious loans on us if we import non-essential commodities from their countries to boast foreign trade and create jobs overseas while our meager foreign reserves is depleted.

Honesty starts in each home. When kids bring what does not belong to him, the parents return it and make him face the consequences. When parent ignore their tempted children, they train them how to steal, as pen and armed robber. As constituencies put pressure on their politicians to bring home the national cake home, they are encouraged to loot, no matter whose or where it belongs. When we sing and anoint ill-gotten gains, we inspire them to live above their means.

So celebration of corruption with impunity has no consequences and no anger from the people. It�s the first time in the history of Africa that people so marginalized, disrespected and rendered impoverished by their politicians would rather run out crossing deserts and sea than stand up and fight their oppressors. Africans fought on land against slave masters; they fought inside the slave ships and in the seas to regain freedom. But they cannot fight their oppressors at home.

It is so bad, the court of law seldom convict looters at home but the same looters are convicted abroad for similar offences! They do not care how much of their loot is lost to foreign bankers as commissions, to lawyers as fees and to sussies or donated to universities abroad. They make sure they steal enough to pay everyone off at home and abroad. Their desperation is so severe, they are willing to risk getting caught for money laundering and thrown into jail but not as our poor African children that are willing to risk deserts and seas to reach grim realities abroad.

Africans have been divided into at least two groups. One of the groups are willing to drive a hot shaft through their mothers� ass to obtain foreign goods and services. They have good reasons, such as their country or continent is not an island and must live with the rest of the world. We must also be open to ideas as part of the world community and not regress back into dark ages. So whatever it takes, we must pay. After all, they have enough looted to pay for grandchildren.

Most in the other group are willing to sacrifice since they do not have as much to lose as their counterpart to begin with and they have been suffering no matter which party is in power. They have never made enough money to purchase exotic cars, houses at home or abroad but groan when taxis, buses, molue and okada increase their fare to meet increasing expenses. They have been listening to different economic theories, none of which had relieved their pains.

If you belonged to the first group and life is good, there is no reason to change business as usual and expose yourself to pain and suffering. You want to be part of world community and send your children to the best schools in the best country, no matter how well they are or not tolerated there. They may not even come back home. Oh, they may come back for grandpa�s burial. So all the dogo turenchi we invested in have no effect on you, your children or country.

Another group comes from both of the above two groups. They are ideologues, children of Lumumba, Nkrumah and Nyerere whose economic theories have been truncated in the past. These are people that are going to leave us stranded in the middle of the Red Sea allowing the ancient Egyptian soldiers to catch up with us or allow the sea to destroy us. They see the light at the end of the tunnel but we see darkness. Always telling us to sacrifice. For rest of our lives?

They call our friendly foreign investors vultures because they want to repatriate cash profits from their paper investment that never add value to industrial growth but give high returns to the shareholders on Bond and Wall Street. They call us emerging market where they can sink their pensions, hide their home profit from their governments and us. In fairness to them some are manufacturers that cannot import their machines, labels, sugar, water and technicians.

We have a bunch of robbers and traitors willing to sell Africans for foreign printed papers called promissory notes in exchange for our resources. It is worse than our great grandfathers in those days that sold gold in exchange for mirrors. There is no difference between manmade mirrors of those days that looked like miracles and manmade gadgets of today. In another fifty or more years, price of TVs, IPods, exotic cars, plastics, nylons, avian water, toothpicks will be as mirror�s

Our known obsession for readymade foreign products, new or used, is unprecedented. Avarice and deep seated inferiority complex to acquire properties in foreign lands, where we patronize and pay their taxes while dodging the same at home, send our children to their schools, donate looted funds like drunken sailors to their universities while neglecting ours at home, is unheard of in any land that desire progress. Never had indigenous African standard theirs is always ours.

This historical fact on the Oranmiyan Dynesty in Benin was confirmed in the most recent book of the Oba of Benin under the title "Cradle of Ideas" a compendium of speeches and writings of Omonoba Erediauwa of Great Benin" edited by Osarhieme Benson Osadolor and published 2013 where the highly respected monarch was quoted as saying during his opening Address on Thursday 29th April 1982 at the exhibition of The Lost Treasures of Ancient Benin. "We cannot discuss Igueghae without discussing the historical link between Ife and Benin. There is no doubt that both the Ife Royal House and the Benin Royal House have a common ancestor The point of disagreement is who that ancestor was and where he came from" page 157.

bigfrancis21:
Mr Man, lol I am not a hater of anybody. I am only pointing out facts straight, whatever you think of me is out of your volition.

OBA OF BENIN MUST BE RESPECTED WITH HIS HEAD BURIED IN ILE-IFE

There is one Oba in Nigeria that most of the people have in common, that is Omo N’Oba of Benin. Most ethnic groups, especially from the South, either has claims to him or his subjects put claims on them. Whatever the validity of each claim or novel theories, it shows some relationships between the people of West Africa. In order to solidify that claim, most traditional ceremonies and protocols that are not against the law or human decency must be observed.

Recently there were some discussions about the most senior Oba in Yoruba world communities. Oba Adetona of Ijebu-Ode claimed he was one of the most superior and certainly senior to Alake of Egba/Abeokuta. What is interesting about this is that Oba Adetona always claims that he is from Waddai in Ethiopia and not Yoruba.

The reason this is important is that Omo N’Oba also claimed that he was the father of the Yoruba and not the son.
Whoever is right on these claims, the fact remains about some relationship between them. The same is true of the Ijaw. Before oil became a foreign income curse on Nigeria, Yoruba and Ijaw had common progenitor in the name of Adumu/Adimu/Oduduwa in Ijaw history. Politics and foreign income sharing has shattered any hope of resolving the amicable relationship between them dating back, before Aiyelala in the now Ondo State.

None of the bad relationships between the people of Southern Nigeria today could have broken the alliance between Awolowo and Ernest Ekoli as their leader while Azikiwe supported Chief Samuel Akinsanya in those days. The political rivalries did not prevent Awolowo’s UPN from capturing Edo as Bendel State cementing the histori
cal union between Yoruba and Edo. One has to accept that every ethnic or village deserves its own self-determination.
We cannot leave the Itsekiri out of these families since they are clearly related to the Yoruba. The Oba of Warri/Itsekiri has also been claimed as the son of Oba of Benin. Whether it is the Oba or the people that are related to Benin, the lingual franca or the dialect, in both Benin ruling House and in Warri were/are clearly Yoruba, closer to Ijebu dialects.

Another case in point is the Onitsha Igbo. Some of them still retain Yoruba in their dialects when speaking Igbo language and others trace their ancestors to the same Oba of Benin. Between Igbo, Benin and Yoruba, we have brothers and sisters that have rejected any link between them. Even more important are other ethnic groups from the union of the three that have spread further North and South near the rivers and the ocean.

The fact remains undisputed that it is only recently that the head of Oba of Benin was no longer buried in Ile-Ife. So far, there are no novel theories that can erase the place or location where the heads of Oba of Benin were buried in Ile-Ife. It will not be surprising if in the future, some of the children of Edo that refuse to bear Yoruba names today, also refute the burial place in Ife.

It is not a mystery how Ogiso was overthrown in Edo land after beheading a pregnant woman. The people revolted and called on Ile-Ife to send them Oba. Up till today, the ceremony that is going to be performed by the new Oba will make it clear that he must pay a token before his place can be given or leased. Not only that, this lease must be renewed every time a new Oba of Benin is crowned. So most of the chiefs around him remain Ogiso owners.

It will be difficult to reconcile the lease ceremony if the Oba was originally Ogiso and the reason for burying the head of Oba of Benin in Ile-Ife. As much as many have come up with theories and hypothesis, they have failed to reconcile classical history with their novel theory. What is more important today is how we can use this unity in history to bring our people together instead of creating divisions that drives us further apart.

People are also free to interpret history the way it further their interest for superiority or dominance. The problem is a clash between classical history and novel theories. We must depend on archeology, anthropology and the same history by using scientific methods to buttress our revisions. Other scholars must be able to verify and authenticate most diversions from the acceptable norms. So, we all have more in common than they are willing to accept.

We can also extend this relationship in history to the Hausa in the North. Their history accepts Yoruba as one of the children of the Hausa states but claimed superiority to Yoruba children as children of married women do in today’s western Judeo Christian laws. We know that such aberration was not tolerated in African cultures. But it serves both Muslim and Christian laws of discrimination and exclusion. The same problem existed between Ishmael and Isaac until today.

The relationships between African ethnic groups up to the level of so-called and demeaning word “tribes”, have poisoned the environment resulting into barbaric acts of civil and ethnic wars. If Africans are not fighting one another over land, it a war about gold, diamond, oil or uranium. Even when we speak the same language and accept the same descendants, we always find something to fight about. We are even more willing to accept those rejecting us as families from afar in the new world rather than our neighbors in the old world.

It must be emphasized that this writer does not care where the head of Oba of Benin is buried. But we cannot deny what unites us based on the ambition of each family to turn their village or local government into a country in order to become Prime Minister or President. Each village can go its separate ways without shedding blood, sacrificing the lives of children as soldiers of personal ambition to loot and proliferate in their own kingdom.

One of the most difficult decisions partners could make is when to admit that physical sex is not a possibility. Waiting until the wedding day would be a disaster because expectation would be shattered and destroyed leading to a blow out. Study comparing 1930s to 2008, showed that fewer partners expect the other to be virgins. It is one thing to abstain until the wedding, but quite another to find out your partner is not a virgin she/he claimed. Even that can be resolved.

There was a nearby compound where some families lived. This man we called uncle hardly had time for ladies because he was always working hard at everything, even after work. He was our soccer coach, swimming couch and the one we could go to for counsel. Needless to say, family pressured him into the voluptuous bosom of a lady. After the wedding, there was no sign of problem. The lady would change clothes daily waiting for the new husband to come home.

Uncle had less time for us after our school or his work because he had to spend more time with his new wife, and we understood that. Before we knew what was going on; elders were aware and may be a few of his cohort suspected. One day, after about a month the wife packed and decided to leave. There were negotiations about what could be done and how much could be settled out of public knowledge. What a few knew or a few suspected all along became a reality.

Our uncle could not stand at attention and salute his wife firmly. What was more surprising was that the wife agreed to stay on, if not permanently, until some solutions could be found. Since we were kids then, the actual picture of what was going on was not clear until years later. We realized then that the wife wanted to leave but it could have been for a variety of reasons. We knew about men that maltreated their wives after the wedding day. This was not the case.

There are women and there are different types of women. It is difficult today to imagine how many women or young girls today would stay a day longer in such marriages. We almost forgot that the couple had a “misunderstanding” at some point and the wife wanted to leave. There were hardly any quarrels, silent indifference or abuses. They became very cordial and later developed a loving relationship. It was romance all the way but without sex. Chei!

How could a man some people know could not score a goal keep a lady as a wife at home? Our uncle was very kind to his wife. She started selling at the old store of Mama Elegba. The stall was going to be closed anyway after it had kept old Mama Elegba going. Most of the children were happy that uncle decided to furnish the store with provision instead of Egba. The story of Egba is for another day. Egba are canes of different shapes used to whip unruly kids into senses.

There must be something going on with uncle and his wife because a man that was not “stand at attention” could not make his wife happy. She was not only good with kids; every member of the families in the compound liked her. It is even more surprising that the ladies around her age also got along with her. Of course there are those wondering if this young lady had decided on celibacy or someone in or outside the compound was satisfying her sexual needs.

We came back from boarding school holiday a couple of years later to find out that our uncle’s wife delivered a bouncing baby girl. We missed the ceremony while in school but they gave us a belated party for Kemi the pretty little baby. Everyone, except cynics, agreed she looked, not like her mum, but exactly like her daddy. Some of us as kids still had a faint memory of the little problem after uncle just got married. It was all forgotten as it turned into romance all the way.

Many things could have happened since then. A medical condition could have been cured or it must have been the wife that had a problem after all. Indeed, no nice woman in her right sense would dare declare the husband impotent. From what we knew all men are super and could get many women pregnant at the same time. Finally it could be, the lady got a miracle from God!

There is a nutty cousin of ours that found herself in the same situation. In this case, it was the husband that had a low sperm count. The husband and his family blamed her, of course. When they separated, the husband got a girlfriend pregnant. He was so proud, he even threw some words into his wife’s face, as African would say. Our cousin kept quiet for a while and never said a word but never doubted herself. This is a pretty, confident lady with a great deal of swagger.

One day he misfired, our cousin boldly told him that he should check in with a doctor because the child was definitely not his. Whoa, no nice lady would say that about a man. Unfortunately, she was right. The husband did not have enough sperm count to fertilize any egg. The reason women carry such heavy burden has to do with privilege of men in the community. Ladies that massaged men’s ego would simply find either a lover or donor for the rainbow or penalty kicks.

This was not clear to us as little children growing up. As we got older, we understood what was going on with our uncle and his wife. When she found out that she married a man that could not get a hard-on, she wanted to bolt out of the marriage. All the negotiations by the elders were to find a way to keep her happy and pregnant. Uncle was romantic and too good to her to make up for his inefficiency in the only department he lacked: sex.

The elders and uncle begged the woman to stay. We later found out that uncle was ready to kill himself if his secret got out because life and his chi were unkind to him. He cried and begged her to stay and make him a real man in life. If she had left, no woman would ever come close to him again since everyone would find out why she left.

Uncle’s brother was the regular sperm donor with the miraculous bicycle kicks.

Read more: http://newsrescue.com/romance-without-sex-in-marriage-by-farouk-martins-aresa/#ixzz46OJkrpF6

[b]Devaluation: Good For Nigeria & Ghana But Not China & Japan

There is a selfish interest and glaring double standard behind International Monetary Fund and World Bank shareholders’ demand for devaluation of currencies in developing countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Congo or Tanzania but crying foul when China and Japan devalue their money. It is about African RAW natural resources like gold, diamond, cocoa, cola; Uranium and Cobalt and MAN-MADE products like automobiles, iPhones, planes, recorders, TVs, or nuclear powers.

China and Japan are competitors in man-made goods with America and Europe. Devaluation in China and Japan makes their man-made materials cheaper in the world markets. However, our African natural resources have no market except those wanted by buyers as raw material. What they want devaluated, in the first place, were cheaper prices for raw gold, diamond, cassava, oil, kola or cocoa. Buyers call prices by erratic whims or caprice. Discouraged our Finished Products!

Devaluation by any label: it was SAP! The cheaper they buy the raw natural materials the better. We are not against anyone negotiating his best interest or getting rich. What we are against is unequal playing field where we negotiate with their cronies unduly undermining Africans with an advantage even before we take a seat. Needless to say, cronies always relent to IMF experts.[/b]

Generally, structural Adjustment Program, SAP allowed most developing countries to qualify for WB and IMF loans. But before that a setup; countries have to devalue their currencies to the dollar, do away with import and export restrictions. At the same time privatize governments’ holdings, balance their budgets and remove price controls and state subsidies. Ghana sold its Gold-Mine as the classic economic lesson of privatization. No country in the world does all that!

At some point, International Monetary Fund and World Bank showcased Ghana as model of its SAP success. There was a big debate in Nigeria as the strongman General Babangida promised he would not implement SAP as promised by General Buhari he overthrew in August 1985. Africans have never recovered from the so-called Structural Adjustment Program. It wiped out African middleclass and professionals. Salaries, savings and gratuities suddenly lost their values.

Ghana hosted the second forum of the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative (SAPRI) held in Accra in May 2001 where both IMF and WB admitted SAP failure. Their excuse was that “the World Bank failed to factor in the economic and social impact of the Bank's policies”. When African intellectuals cry that Harvard and MIT economic theories from their professors could not solve African endemic problem, their cronies dismissed it as uninformed.

They did not stop there, the working committees came up with another strategy to rectify their “mistake” called Poverty Reduction Strategy Initiative. Many of us were not fooled anyway because we told them so! They were of course right to look after their shareholders’ common interest from the countries they represented if we want to renegotiate their loans. So we went cap in hand negotiating with those that already had inside information about us at the table.

Here they come again! Nigeria has never seen its currency appreciate since the seventies. We have been going downhill since then always devaluating our currency so that they could buy all our raw cocoa and coffee cheaper. If turned into finished goods, no market for us O! Nigeria got lucky with oil and made good money. Oil was under international price dictated by OPEC cartel. We rode on that for some good times as Gowon stated our problem was how to spend money!

However, these same western countries represented in IMF, World Bank and their shareholders have been complaining bitterly about China and Japan devaluing their currencies to make their manufactured goods cheaper for export. So they want both countries to play fair. Chinese and Japanese commodities for export were out-selling the more expensive American and European manufactured products to the world market. So devaluation worked against western interest.

Unlike Africa, nationalism surged in western countries as people were asking for the boycott of Chinese material and Japanese cars. Their cheaper goods were creating jobs in China and Japan but losing jobs in America and Europe. It got worse, manufacturing moved to China because of cheap labor. Americans were told to cut wages if they want to compete. As the conservatives castrated Unions, American and European wages fell, giving birth to Trump and Sanders rallies.

Oh well, well! Japan had to do something to temper American and civilian nationalism. Toyota, Honda and Nissan went to Southern United States where labor was cheaper or where they could find non-union workers to open car-manufacturing plants. They made it difficult to tell the difference between Asian cars made in USA or Europe to those made in Asia. Asians won American and European consumers back. In Africa, the automakers only have assembly plants.

The koko of the matter is this: if devaluation is bad for China and Japan, how could it be good for African countries? In short, they have and copied manmade materials to sell that competed very well with America and Europe. Cars, iPhones, machines, parts and other gadgets can be duplicated in Asia or made cheaper whether they were superior or inferior. Asia could afford to devalue their currencies so that they could sell more of these products worldwide.

However, African countries have no home or world market for finished manmade materials to sell. Many rich Asia countries don’t even have natural resources as African countries. President Obama opened USA market by renewing AGOA for African and Caribbean countries. The laws and regulation are so stiffly enforced, Caribbean countries have problem selling their bananas!

Let’s face it heart to heart. We cannot blame only consumers that don’t like local cassava bread. Manufacturers must copy or get raw materials locally for finished products and sell them about 25% less than imported goods. If the Japanese cars can do it worldwide so can we in African countries. We have woven cotton for ages, modernize and industrialize it. Stop complaining about cheaper Chinese textiles. Americans and Europeans are not the only machine makers.

What skills do Zimbabwe farmers possess that is missing in African universities? All colleges of Agriculture must establish industrial farms. Local manufacturers must become the source of foreign income and stop depending and threatening government’s foreign reserves.

naijaFrank:
Let me also add that devaluation is a business decision not a favour to foreign companies.

If the Nigerian state is adamant on keeping its currency at 198.. that is its problem... Companies also have responsibilities to their shareholders... they are not state owned. if they buy raw materials at black market rates... So they should sell their products at CBN rates?

who covers their exchange rate loss?

when they threaten to lay off workers it is not to spite you or blackmail anybody... it is because they are loosing money.

Your nationalistic pride does not print money.

real business decisions is what keeps a company afloat... or not

No one siad anything about opening up the foriegn reserves.

98. grandstar(m): Quote Post

This article was written by an first class economic illiterate. This is utter nonsense.

No one siad anything about opening up the foriegn reserves. All that was requested was that the naira be allowed to float and touch its real value. How that interprets as opening up the reserves to be squandered beats my imagination. If the naira was allowed to flaot, the very exact opposite would happned. More dollars will flow in to the reserves than leave it.

Soludo, Sanusi and Utomi have all condemned Buhari's forex restrictions. Sanusi famously said they have worked nowhere in the world. Utomi jokingly said that Nigerians may soon start queuing for basic commodities.

The fuel scarcity should be laid at Buharis door. Kachickwu said a full scale deregulation of the petroleum supply is the answer. Buhari rejected and today we are paying the price. The man was right. Diesel whuich price has been deregulated is free of this scarcity that is biting hard.

Anyway, it may soon be included if the artificial scarcity of forex continues whic h was engineered by Buhari is left in place as there wont be forex to import diesel.

101. tsmack: Quote Post

This is exactly why they say half knowledge is bad.

Thanks Grandstar for your comments. The author definitly needs to do a lot more studying.

Allow me use the most simple of all the issues - i.e. Gas flaring. The Nigerian government wants Oil Producing Companies (OPCs) to stop flaring gases and to redirect the gas to more useful purposes. They then implemented a law that penalises any OPC who continues to flare gas.

While the idea is generally a fantastic one, "in my opinion", it is tantamount to telling the owners of MrBiggs franchise to start recycling their waste simply because they generate so much waste. Waste recycling is a totally different type of business!

(a) In the same vein, Gas flaring is different type of business model with its own perculiarityies and value chain. It will therefore not be easy for an OPC to delve into it just because a government instructs them to. Especially when our government have been known to be very unstable when it comes to implementing policies that encourage such ventures.

(b) Also, it is an established fact that the equipments needed to redirect and convert the flared gases costs a fortune. Any business man will compare whether it pays to continue paying fines or invest in a white elephant project. Your guess is as good as mine

The question is now why you think the OPCs gas flaring is an attempt to sabotage the Nigerian economy? Wierd!!!

It would have made more sense if you suggested more ways the Federal Government can encourage more investors (Nigerians or otherwise) to invest in the Gas industry (anywhere on the value chain will do).

There is no doubt whatsoever that we have ingenuity, brains and prowess all over Africa. It is in the history, anthropology and science of man. The greatest enemies we face now are unexpired suicide bombers that take us two steps backwards for one step of progress. Adored rats invite bush rats to clog smooth machinery of progress. A colleague bitter observation at international conference still haunts: if Africans do not get their house in order, who will do it for them?

Asking for divine intervention is a signs of defeat. Some Africans gave up trying to rescue Africa; others have been defeated as innocent victims perished. But we know it’s those that get up on their feet after each defeat that overcomes. Since Independence, each African country had blue prints of rosy roads ahead, only to be betrayed. From steel to petrol industries, Africa built with European, American and Asian expertise inefficiently. If overwhelmed chose a battle at a time.

Haba, before each of these industries becomes effective and productive they were outdated. No matter how you take the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Ibe Kachikwu revelation, that right now, it is cheaper to import some PMS than refine locally or that it is reality as Nigeria struggles to be self-sufficient in about eighteen months. An ugly truth of what has been going on for about 50 yrs. Man proposes monkey wrench thrower disposes petroleum independence .
[b]
This is not in defense of Ibe Kachikwu, a mere messenger of reality: take it any way you want. At the same time, dejected, abused and frustrated folks wonder what else is cheaper to import: cars, garri, rice, vegetable, tomato, water, nylon, pencils, cement, gin or the air we breathe in. After Obasanjo planned mini independent power stations all over the Country to be supplied by gas plant, implementation failed because gas supply was not ready. Generator importers were!

The amount of brains, manpower and skills needed to police intentionally built-in inadequacy into the system from the initial phase of planning and acquisition is not as great as at the end when cancer in the system has spread beyond maintenance. Even if Ike Kachikwu is a scientist in petroleum science, he cannot rectify a system that was scantily implemented at the source. Since foreigners know that a small initial kickbacks to wrench throwers, can stall our machinery.

Maintenance of our refineries, turnaround time and petrol production is limited to a couple of octane range around 87. No provision or adaptation for higher 91, 95 range after kickbacks. We must import 90s PMS for new cars. Our sweet crude with low sulfur content already overtaken by modern refineries that can take sulfur out cheaper while our inefficient stagnant refineries become old jalopies that need repairs just as discarded Toronto subway trains we negotiated.[/b]

Any plans for electric cars? Indignation of people in reaction to imported goods and services as solution is in a way an indication that finally we are waking up to the injurious effect of imports depressing the local economy by pricing homemade products out of market. In the case of the imported petroleum products, it is also a major drain on foreign reserve. Acceptance of cheaper imports than local goods killed our textile industries as it may kill our food and vegetable farms.

Why is it that most of the industries in Africa are either established with old technologies that result in short lifespan trouble-free productions or second hand machineries that break down too often to be reliable? Some of us still remember the imported used Scandinavian buses that broke down on Lagos streets. The greed and colo-mentalities behind ready-mades goods satisfy instant gratification, instead of “practice made perfect “ goods from our manufacturing plants.

We read about those looking for forex to buy machineries and create employment. They were discouraged and asked to import. By importing, you crease the hands of Central Bank officers and bank branch that would take cuts. You save time or the hassle of opening new plant, hiring employees and managing them before making a profit. Many people do not want to go through jobs creation problem when you can make fifty percent profit by round tripping with the banks.

Ajaokuta Steel is still in limbo. Yet, it has produced many kickback billionaires abroad from one generation of glorified monkey wrench throwers to another. We struggled with telephone for so many years while M. K. O Abiola and the military destroyed few usable roads planting cables. Then came Bola Ige lambasting inefficiency in NEPA while deriding phone users as the privilege of the rich though market ladies in Benin Republic (a stone throw away) enjoyed cell phones.

Bola Ige gave a timetable like Fashola when NEPA would start supplying power to businesses and homes. He did not even say goodbye before he was demoted and they later snuffed life out of the Mr. Too-Know. Anyone that remembers Audu Ogbeh, the young Minister under Shagari that cut off power to NPN (his party) headquarters for none payment, knew he went back to his village poor and back as a lecturer. Even OBJ went broke after he left as military President.

When OBJ and Ogbeh came back into the government, they swore: never again! They became filthy rich. For each of those mentioned in this article, there are other Nigerians and Africans more dedicated, honest with a burning desire to serve and see Africans and Nigerians progress. Nigerians are well aware that if angels were sent to change and clean up corruption, the angels would become corrupt ending up on the other side of heaven: hell! We reward kakistocracy!

There is another factor that government business is nobody’s business while private enterprises are more efficient because they are driven by profit. This sounds right but nobody must excuse inefficiency anywhere. Even in the capitalist countries where basic infrastructure and health care are run by governments, corruption is high crime. In African countries, corruption becomes synonymous with obsession to gain adoration, throwing monkey wrench into running machine.

It is like schoolboys that altered their school fee bills in order to defraud their fathers, sharing their fathers’ sweat in the cocoa field fifty-fifty with the bursar. That is what those that would defraud their father do to their country. In those days, fathers disown those children. The same politicians colluding with foreigners, foreign portfolio investors, grabbing our foreign reserves, land and cornering our diamond, gold and oil resources should face deterrents as in China?

You do not have to be fatalists to save staved, neglected generation of Africans begging, dying to run away from home, retire outside, prostitutes worldwide or be armed robbers at home.

Source: Farouk Martins Aresa
Published: Friday, March 18, 2016

garfield16:
The reason people are sending their kids abroad is because if they don't they'll end up like the graduate of Mass Comm above....half baked and umemployable!! The same people who are sending their kids abroad went o universities here when the quality was good, the degrees were worth the paper it was printed on and the graduates were employable and in demand. I know because I am one of them came through the system when the system was good and I can see the difference between the graduates then and the graduates now. It's not a question of affording, it's a question of Nigeria is just not an option so you just have to find the money or you would have failed your kids. I am telling you people in my time no 2nd best graduate from a Nigerian Univeristy or Polytechnich would publish such a flawed article, talk less of a Mass comm graduate. By the time you graduate even if it is a 3rd class, it would have been drilled into you to proof read your work such that iot is second nature or else you will still be in Uni with endless carryover! Not even someone with a diploma, there used to be standards in education, sadly there aren't anymore and the worst thing is you tell the youth of today and they say you are being harsh and they wonder why Dangote is asking them to come and drive trucks.

garfield16:
I am an employer of labour, I always have vacancies for good people, I struggle to find good graduates. I get applications every day but they are usually always not up to the task. take it from me there are jobs out there, the problem is there are too many half-baked quack graduates and to make matters worse they have no work ethic. That's why it seems like there are no jobs, if people only strive to improve themselves, they'd be in hot demand in this environment because believe me the average Nigerian University graduate in unemployable, why do you think people are sending their kids abroad en-masse? Just as graduates are shouting no jobs, employers are moaning no good graduates. Distinguish yourself from the mundane and you will get a top job.