[NWANZA]

[QUOTE]The picture the man painted of Nigeria is that of a society in a shambles, a country laden, crippled, with dysfunction. You could see that if there was ever a time the man ever loved Nigeria, he had now fallen out of love with the place. And he spoke in a measured, urbane way, articulate and calm. I was transfixed where I stood. I didn’t know whether to nod in agreement with what he had said or be resentful, or begin to detest the man for passing such a damning judgement on the beloved country where I was born.

But I am not the soppy type, I am not a worshipper at the shrine of the Idols of the Tribe. Plus, what the man had just said about my country was not at all wide of the mark. Everything testifies to this view of Nigeria. My own ‘countrypeople’ have said worse things about their homeland. And by the way, I had cottoned on to the identity of the man on TV. He was Dr Patrick Wilmot.

Now for those whom the name means nothing, Dr Patrick Wilmot was a Caribbean intellectual who lived in Nigeria for eighteen years. He was so Nigerianised that he even married to a Nigerian woman. Patrick Wilmot was one of the more ‘radical’ university teachers in the heyday of collegial excellence in Nigeria. Although Wilmot was not as vocal a ‘radical’ as Dr Bala Usman, he was an effective grey eminence behind the amorphous progressive movement in Nigeria. For most of the years he spent in the country, he taught Sociology in Ahmadu Bello University.

In 1988 his deportation from Nigeria by that greasy dictator, otherwise called Ibrahim Babangida, was a cause celebre. Babangida’s cheka-like secret service had come up with obscurely-explained charges against Wilmot and had railroaded him out of Nigeria. Although Wilmot has been living in London for years now, he still sees Nigeria as his de-facto country. [QUOTE]

It is hard to swallow the truth about the retrogression going on in Nigeria, even as we hang on to our hopes and dreams of a better tomorrow. The fact is that our leaders are not willing to give up their comfort zones, and embrace the future.

The leaders of the illiterate masses always gamble and pay with the blood of the innocent. It is a bloody price they always ready and willing pay to keep their booty. There are no industries and factories that make money as fast as can be made in cash-and –carry politics.

Because they do not have a plan to boost the economy and create jobs, they use religion to stroke violence for political gain. The only thing Nigerians can do now is wait for passage of time, which in time removes the most powerful and most evil of them all.