No matter how big a head the neck will always carry it. The above is a fast becoming a proverb in fallacy. As the neck is already bent from carrying the enterprise called Nigeria. I have been told times without numbers that I am too negative, a pessimist, unpatriotic, a foreigner by name and actions and all sorts, because my views are all too real A reader once referred me to a burukutu joint (local brew). To vent out my frustrations. However I have vowed not to stop until my sleeping giant of a nation wakes up. I hardly proffer solutions, why? Simple because of the 1001 reports of Commissions, enquiry, boards and committees that lie desolate in dust and remain classified and in some cases just disappears few days to its being ready to be implemented. What does one do in a nation where the ideal is good, and bad is reality, I continually contribute my quota to the chatter box of public discuss peradventure one day Almighty Allah will touch the souls of our leaders to remember we exist too. Nigeria for over 40 years has remained a nation of potentials, some 20 years ago we could really beat our chest to that fact. The same Nigeria that produced the great Zik of Africa, the illustrious Sarduana, the intelligent amiable tea drinking Tafawa Balewa, or is it the great Jurist T.Elias, then the round rimmed glass wearing Awolowoa generation lost. A crhme Nigerians may never know again if something is not done fast. Desire is not ambition, Nigeria of today desires the past, getting to reenact that past is another thing, and at the pace we are gravitating it might just remain a dreamers dream as disaster looms. I am not prophet Jeroboam of Soyinkas famed Prophet Jero Plays. However the truth has always been too bitter to swallow. I just spoke with an Andrew (a Nigerian abroad) hear what he had to say. Look man, I have a first degree in banking, I can here to the United States and discovered I could not do any banking with the four year degree I spent six years in acquiring, because bad as it were I just could not fit into the real thing banking as practiced here was. So I pick up a job with the local McDonalds, I do dishes for eight hours earning $21 green bills per hour and the other four hours I content myself with a $16 dollar an hour work with an Old peoples home. The last four I function as a customer assistant at an Auto garage earning another$20 dollar, so for 16 hours I get $312. In a month thats roughly $9360. My son attends a public school that would make those so-called private schools being built by rogues in my country with the taxpayers money. You think is funny working 16hoursNo! But if you think thats torture than I will tell you I still try to spend an hour or two on the PC working on an AUTHENTIC degree in banking. Man! I am making arrangements for junior Andrew to come over here. At #140 Naira to a dollar thats a 1.3 million a month earnings. Off course bills are paid, responsibilities are meet, yet few dollars are spared to be sent through Western Union to the home front. The fact remains our friend is paid for his real hardwork. Last year, In Ireland, Nigeria had the highest births in the country, half of the future of these our Naija are either Irish, British, American or even these days Ghanaian born. When loyalties and patriotism is counted where will they stand? For a health care system which the president recently acknowledge as having failed (very commendable on the Presidents part as he hardly sees anything clearly except when he is on air in the plane sight seeing the entire world). Too many Tokunbohs are being born with allegiance elsewhere and many more originals are jetting out like Andrew. Nigeria has been rated as the happiest on earth and recently most religious as these titles come under the heels of being one of the most corrupt I say congrats to my fellow countrymen. But as I look at the indices for these compliments as I see them to be, I smile as the truth sinks in. ignorance and contentment at nothing makes us happy and religious yet not necessarily godly. At least my President at a public for a, without brakes blurted out let them (America) invent and build, we will buy thus re-echoing his former colleague and ex Head of State General Gowons clichiit is not the issue of moneybut the problem of how to spend it. I weep! My dear I weep, for the academia. Who would believe that Nigerian scholars now fight before they apply for sabbaticals in Togo, Gabon, Ghana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe? Yes! The same Zimbabwe that is coming to teach the entire Kwara state how farming is carried out. The same Namibia I remember contributing money for them to be let off the hook of colonialism. An average of twenty professors leaves the nation never to come back. Rewind! 30 years ago. Fast forward! 20 years ago we had the same number of foreign scholars gracing our now disgraced universities. At the Cafi the other day I watched tearlessly as a young Nigerian applied on-line to a Ghanaian university. Now Nigerian students undergo courses in Law, medicine, and engineering and never have the privilege of passing through a professor. There is this incorrigible belief I have of my countrymen. It is the fact that they are hardworking at whatever they do, but when you hardwork is hardly a criteria for success because you are not politically correct, educationally disadvantaged or qoutarized. What do you expect? Andrew checks out! As he does not know when he will get close to sniffing the national cake, much more getting a bite. Five thousand Nigerians visit the US embassy every day, multiply that by 20, thats a hundred thousand, then multiply that by 12 months of 20days. 1.2 million Nigerians want to check out. If by error or magic these numbers of Nigerians are granted Visas, further multiply by the number of countries Nigerians are willing to travel to using. At this rate by 10 years there will be no Nigeria. That is where we are daily embarrassed and harassed for wanting to Andrew out of our nation I know of a prominent thief who during a Visa interview was asked the color of his wifes lingerie. He screamed blue murder, raked thunder and lighting, yet he still obliged them because he just had to travel to escape a probe and secure monies he had looted. In my village, someplace, called Toro Bauchi, we have an axiom. If people see you kick you calabash anyhow, in your presence they will do same, in your absence they will break it. Once its September or there about (just to incensed to recall) a thriving business booms, its called the Visa lottery and as if enough salt had not been added to the injury, our national post offices are made submission points. These days one is besieged with all sorts of ads in our national dailies have you been denied Visa before, we help get resident Visas, Canadian, Australian and UK Immigration BIG SHAME! I once recall a time when a pub attendant in Britain will gladly collect a Nigerian stamp than a British pound. Then Nigerians went to Britain on a Friday to shop and came back on Sunday in time for church. Then academicians itched to come home and bamboozle colleagues with knowledge acquired. This same Nigeria! Andrew is checking out, our currency is battling to stay afloat and for supremacy against the Togolese Cefa, a Ghanaian insulted me to my face saying his millions of Cedis which translated to mere a thousand Naira was of more value to him than the mighty Naira. The truth is there for all to see. Although wherever Andrew chooses to go, there is problem there too. However Andrew knows his hardwork will be appreciated, his services paid for, and utilities will work. Even if he is called a nigger he quips after all am I not a Niggerian. I was stupefied with shock, sometime ago, when I watched CNN do a vox pop in Afghanistan in those early days of Bin Laden; an Igbo man (no jokes) was interviewed. What in Gods heaven was he doing that far from homeBarbing! And hey thats not all, he was the head of the Nigerian community there. If one out of every eight, now six black men, not forgetting some albinos and creamwashed-white ones are Nigerians are outside the shores of their motherland. I ask then, how many foreign nationals do we have here in Nigeria? Plenty, plenty Koras (Lebanese, Pakistanis, Indians and their likes) that dont contribute anything to the nations economy other than plastic making companies that are better referred to as labour exploiting, and tax evading centers. I round up this piece with this small story. A woman came all the way from India to see Mr. Punjabi, her husband. On arrival at the airport she sights Mr. Punjabi, her hubby looking fresh, clean shaven with a three piece French suite and standing by a Land cruiser Jeep. Mrs. Punjabi collapses from shock, when she was revived in hospital. She asks her hubby, mer hake bari mete Shi heckni ill Meiji ver becycle lePunjabi esc hag nah ciminal mafia What ever that sounded or read like it simply was or is translated. Punjabi are you a Criminal Mafia, where did you get such stupendous wealth, remember you bicycle is still in the mechanic in Bombay. Mr. Punjabi replies Nehi, nehi, Nigeria ect bash hic hospicial, hiph Asahi mer csca. Translated. No, no, Nigerians are hospitable people who leave their future in the hands of we foreigners. By the time Baghdad comes alive again, Nigerians will be on queue at their embassy doorstep in Abuja demanding for Visas. Andrew does not really mind an outright appeal for Iraqi citizenship. | 
