Sometimes they think they are talking to their Forty Thieves or children about dry spell ahead after filling their bags with money the past year. Here we are, wishing that this year will be better than the past one and then come these politicians interrupting our prayers, warning us of more of the year before. It is a case of a full belly telling the hungry man to take heed. Saro man say na poor I poor no be craze I craze o.

These are the same politicians whose bureaucrats were telling us Nigeria is safe from the world economic turbulence when money is pumped into infrastructure to create jobs and citizens’ welfare to extend unemployment insurance. Nigeria budgets large sum of money for different projects alright, but it is so porous we all can see through the basket as they pour water into it. Not funny enough, they brag about how much is allocated and how much is spent.

 If you cry fire when the price of oil is at its peak and you cry fire again because the price of oil is low, it gets to a point when people do not take you seriously anymore. Many Nigerians have resigned their faith into the hands of the lords and that is why religion is a good business to get into these days. The religious lea ders seeking attention and members also have their own yearly predictions on the events of the Country.

Some Nigerians have been tightening their belts for so long, they have reached the last notch around their waist. We do not have to repeat the ugly situations poor people find themselves looking for anything salvageable from trash. Party throwers have become strict serving those who wear the same type of cloths like them. If you think you may get one of those freebees at parties, they know who to give it to and don’t dare ask for the lady sitting next to you.

Some people are so slick, they claim they have not been served as food disappear on the table. While sitting down in the car waiting outside, there was this guy who came out with food loaded in bags about six different times. Well, if he was not served inside and decided to take his food home, it does not take the seventh time to load his car trunk again. That food would serve those at home for a couple of days. The problem for the organizers was that not everyone had been served while waiting at the party.

So me of the causalities of the world’s economic down turns are of course Nigerians. As some of them become idle, they returned home disappointed knowing the Government can hardly take care of those at home, how much less those coming back. Japan happens to be one of the countries that are asking foreigners to go back home because they are the first to lose their jobs. Even surprising is that Japanese descendants from South America that went to work in Japan are treated as foreigner too, in the job market. At least once a Nigerian, always a Nigerian.

Hunger is a dilemma especially when there are kids at home. As wife and husband think about what to cut back on, lack of food stays in children’s memories for a long time. Poverty itself can be relative as most of us did not realize we were poor until we venture out of our environment as kids. There are friends who packed their families and returned home from abroad. Some of them, after an unsuccessful encounter with realities in Nigeria, they went back.  Their children more than anyone else remember Nigeria as the place they were hungry.

In spite of the rough time at home, there are some foreigners that must be admired, e specially those married to not so comfortable Nigerians. You can see some of them struggling to catch molue at bus stops. How long they did it, it’s a different story. It is not clear if their spouses fell on hard time, got deported or decided to rough it out at home. One may even wonder about different types of temptations they fall for in order to improve their standard of living.

There used to be a time when housing and car were provided to those recruited abroad or could find an empty flat to be easily paid for. However, with dwindling fortune, jobs and more people than ever looking for the same jobs, those fringe benefits have become scarce. That is why many people going back home make sure they have a home and a car they can rely on when they land. They can then spend most of their money on food.

If those in Nigeria cannot be taken care of, it will be presumptuous to expect more sympathy for those returning home. That is how a proposal that the old Federal Secretariat be given to foreign graduates grounded into a ditch. Instead of our leaders caring for more people at home and relieving some dependency on family members, they have decided to fatten themselves an d tell the rest of us to tighten our belts.

Fortunately, some Nigerians have decided to form private cooperatives where they employ themselves and other Nigerians into projects that can provide some basic necessities. These businesses vary from world class restaurants to mechanized farming of gari, rice and corn. Suspicion and lack of trust still dominate our psych in dealing with one another because there are always those only willing to make a quick buck.

A friend went further by applying to many of the “development agencies” in the western world. He was successful in Nigeria with one of them because it provided jobs for his relatives but he failed miserably in Ghana where locals took over. Most of these agencies, it must be noted, deal with products of their countries and some will only let you fill major openings with citizens of the donor countries. One also has to persist or employ grant writers familiar with particular programs to be able to gain these contracts.

We cannot wait for these fat politicians to tell us to tighten our belt, we may need their belts to tighten the ir bellies and put them on display to show how we can do ours.