The world woke up on Tuesday morning of January 12 2010 to be devastated with the horrible news of human tragedy in Haiti. I have seen earthquakes in other climes but the one I saw in Haiti humbled and devastated me. It devastated me not because it has never happened before but because it happened to a country that does not know how to handle such natural disasters. When I saw the magnitude of the disasters (both human and material) and when confronted with the obvious and painful fact that Haiti has no political, economic and social capacity to deal with such monumental problems, I ran away with the thinking that some sovereign states are just equal to suffering states (SS = SS).
People should correct me if I am wrong! Haiti is the poorest Caribbean country in the Americas with a population of nine million people occupying a total landmass of 27560 Sq km. But there is no reason why that country should be poor if not because of inept, corrupt and wicked leadership. I have been trying to imagine if Haiti will still be where it is today if it is still a colony of either the United States or France. When I saw the helplessness and hopelessness of the leadership in Haiti, I realized that some countries have no business being a sovereign nation. In many sovereign countries on earth including Nigeria leaders punish, humiliate and enslave their people. But the world must never because of this ignore the totally devastated Haiti. The world must reverse the idiotic leadership in Haiti and similar countries. I saw the massive preparations and the speed by the world leaders led by USA, France, UK, Russia, China, Israel, and Germany etc to rise to human demands of Haiti. It was unprecedented but the world has no choice. From what I have seen since Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of people would have been killed in this tragedy. The earthquake knew no wife, daughter, son, boy, girl, baby, Bishop, Minister, Commissioner etc.
It knew no religion as Catholics, Baptists, Anglicans, Pentecostals, Born-agains etc perished. It knew no house, as the Presidential palace, the best building in Haiti was brought down and even the headquarters of UN Peace-keeping force was not spared. Roads, cars, trucks, animals, schools, hospitals, Churches were not spared. This is human tragedy in the worst form, and the world must pay attention. The catastrophe in Haiti is a lesson for Nigeria. It can happen here and if it happens how prepared are we? How responsive and responsible are we in case if we wake up one morning and witness this kind of disaster? Nigeria must not wait to be caught unawares because climates are changing and natural disasters are proving scientists wrong. To continue to believe that it can never happen here is to challenge God. Let us start now to put structures in place as if disasters will be here tomorrow. Before a wise man ventures into a pit, he lowers the ladder. As at the time of writing this, I have not heard of any official response from Nigeria on Haiti’s unfortunate predicament.
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President Obama says the Haiti crisis calls for American leadership and declared that enormous structures of the government have been deployed to assist and encourage the Haitians who now sleep on the highways and open fields. Some sleep among piles of dead bodies. Nigerian must rise to take up a leadership position like other countries have done since Tuesday but we have no President to take the decision.
Joe Igbokwe Lagos
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