News From Nigeria
The America we admire today is the result of the character and work of great men. They were not great because they engaged in primitive acquisitions. They were great because they articulated a clear vision and created the greatest country in the world.
Perfidy was not their mission. The greatest in my mind is Thomas Payne. This lone ranger shaped the destiny of a nation. He was a great humanist. He did not seek fame. He wanted everyone to be free to enjoy the abundance and promise of the land God has given to man.
He told white Americans to rehabilitate the black people they turned into a beast of burden and apologize to these children of God. That was his clarion call when the Continental Army was in dire straits.
In his essay, ‘’The Crisis’’, he wrote: ‘’these are times that try men’s soul”. He donated all the proceeds of his writings to a continental army that could not buy shoes for its soldiers, and the army was in a state of mutiny that could result in defeat and Ignominy. The war was won and George Washington became president.
In Washington’s second term, there were cries for him to be crowned king. When the cries for monarchy reached a high decibel, he quietly picked up his belongings and moved back to Mount Vernon, his village to become a private American citizen. This is character. He loved his country more than the trappings of the presidency. This character produced the term limit of the American presidency.
John Adam became president. He was a royalist, but America became deaf to his romance with monarchy. America moved on and Jefferson became the third president of the United States.
He is the quintessential democrat. He wanted America to be free without any hindrance by the government. Citizens will come to the White House to chart with him on mundane issues from lost chicken to the neighbors who are too nosey.
These men were flawed but they gave moral and intellectual guidance to a nation that could revert back to servitude under king George of England. They poured all what they have on this new nation in that perilous time.
America did not start as a democratic country. The democracy we see today is the result of the black people freeing themselves from bondage and in the process, freeing others.
The America we know today is the vision and struggles of Black people. Those who detest this American trajectory are those who want to return to simpler times. Donald Trump is their champion. They want a return to the times where black people were in bondage.
It breaks my heart when some Nigerians in the Diaspora make Trump their hero and bring him to invade Nigeria. That is another story.
These early Americans through their toil and hard work produced a document, The American constitution, which is the envy of the world. Obama became president. The document that was used to enslave black people is the same document that was used to free them. Character is destiny.
When we look at Nigeria, what do we see? We see feckless leaders who lack character and love to hold office without any sense of responsibility for the people they purport to serve.
Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was more interested in a third term. Ex-President Muhammadu Buhari was seen by his critics as a disaster. No one knew where he was and it was rumored that he was a clone. In spite of their colossal failure, these people were re-elected. Why? They used their position to pauperize the citizens who now misconstrue receiving palliatives as signs of good governance. They have reduced the citizens to a beggar in his own estate.
We must change this. We must vote out all these incumbents who have become a negative quotient in the development of Nigeria. There is no incumbent that should be re-elected. The Nigerian citizen should never elect these people who are the authors of chaos and confusion that have devastated the land.
Anyone who votes for them is participating and endorsing his own oppression. We must make the 2027 elections historic by creating serious unemployment among this lazy bunch that have no clue of what it means to hold an office on behalf of the people.
These leaders are uninformed, intellectually lazy and addicted to primitive acquisition. Their behaviors have set up the wrong value system for our country.
Any person with moribund ethics and intellect now thinks he can be a senator because he stole from citizens, he deliberately made ignorant and weak, to challenge their crude sense of entitlement. These people walk around like peacocks. They are clueless and have no intellectual capacity. They cannot figure a way out of a room with 10 doors staring at them.
In the days of yore, none of these people can stand on the same podium as Obafemi Awolowo, Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe, Tafawa Balewa and the likes of Anthony Enahoro.
Today, these people want to challenge Dr. Austin Orette for the Senate seat. The audacity of these folks can only come from a bunch of people who act with the authority of ignorance. These people have brought opprobrium and shame to our land. We must change the narrative by voting every incumbent out. The effrontery of some of these political leaders is outstanding.
The governor of my state wants to be re-elected when he has not paid contractors. What metrics is he using to make a section to run for a second term? He is a colossal failure. We have no roads, no electricity, no healthcare and the thinks he should be re-elected.
The incumbent senators are doing the same. In this next election, we must retire all of them. They should go home and enjoy the squalid and anemic economy they created. These people are lazy, lack capacity and out of time.
We must vote them out. Nigeria will not grow if these people are not kicked out. They love power without responsibility. This is why they want to rig themselves back to power with the connivance of corrupt judges who will use technicalities to steal power.
We must defeat them overwhelmingly. There will be no room for doubt, and they will tidy their baggage and go back to whatever village they came from.
Why should the people re-elect them when they have no analytical metrics of any achievement? We must consider it a sacred duty to remove these lazy leaders from the breast milk of the government. Like children, they will throw tantrums, but we must stop breast feeding to attend to the health of Mother Nigeria. Enough is enough.
AUSTIN ORETTE WRITES FROM OWHELOGBO IN ISOKO NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA
I want to live in a country where there is fiscal probity and justice. I want to be sure that the tax that comes from liquor is not used to pay those who will burn places where beer is sold.
Why is Abuja so opulent? What does Abuja produce? Abuja is a city that produces nothing and consumes everything. Warri should have more verve.
The Niger Delta is blessed with abundant natural resources, huge oil and gas deposits. We have the people, the ocean and the oil but we are forced to be like a hamlet.
There is abject poverty in the region in spite of billions of petrol dollars that had accrued to the federation. The region is suffering from severe environmental degradation, problems of erosion, pollution of land and water, rapid resource depletion and deteriorating economic conditions.
No doubt, fiscal federalism, honest leadership will bring Warri to par. Fiscal federalism should be the goal of any senator from Delta South. We have enough to develop our places and it is not necessary for the federal government to treat Niger Delta with palliative therapy.
We must put a stop to this paternalism. They can give palliatives to Almajiris. The Niger Delta can develop its institutions, provide health care and education to the people, revitalize inland waterways, build roads, supply electricity and create jobs for the youths.
We can also manage our security. The police check points on our roads are a signpost of government intimidation and exploitation of hard working citizens. Those checkpoints have nothing to do with security. We are not at war and we should never have militarized police in our land and roads. Impeding the free flow of people, goods and services is unconstitutional. Successive governments have kept police on our roads to intimidate us. A lot of police men and women are corrupt and a large number of them seem to be taking hard drugs. This is the only way the murder of citizens by the police can be explained.
The centralized bureaucracy of the federal government of Nigeria is a major issue. It has destroyed the creativity of our people. The federal government of Nigeria is a leviathan with an insatiable appetite and propensity to use Niger Delta as a canon folder. There is the case of the oil. I am from the Niger Delta. The federal government has neglected the region in terms of concrete development projects.
We need 60 percent of the oil and no sheik from outside the region should tell us what to do. We don’t tell them how to manage their resources.
Why are the ports in the Niger Delta not operational? We had Koko port, Warri port, and Burutu port. We were a country. My people are tired of applying for a visa to clear their goods in Lagos. We have been threatened with deportations. We are tired of staying in a place that has so much federal money thrown at it but cannot manage to come up with sensible urban and housing policy.
A tour of the oil rich Niger Delta is a journey of chaos. There are no basic amenities in most parts, no good schools. There are no good roads and potable water. What are our Senators doing? Can they work harder and give the Niger Delta the Dangote Deal? There is no oil in Kano.
The Federal government should start giving the sons and daughters of the Niger Delta the Dangote deal. His monopoly is beginning to rear its ugly head. Business is no charity. We need to compete with this federal government created leviathan.
The price of cement is going up. The leviathan they created has started devouring us. We must have laws to protect us from exploitation.
Today, the APC led government wants us to pay international prices for petroleum products when we don’t have the international Standards of existence. We must control our destiny by paying royalty on resources found in our land.
Successive governments used subterfuge and violence to suppress the will of our people. The federal government is not a repository of good resource management. The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has not been responsive and accountable to all its principal Stakeholders. It has not accelerated the development of the region.
We don’t need NDDC or the Ministry of Niger Delta to develop our terrain. Those agencies are nothing but bureaucratic cobwebs of duplication. We must restructure.
Restructuring means spending and managing what you produce. It is the law of the farm. You reap what you sow.
We need a federal government that does not baby sit in any region. No region should become bloated and lazy. Excess fat prevents it from serving the people. Those who are addicted to that feeding bottle should be weaned. That is true federalism and equality.