“A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men” – Thomas Carlyle
There has been various suggestions by different thoughtful minds on the need to eradicate a few living human species among us, particularly here in Nigeria where a few group of men and women among us have over the decades turned us into modern day slaves in our own country. These few segregated few among us have since and before independence forcefully inherited our collective national treasure.
They are those cliques of Nigerians who are the rich minority of our large populated country. They cut across all the political zones and have been enjoying the vast rich wealth of this nation to the detriment of the majority who as rightfully described by the late Afro Beat icon Fela Anikulapo Kuti are those who are daily suffering and smiling.
To be honest, it takes an animalistic feeling for one to wish his fellow human being dead or elimination, but the current situation in my dear country is quite frustrating and pathetic which could instigate a rational thinker to not only wish for the demise of his fellow human being, but also wish he could be wiped out entirely from the surface of the earth. The Nigerian ‘few’to be honest, are extremely greedy and sometime inhuman to their fellow citizens.
I sometimes conjecture silently if the inventors of some of the man-made devices that has helped alleviate and revolutionized our lives like the computer, the telephone, electricity, cars , airplanes, penicillin , the ipod, TV, radio, newspapers and the rest were these few Nigerians , I marvel and shuddered on what could have been the fate of the rest of us. Definitely the computer would not have been affordable to an average Nigerian like in America, neither would cars have been built cheap like Henry Ford did in America, majorities of Nigerians would still be sweating it out to communicate with their loves ones as the price of owning a telephone would be compare with the price of going on a holy pilgrimage to Mecca or Jerusalem. I tell you if the Wright Brothers the inventors of the airplane were Nigerian, I am positive majorities of travelers by air would be slavering hard to fly. Again I wonder how many Nigerian children would have died for lack of subsidize to buy a dose of penicillin if the discoverer of the universal life safer was Nigerian. Definitely many children would have lost their young innocent lives in the hands of their greedy countrymen and women who could have flooded their lives with counterfeit drugs, as currently being experienced across the country. Or is it not a greedy insane human being that would feed his fellow human being with fake drugs.
Perhaps nowhere else presently in the world has a concentration of rich ‘few’ that has been so wicked to the ‘rest’ than Nigeria. These few men and women among us from our villages, towns and cities have also failed to assist us in climbing up the ladder of life the way someone, somewhere helped uplift them.
Ironically most of our present rich few are beneficiaries of the abundant legacies built and left behind by our past patriotic leaders. It should baffles any reasonable thinker to what would have been the fate of this enduring nation if the past nationalistic Nigerians had been as greedy as the present ones. I am sure most of them would not have tested the four wall of western education; neither would they be in the presently monopolized wealth they are greedily holding on to. Today in the same country, education is now being monopolized by these greedy few. Our hitherto vibrant public schools are now frightening pathetic sites to behold. Only this cabal of greedy few could now afford to send their children to expensive private schools at home and abroad, while those colonial structures that nurtured them and gave them a ray of life are left to crumble under their uncaring watch eyes.
It is actually sad that our today’s leaders are so blind to the realities on the ground. They are blind to the fact that while they globetrot across the world their own country is a public shame to see. They proudly traveled to various developed and well organized countries and come back home to gawk shamelessly at the bad roads in their communities, towns, and cities. They spend millions of looted funds on vacation to top cities and still come back home to meet the insecurity and hunger across their backyards.
The Nigerian few are excited and happy with the planned fuel subsidy after all they have always been the ones ripping from all the oil wind fall in the country. It is only here in Nigeria that a few among the majority are always happy with any plans that would further add to the hardship of its people. This part of the amazing characters of the Nigerian greedy few which includes, depriving their fellow citizens the rights to many good things of life through their greed and quest to loot, siphon and amass material wealth. The Nigerian rich few are the basis why our railways don’t work, because of their vast interest in the transportation sector of the economy. They are part of the secret oil thieves that control the price of petrol and made it impossible for the average Nigerian housewives and mothers to buy kerosene at subsidized rate across the country. It is quite astonishing that while other rich citizens of other countries have leant how to help and assist the less privilege in their societies through various laudable developmental initiatives, our own rich few are so biased and daily swim on the cheap tide of nepotism and hypocrisy.
The Nigerian rich few see nothing shameful on the plight of our old citizens and elders. They feel no remorse or dishonor on the number of frustrated dead pensioners recorded monthly across the country. It is none of their business if our streets are jam-packed with economically frustrated Nigerians daily roaming our streets in search of an unfeasible daily bread. The self-centeredness and lack of patriotic vision has hampered the foresight of our rich few to critically study how their counterparts in other developed nations have been able to hold on to that noble law as philosophically stated by Giovanni Cellini to his son in the classic: The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini “it is a duty incumbent on us, and the command of God Himself, that he who has property should share it with him who had none”
The few self imposed rich men among us don’t ever see it as a duty to share with us; they don’t see it as a duty to help facilitates the availabilities of good roads in their communities without having a hidden agenda. They cannot sacrifice like their counterparts in Europe, Asia, and some Africa countries around us in reviving the sorry state of our educational sector. Our rich Diaspora are scared of investing genuinely in their fatherland and some who have dare to, have been shown pepe, by different failed government policies and arm twisting fraudulent deals.
While the world is growing globally and breaking down cultural, religious and political barriers, my dear country Nigeria is still enmeshed in regional, ethno-religious and political segregation and conflicts. Our higher institutions are now divided with prejudices, religion and regional bases. The rich few in our midst who are where they are today through our collective wealth are never ashamed to show the world the many ill-equipped hospitals across their villages and towns, including those in our flamboyant cities. They see nothing ungodly in the massive importation of fake sub-standard drugs into the country or the number of child mortality recorded yearly in our morgue- like hospitals.
Year in year out, the Nigerian oligarchy are good at fighting disgracefully over budget allocation, which region should be appointed into exclusive positions, which area should produce the next head of juicy agencies and which turn it is among them have the exclusive monopoly of selecting and producing
the next sets of favored representatives that further protect and serve their interest, while the majority groan under economic, social and political wahala. The Nigerian few are excellent in organizing flamboyant commissioning of cheap projects, ceremonious celebration and other pompous wasteful spending.
Any way the fortune of life deals us its blow, one thing that is certain is that our virtue can never be stolen away from us, and the law of nature that has always given strength to those who are oppressed shall someday sooner or later prevail against these greedy few men and women among us who over the decades have subjected us to suffering and smiling; while they continue to ride and surge towards illusive vanities that shall one day sooner or later overtake them and free us from their shackles of oppression.
