Editorial Opinion

  
Custom Search

Nigerian
News


NigerianNews
 Editorial
 Editorial Opinions

more editorial Opinions

He who has ears let him hear. Our felicitation this year is a pointer to the calm before the storm. If we remain dumb and hard of hearing, it will not be long before we reap the fruit of Karma. It will not be long before Nigeria finds her temple deserted. Nobody or Nation has been known to escape it. In 2009 and after, how many murderess of prophets and stoner of those who were sent to us must we allow before we say enough is enough? We therefore ask all Nigerians of all religious persuasions to pray in this new year that Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Maybe then, God may count this to us as righteousness by discounting all our sins of commission or omission so that we can have a fresh start!

 


Will 2009 be a Happy New Year for Nigeria?
NigerianNews Editorial

 

NigerianNews takes this opportunity to felicitate with everyone as the year 2009 rolls in. Indeed, our felicitation this New year bothers on the prophetic, so replace any reference to Jerusalem in the passage below with Nigeria OR Abuja. Please also understand that this editorial is not about religion. However, if you must take it as a religious editorial, also understand that religion is the way we live our lives. A good and honest human being is also a good Christian and a good Muslim all at the same time!

Having said all of the above, an examination of the book of Matthew 23: 37-39 is almost like the writer is talking to a country hard of hearing; Nigeria in this case.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, murderess of prophets and stoner of those who were sent to you! How often have I yearned to gather your children, as a mother bird gathers her young under her wings, but you refused me. Recall the saying, 'You will find your temple deserted." I tell you, you will not see me "from this time on until you declare, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

We have long concluded Nigeria is a country where the political actors and actresses can only assimilate monosyllabic treatise. As a result, we changed our style at NNews in 2008 from writing an editorial to writing a few liners we dubbed 'Side bar', and we wrote very few of those.

We did little writing because we have come to the conclusion that only God can turn Nigeria around. It is for this reason we think the above quote from the book of Matthew is relevant.

How many well meaning patriots have Nigeria not murdered in the preceding years? How many good ideas have Nigeria not desecrated in the preceding years because of hatred of the purveyors of such ideas?

How many well meaning leaders can we explicitly or implicitly count in our political terrain? Does accomplishment in educational field translate to native intelligence? Building a country requires a lot of give and take. Let us take the case of creation of more States in a country that keeps on taking without replenishment. One of the so called good Governors (at least according to one of the papers) went to Aso Rock in company of other Governors from his Zone. He asked for one extra State for his Zone, which we believe his Zone deserves. However, he feels the reason why his Zone deserves a new State is for the reason of equality of States! In other words, Anambra is not currently equal to Abia, so creating another State in this Zone will make these two States equal. This Governor with deep intellectual acumen has United States of America in mind. However, while equality of States applies to USA, it is precisely for the equality of Zones that zonal idea was born in Nigeria. The genius of American equality of State is a compromise that allows a big State like California to have the same number of Senators as the small State of Delaware. The parallel in Nigerian zonal arrangement is the symmetry of 3 Zones in the North and 3 Zones in the South which should be balanced by 54 Senators on each side of the symmetry for a total of 108 Senators from the States and 1 Senator from the neutral territory of Abuja. Zonal set up with three Zones in the North and three Zones in the South with equal number of States in each Zone erases the crazy idea of a Senior-Junior partner in God's creation that adjudges everyone equal. That was the sacrifice required to avoid North-South asymmetry.

Instead of our deep Governor arguing on the basis of current asymmetry of Zones (North/South asymmetry), he creates more imbalance that will surface in the near future. Why do we say the current zonal arrangement is asymmetric? We say so because it has embedded in it the idea revealed by one Northern politician that the Hausa/Fulani North is the Senior partner in this marriage. It  is very clear that the intention of the designers of the zonal arrangement contemplated 6 States in each Zone for a total of 36 States, However, the Northwest Zone, predominantly of the 'senior' partner stock has seven States, and our intellectual Governor's Zone becomes the only Zone with 5 States so that the idea of 36 States can be preserved. It does not take a rocket scientist to know that while the idea of 36 States is preserved, the Governor's Zone has in fact been robbed! However, the Governor unimaginatively turned his attention to the innocent, while leaving the robbers preserved as the senior partner.

The recent National Assembly solution (as reported in one of the papers) is to create 2 more States from each of the Zones, which will now magnify the asymmetry inherent in the current arrangement - four Zones with 8 States each, the complaining Zone now, with 7 States, and the senior partner Zone now with 9 States. Building a Nation requires a lot of sacrifices which no part of Nigeria is currently interested in. The equality of States mentioned by the Governor from Anambra is applicable to the United States, and it was the sacrifice and concession big States had to make to a tiny State like Delaware that allay its fear. It was this sacrifice that was the reason for the greatness of America. So to Mr. Governor of Anambra, and in fact, to all those who crave for the sustenance and longevity of this country, these are what she demands of you in a matter of State creation:

  1. North West Zone, return the State stolen from the South East Zone so that every Zone will have 6 States as equity demands. Nigeria can hardly afford more than 36 States!
     

  2. South East Zone, your problem is not with those Zones who received exactly what was due them, 6 States in each of the Zones. You have subliminally accepted that those who constantly rob you are indeed your senior partner for too long, and you have berated those like you, who are just merely trying to exist, for so long. All in the Nigerian political space are created equal; neither a junior nor a senior partner.
     

  3. To those who seek more States, seek more States only if you can afford and maintain them with your own resources and not the resources of those whose backyards have been reduced to ecological disaster by the sucking leech called Nigeria.
     

  4. North-South symmetry (3 Zones in the North and 3 Zones in the South) requires equality of Zones as manifested in equal number of States in each Zone, a senior partner in God is also a junior partner in God, and the price of building a nation is sacrifice by senior and junior partners alike! Zonal asymmetry means exactly the current arrangement of 19 States in the North and 17 States in the South, and this is inimical to a sacrifice needed in a country of disparate interests and values such as Nigeria. Whatever the loss for the sacrificing Zone in the Senate is recovered in the House of Representatives where population measures the strength of a Zone.
     

  5. Abuja is neither a State nor a Zone, and it belongs to NO one - that is why it is Federal Capital Territory (FCT). FCT shares the same Zone as the Federal Government, that is, the NEUTRAL Zone belonging to all.

Do we really think we can get away with injustice? Any seed of injustice created now has karmic effects. We are the best Nation of Christians and Muslims, yet we do not know the simple rule of cause and effect! Is Nuhu Ribadu a Yoruba man? Is he not of the Northern stock? Why is he well liked by Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba except for the crooks? The crooks are currently busy reconstructing the personality of this young man right now, therefore the stoner is getting ready to turn a murderess! The fact that all but the crooks love Ribadu only shows that Nigeria's problem is not about ethnicity but of leadership. Now, go back to our quote above from the book of Matthew, is Jerusalem (Nigeria) not stoning this young man today? Has his persecution not taken a dramatic turn from stoning to murdering of his character and person? Look at the murderesses and stoners, rag to riches politicians who had nothing before they rigged themselves to the political offices, and manage to amass so much to the chagrin of those who they govern.

If we start documenting how many patriots Nigeria has murdered or stoned, we would have to serialize this editorial to several segments covering the whole year, however, we have taken Ribadu as an example of murdering and stoning in progress.

What about the head that looks like the Lamb but talk or act like the Dragon? For survival reason, we were made to accept this Dragon's 'Rule of Law'. It quickly dawned on us that this rule of law is a careful rendition of words by the Dragon who camouflages these words to make people think that he is the Lamb, thereby avoiding the Dragon words of  'Ruse of Law'. Can this Dragon survive an American or Whitehall democracy test? How many American President can take one and a half years to select a cabinet without a guilt of emptiness and a consignment to a lame duck status? Yet, there are some nincompoops clamoring for this Dragon to have many more terms after this uneventful one. This term will remain uneventful as long as the price of oil hovers around $40/barrel or even higher but not near the boom days. Unless something drastic happens, this tenure is already a failure. When the prices were up, we misappropriated the proceed and we spent so much time stoning our innocents using the crooked hands of the Police and the SSS.

A government is judged by how much values it adds to the political space it governs. It is utter lunacy at the end of a term to see eventual selection of cabinet after one and a half years as the term's main accomplishment or is it acceptable to people with correct political awareness to say the accomplishment is in the persecution of political enemies on trumped up charges. This Dragon may well be the Lamb he wants us to see, but too many Aondoakaas cloud this view. We hope all the Aondoakaas of our political space will experience an epiphany this new year by understanding the superiority of what you cannot see over what you can see, for what you cannot see drives all that you can see!

We realize we become a target because of this and other editorials, but we dare say we have thrown the gauntlet, and we are ready for the challenges of the year. After all, we are familiar with the treatment of the Channel Television, Elendu, the blogger and lately Leadership Newspaper. Since we are not moved by human's evil machination, we will carry this cross even if it leads to Golgotha. We are Unbridled because we are not controlled or constrained by any interest and we are unafraid. Our material poverty is our witness!

He who has ears let him hear. Our felicitation this year is a pointer to the calm before the storm. If we remain dumb and hard of hearing, it will not be long before we reap the fruit of Karma. It will not be long before Nigeria finds her temple deserted. Nobody or Nation has been known to escape it. In 2009 and after, how many murderess of prophets and stoner of those who were sent to us must we allow before we say enough is enough? We therefore ask all Nigerians of all religious persuasions to pray in this new year that Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Maybe then, God may count this to us as righteousness by discounting all our sins of commission or omission so that we can have a fresh start!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL AND WELCOME YEAR 2009.

 
 

  Unique visitors: 92