“You see men sailing on their ego trips
Blast off on their spaceships
Million miles from reality
No care for you, no care for me”
Bob Marley : So Much Trouble In The World
Paul Ejime asks, Who Cares About Nigeria? The answer to that rhetorical ad misericordiam is that those who care about Nigeria and should care about Nigeria, care very deeply. It is an emotion to be seconded across Africa and the Pan Africa Diaspora. When Nigeria succeeds, we all succeed. After all, it’s said that 1 in every 7 so called Black people in this world is Nigerian or of Nigerian ancestry
Once upon a time, when Jaja Wachuku and Maitama Sule were household names, everyone at the United Nations knew that there was a great African country, Nigeria. Since Independence on 1st October 1960, the population has jumped from a mere 33 million to its current 230 Million souls, but the reputation of the country has augmented in several other adverse directions; from its first discovery it was oil and her fabled oil wealth, soon thereafter, day of infamy, the first major, heinous January 15th 1966 political assassinations, the first coup d'état in West Africa, followed by retaliatory pogroms in the North, a civil war - a divided country, and today, NIGERIA //NIGERIAWorld is closely associated with Boko Haram & terror partners as brand names, even as 419 has subsided or has been gradually displaced by e.g. more sensational latest news about joint US & Nigerian Military operations on terrorist hideouts and so called “terrorist infrastructure”
Sadly, in my opinion, due to the nonchalant “I don’t care” mindset, Nigeria will not be sending a football troop to the FIFA World Cup Jamboree…
At this very moment, the problem of over 500,000 illegal Nigerian immigrants in South Africa is now at a boiling point, and when it comes to caring, there’s the Herculean task awaiting His Excellency Femi Fani-Kayode when he finally lands at the O. R. Tambo International Airport to help quell the tide of xenophobia that is currently bedevilling post-Apartheid South Africa
I’d just like to add one last point of observation concerning the brain drain crisis - a general brain-drain crisis affecting nearly all African countries, but one in which Nigeria is somewhat overrepresented : Pope Leo XIV advises Africans to stay in their countries and help to develop them
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