Dr. Jaja has said it all in the first line of his article; ‘’ Nigerians are stupid’’, when he wrote that the title of his article will be disgusting to the myopic mind. That indeed happened as one can read in some of the comments made on the article.
The situation has reached a stage where the so called educated are as, if not more, myopic as the illiterates, social critiques are seen as attention seekers, editors promote ethnic or sectional agenda. Nepotism, sectionalism and selfishness instead of merit are basis for appointments and sadly most people don’t see anything wrong with that. Here we are in a country where a national fight is taken as a sectional fight such that anything done in one section must be replicated in others, otherwise the people in that zone cry foul. Is it when everything degenerates that we will come together as a family and start afresh?
Nigerians embrace with open arms hardened criminals (or fraudsters and drug pushers) who loot the nation just because they are their friends, relatives or town’s men, unmindful of the source of their wealth and worst still these criminals are given traditional titles. These factors, whether we like it or not, are the keys to what we are presently witnessing; continued injustice, poverty and heightened crime rate.
We must contribute to making people understand what is really transpiring in our society as it is indeed a wakeup call. Writing constructive articles and social critiquing is by all majors an enormous contribution. We can right the wrongs in so many ways and it is up to all of us to find our individual ways of contributing as best as we can. Let’s make people understand that it is intellectually wrong to make the same mistakes that our parents made. We need to make them understand that it is intellectually wrong to make the same mistake that the developed countries earlier made, as some of our leaders will want us to believe.
The liberation of Nigeria lies in the hands of all of us, whether we are in Nigeria or outside Nigeria. 2011 election is just by the corner, we therefore need to disinfect ourselves to elect the right candidates irrespective of their party platform, religion or ethnicity.
Unless and until we all rid ourselves of that myopic character, no strategy will work in dislodging the square pegs in our round holes and ultimately we will not be able to make any meaningful impact in our struggle to correct the wrongs being done to our great nation and her ordinary citizens.
Marwan Haruna Abdulkarim
Aberdeen
UK
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