It's unequivocal that many may be flabbergasted at my choice of caption for my "Expressive" column today, but then the reason is not far-fetched. My mind peregrinated into time immemorial, a time when our forefathers would go †ơ͡ their farmlands, cultivated varied crops, brought them home, 'wared' (sic) them for sale by the roadside with no one †ơ͡ look over them, yet prospectiver buyers would always buy and put the tagged price in the containers provided. Nothin' like stealing in whatsoever form. Gone are such days!
A time when monies realized from cocoa and cotton production were used †ơ͡ build edifices such as the cosmopolitan 25-storey building popularly called 'Cocoa House' in the ancient South Western city of Ibadan, the capital of Oyo state. Buildings like the University of Ife, (now re-christened Obafemi Awolowo University) and many other structures as we ђα√e scattered across the country today. But in the year 1958, in a small enclave called 'Oloibri' in today's Bayelsa state was discovered a stream full of fortunes, a beckon of hope for the hoi polloi, a future guaranteed for the downtrodden-a goldmine indeed!
The entire world saw an economic miracle on the way for Nigeria thence. But in a twist of fate, what ordinarily should ђα√e brought joy with no bounds †ơ͡ many homes had turned out †ơ͡ be a fiasco! It turned, rather than a blessing, †ơ͡ malediction, execration, malison or whatever name you could call it. And today, its discovery has pitched us against one another. The Hausa man does not want †ơ͡ see the Igbo man, the Igbo man abhors his Yoruba brother so much. The Ijaw man holds the Fulani man with so much contempt, the Ibibio man is ready †ơ͡ cut off his Ebira brother's head and so it goes on and on like a vicious circle among the various ethnic nationalities.
We jettisoned our other natural endownment †ơ͡ concetrate more on what now seems more of an imprecation. Today, Japan has no oil, no rock layer necessary for preserving organic compounds in the form of crude oil, it has no fossilized plants to convert into oil yet a world power. Similarly, Israel, Iceland, Malta, Italy, Lebanon, Taiwan, Cuba, Costa Rica are not dependent on oil but agriculture, cultural heritage and talents as exemplified by Hyundai, KIA, Panasonic, Mercedes, Toyota, Ford Motors, Intel, Twitters, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. We have all these talents in Nigeria and can be harnessed for self-sufficiency and greatness but hell NO! We won't explore other avenues, instead we all depend on oil.
Peradventure, if each geo-political zone had been developed through its natural resources, we probably wouldn't be witnessing all these civil unrest in our nation. Perchance, it would ђα√e been needless the proliferation of these self-appointed rabble rousers. I was a toddler in the 70's when the government of Malaysia came †ơ͡ Nigeria †ơ͡ beg for palm kernel seeds, today, Malaysia is the highest exporter of palm oil in the whole world and the biggest producer for that matter too. Will it then be wrong if I dare say our idiotcy knows no bound? I cry for this nation, I weep like seriously!
Please feel FREE †ơ͡ share this on your Timelines, tag friends, rebroadcast on BBMs. #helpmylandisbleeding
Czar Wisdom Omógbóláhàn Kòkúmó, Cfr, VoM....Àşe ñ t'Èdùmàrè
No comments:
Post a Comment