"Nigerians have worked awfully hard for more than fifty years to achieve expertise in sheer badness. Even if we discounted the reports that ranked Nigeria as the most fraudulent place in Africa or the worst address for a new-born baby, we can hardly deny that Nigeria is a shadow, an inhuman space. We have lifted mediocrity to an art.
Name any sector of life in Nigeria and it's infected by a malignant disease. Each year, Nigerian universities, private as well as public, churn out hundreds of thousands of unemployed and mostly unemployable illiterates. Too many academics sell grades for sex or cash. The Nigerian police strike fear in the heart not of criminals, but those without the cash to offer bribes. Too many Nigerian bishops, priests, pastors and imams are embedded with the politicians who daily wreck their country. For a bag or two of naira, these ostensible servants of God are willing to venerate any form of evil. The Nigerian president's only formula for tackling serious crises is, one, to issue a hollow speech or, two, to form a committee. With either approach, the goal is to buy time for people to forget how messy the particular problem was. Most members of the president's cabinet are in it for what they can steal and put away. Nigeria's legislators, whether in Abuja or the state capitals, don't have the foggiest idea how to use the legislative process to improve their environments.
Nigeria is worse and more dangerous than many other failed states. Its failure is both comprehensive and deep. It's in a state of suspension, waiting for something to give, for an inevitable explosion to take place. Unless we act now, the roof is bound to fall on all our heads."
- Okey Ndibe
Read on...
- Ikhide
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