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Is It A Merry Xmas For Nigerians... By Prince Charles Dickson Jos, Plateau Nigeria
At about this time last year we were wishing each other the best of the year 2006, in the next few days it will be 2007 and again we are wishing ourselves the best of the in-coming year. The year 2006 has come and soon will condemned to the pack of history, it is the last year before father Obasanjo hands over to whoever it is that they choose...that is if he will, or if we can force him to.
2006 is going, going and soon would be gone and those that has suffered most is the Nigerian masses, whether we deserve the suffering or not is another matter. Our leaders have continued to play mickey mouse with the future of Nigerians. Every Merry Xmas since 1999 has witnessed an increase in the price of salt, bread, water, thank God they have no control over the air we breathe, they just might have privatized it or...increase in transportation, fuel has not only increased but is a scarce commodity. We have been on a progressive slide towards the tunnel of despair.
Merry Xmas, how merry, on the lighter side of life a lot of Fowls have the Obasanjo administration to thank as they would escape the stew pot. Workers have either lost their jobs, or have not been paid their pensions even after being disengaged and while those that remain go through hell every day. We wake to an everyday existence of it is well when we know that all is not well. If the PDP got a consensus candidate through a masquerade election, the ANPP selected theirs through an Ijaw dance in which the steps where well known by the drummers. AC cannot be said to have faired any better.
As I pen these words I reside in a neighborhood where water is as in demand as in fuel, a 10 litter bucket sells for N20, I have had no electricity because there is has a fault somewhere and no one has bothered explaining to me problem and its been two days now...In September I paid over N2000 in electricity bills, I complained and by September the bill was barely N400, only Almighty Allah knows what will be a merry xmas gift from the power house called PHCN.
As we observe Xmas and I say observe because for many it would be an observation rather than celebration I feel that there is a growing level of disenchantment amongst the populace. In the last four weeks across Lagos and Abuja there have been high profile robberies of banks and bureau de change. In Jos a money exchange dealer was brutally murdered. And we expect a Merry Xmas.
Listening to Atiku and the PTDF probe I really wished that one could shoot both men...my apologies, for one, why did it take this long for Atiku to talk, and is it not because he has fallen apart from master...And for master is it not a shame and an execution-able offense not just an impeachable one if indeed he stole from PTDF too. How can we say merry xmas in the face of these facades. There are many PTDF's while the masses suffer.
Look at the entire year in retrospect and can we really say that it has been a fruitful year, how much of corruption have we chased away, especially with the trend now in the private sector not just in government. Only days ago the NTA, FRCN, VON called off their strike, after lying for the government the same government refuses to pay them the so-called monetization. But Frank Nweke the Information Minister has been galavanting the globe in the name of heart of Africa project, wasting money, achieving very little. The government if it will leave come May 2007 is busy selling everything and awarding all sorts of contracts, and wishing political jobbers and government lackeys a merry xmas, happy sallah and new year with our money.
Families lost loved ones last year and this year can you say to them merry xmas, is it possible for them to hold on to anything for the New Year, how much more those that lost friends and family for the same reason again. The roads to ply during this yuletide season are not there, the air is not safe, we may have to wait close to ten merry xmas and new years, countless sallahs and easters before we can see a functional railroad...Markets are burning here and there, the same market that provides a semblance of hope for the ordinary man and no one really cares.
Last year I cannot remember getting any xmas hamper...I have being buying a laptop in my dreams, after several don't worry I will get you one I just gave hope, besides not with the Greek nature of a Nigerian gift. How many Nigerians having been saving to buy a motorcycle, a television set, or a small transistor radio since Happy New Year 2006, now it is another new year in the horizon and our plans are still on the drawing board. It was late Fela that said every-time we almost buy the item, the item adds a Naira and the trend continues and no end in sight. Everyday, the same thing suffering and smiling.
It is a new year and Nigerians are finding it hard to really to say that we have been blessed with the dividends of democracy, in some cases we have seen the rich also cry which at least gives us hope that we have co-sufferers, from Tafa to Alams have cried, Dariye cried, Ladoja cried and should be smiling now. I gathered that Odili, Duke, Attah and co. are still reeling in tears of aborted dreams. The poor cannot cry anymore, the tears have long gone, we all suffer, cooking gas is more expensive than motor spirit, so as poorman dey suffer, we have animals in human skin fronting as leaders.
The Obasanjo farms do not hold any hope for the ordinary man...so even eggs will not grace the table of the masses this yuletide. For Muslims, a fowl if available can take the place of a ram, a bag of rice sells for N6000. And it might interest us to know that same bag of Rice was less a few hundreds last year, infact, in 1999 it was barely N3000 and things are supposedly getting better by the the Obj standard. We have seem the magic of Obasanjonomics, the economics of Obj, PDP and its effects.
We call it resolution, those decisions that are made at the beginning of each year, it is like a promise to be of good behaviour, to the best that we can, alot of us avoid it for many reasons, and strongest is the fact that we never keep to them or that we break them almost immediately. The resolution by the PDP controlled government to the Nigerian masses is one that has never been kept. That which the government said it would do, it never did, that which it did, it never said it would. And yet in our strong resolve and resilience we refuse to see that a merry xmas nor sallah is not feasible.
Nobody can even say this is the worst hit sector in Nigeria as the year rounds up...the educational sector is not well, the health sector suffers acute malaria...our transport is now a case of recurrent migraine, our polity has been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. It is a sad xmas, families are groaning under debt, all kinds and manners. The robbers we have are not just touts but graduates either freshers or those that have found solace in a system that has no future for them. Widows have multiplied, our society keeps no stats so we care less about the orphans let loose by our collective carefree attitude.
Sad end to a year, as the haves will still be in London for their xmas break and the have nots, better imagined than experienced. I personally have not called for an utopia where there are no problems but most of us hold the belief that things could be better, we have the resources, human, material and otherwise. Could it be that we need a silent revolution, a quiet questioning of the system by a new breed of Nigerians driven by a gush of hot patriotism? As we reflect during this yuletide season, one which also has the commemoration of Sallah close, let us start the process of granting a merry xmas and happy new to the future of this nation. May the Almighty help us
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