No Where Else To Run To

By

Farouk Martins Aresa

faroukomartins@aim.com

 

Individual African countries are usually patronized to be the next world power in 100 years but economic realities is to weaken the purchasing power for western or eastern finished manufactured products and buy the raw materials cheaply. African countries still trade more with countries thousands of miles away than they do within bordering countries. The lack of taste and demand depress our economies and throw money out.

 

It is easier for non-Africans as partners of politicians to make it in Nigeria than for most Africans to make it outside. In that case, someone asked if Africans were not making as much money outside, they should leave and come back home. The fact is the amount of money made by one non-African in Nigeria can pay ten Africans in America or Europe. The reason is the quality of life, which comparatively less money can buy overseas.

 

Our infrastructure money is laundered by politicians and their wives, caught daily and without grim consequences. Those under the agba tree, cannot not get enough to eat. So they are not sharing their oil farm income locally. They share it overseas. Kenny Tone had a song in those days: there is nothing wrong with Nigeria but with its people. Even in cities where we traditionally get along, tolerance has run thin and the balance has tilted to lack of accommodation because there is not enough mutual respect for culture.

 

Oil has divided us in Nigeria than any other natural resources for the simple reason that no other natural resources have ever been so commandeered by the Federal. Indeed, the same oil was the most ignored cause of the civil war. It did not belong to either parties fighting for its control. This is why we have agitation these days, that the area that has the oil can become a country independent of Nigeria.

 

The problem with that assertion is the area itself is made up of Nigerians found in other parts of the Country. Their relatives in those states would rather affiliate with their kin than remain minorities under the caprices of a larger group. The same animosity is found in the whole Country. No matter how we slice it, the only united force is the elites that share the income and travel out to foreign banks. So, whala dey O!

 

The dire situation has led to creation of different militant youths that called themselves freedom fighters trying to wrestle their fair share from the Federal. They have gone about it by joining terrorist camps in Libya, Pakistan and Arab countries. Others have used God as their excuse but in reality no different from those using freedom as front. What they all have in common is how to source money and power from elite looters.

 

Unfortunately, as they gain power, they become the oppressors of the masses. Any country that discourages its law abiding and educated youths from playing by the rule only elevates the ignoramus youth to power. Hard work, dedication, efficiency suffer. No matter how much resources a country has, those countries that encourage research will innovate products that will disenfranchise those that depend on natural resources.

 

It is so dishonest of those elites that stand to gain from the chaos in Nigeria to claim that the cause is lack of fair sharing of natural resources that do not grow in their backyards. If they want part of the income from that natural resource, they should create means of attracting the income into their economy, such as trade, tourism or finished products. Not by hostility and intolerance that make it impossible to live within them.  

 

In other words, Nigeria’s oil is not used as energy to fuel manufacturing base like China, Japan or United States but sold as raw material for income. The only way to employ our law abiding and educated youth is to engage them in productive innovation conducive to our environment and expand our manufacturing base to boost employment instead of seeking greener pasture in countries that provide for its own youths.     

 

As economic situations get tougher, we blamed other Africans in our midst and deport them. Nigerians were thrown out of every country and we have thrown other Africans out. We are now left with one another. We wonder where else we can claim rights as the son of the soil if we cannot claim it at home. So whenever we are disillusioned because of the self-centered interest of some elites, we want to breakup into pieces.    

 

Honestly, we have to stop fooling ourselves that other African countries, Europe and Americas can tolerate us as much as at home. Though, we were not as gracious as we were during the time of our founding fathers when Africans could come to Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, make it big and stay or return home. Blame that on the irony we find ourselves since the national cake got bigger and is only shared between smaller elites.

 

Since Nigerians cannot find other Africans to blame again, we have turned on ourselves. We have massacred lives incessantly across the Country, more frequent these days in the North than the South. But the South still squabble about the past war. Spite against one another can be so ferocious, the fear of another civil war beacons. If we cannot get along, it is better to live apart in peace than live together in pieces. Well, so be it?

 

Even within the Country, the numbers of places indigenes can live peacefully are getting smaller and many people have to leave their hometowns to live peacefully in another part of the Country where we must assimilate or face hostility. There are kidnapping for ransom, crime within families, amongst universities students. If people can’t live where they were born and cannot live in other parts of the Country; where else can they live? 

 

The problem is, there is no country willing to take us without being overwhelmed as refugee haven for a fraction of our 160 million people. Looking at the long lines at many embassies of countries with 30 to 250 million people, many Nigerians prefer humiliation of migration as the way out, than submit to abusive hosts at home. Even China and India with more population, control their borders by strict immigration policy. Anywhere but!