Reasons Why Most Nigerians Today Are Not Proud To Be Nigerians

Which country in the world today is run like Nigeria in all truth, honesty, reality and ramifications? What benefits have ordinary Nigerians received from this nation's oil wealth to date? How can you be proud, dedicated or patriotic to a nation that has no plan for you or her youths that face very high unemployment rates, hopelessness and a bleak future? Which country in the world that has this type of enormous oil wealth but decided to pay a poverty wage of $110 a month as the national minimum wage to her workers and indirectly denied them their basis life necessities?

Which country in the world today will close her human eyes to justice or public accountability by allowing her own leaders to loot the nation dry, then awarded them with her prestigious national awards or state pardon and then allow these heavily corrupt public officials in and outside the government to walk on their major streets freely and to continue to enjoy their loot or the ill-gotten wealth? Which country will officially pardon an international rogue like the former governor of Bayelsa State Mr. Alamieyeseigha that is still wanted in Britain and United States for money laundering? How can you be nationalistic and patriotic to a country that allowed her religious bigots and fanatics to commit genocides, murders, arsons and looting all in the name of their religion and will never allow these cold-blooded killers to face the weight of justice, denied the dead and their families justice or any financial compensations for their huge human and material losses?

Which country will allow a handful of her government officials to steal the pension funds that are meant for her seniors or retirees who had served Nigerian faithfully with their life and time, but are now denied a decent retirement in their sunset years? Which country in the whole world will blame the demons for her inability to provide the citizens who are tax payers with electricity instead of arresting the true culprit which is the official corruption and the mismanagement of the Nigerian state resources by her officials that made the provision of electricity practically impossible in Nigeria today? Which country in the world today will blame demons for her air disasters when her airports are never maintained properly, modernized and her aviation workers are incompetent?

Which nation in the world today will allow her national air carrier (the Nigeria Airways) to become history due to the direct effects of the decades of official corruption and mismanagement of the airline funds by her top officials and then allow those corrupt officials to get away with their corrupt practices? Which country in the world today uses 30% of her federal budget to pay salaries and allowances for her 17,500 public elected and appointed officials (0.01% of all Nigerians) in the name of public service and then allow 80% of the ordinary Nigerians to survive on abject poverty of about $1-$2 a day? Which properly thinking Nigerians will be proud to live in a nation that refuses to provide her citizens with their basic social services, national infrastructures and human rights?

Which nation today will neglect her entire health care system to rot but will use the state funds to fly her selected officials and their family members to the best hospitals in Europe and North America when they are sick? Which country that truly desires to develop will be running a national educational system that is based on the 20th century outdated programs in the 21st century world? Which country will neglect her own citizens in the foreign nations of the world where they live today when emergency evacuations are needed or their Nigerian passports require to be renewed despite the presence of the Nigerian foreign mission in that country? Which country today in the world will spend 21% of her federal budget on her national security, but she still fails to practically and truly protect the life and the properties of her citizens or residents in all reality?


By Sunday Iwalaiye