Spare a thought for the poor and ask, what does he get from government? The pond is largely his source of water, for which he travels sometimes about 5km to get supply: Concocted herbs are his tablets, as herbal clinics are his hospitals: Firewood is his electricity: Shanties are where his children attend school. Bush path is his highway.
Canoes and donkeys are his planes and luxury buses: Insecurity is his constant companion: Poverty is his daily bread: Deprivation is his mode of living: The drum his telephone: His palace is a thatched mud house, which he shares with snakes and lizards. For others, under the bridge is the rest house. Nothing passes as his annual income. He is just a citizen without rights and welfare services. The Nigerian poor is a pathetic human, neglected by his rulers.
When he gets NEPA, Water Board, Hospital, NITEL etc, he can't afford their constantly increasing bill without corresponding services. Which means they are of little value to him. Worsened by dehumanizing poverty, extra financial burden is piled on him. Between a policeman and an armed robber he doesn’t know who to run to for protection.
In the hands of the politician, his poverty is exploited to have him kill his fellow poor. Not allowed to freely elect a leader of his choice, nobody remembers him. His religious and traditional leaders feed fat on his ignorance having been denied education. In the midst of the elite, he remains unremembered, unrecognized, and completely forgotten. Government denies him his benefits, if ever he ever had any.
The Nigerian poor is a lamentable human being bearing citizenship without rights, living in sub human condition unworthy of the dogs of the rich and their racing horses, devoid of consideration by his rulers and parasitic elite, who constantly serve him with death throes.
And his country is rich, indeed very rich in resources, by whatever description! A citizen of a rich country he is lamentably poor, forced into the ugly business of brutal killing to earn a living. In a way, poverty, which induces him into this trade, is his greatest means of existence.
Upon all this he has been asked to pay a minimum of N10,000, up from N90.00 for the accommodation of each of his wards in the university and his total earning is not more than N60, 000 p.a. if at all this much, not enough to feed, in a week, the various exotic birds and tamed wild animals, well housed in ASO rock. The N60, 000 is all he has for his family of six, their feeding, clothing, transportation, school fees, tax, levies and whatever. Let us be more graphic.
Each of our 30 or so federal universities has on the average 20,000 students with just about half staying on campus. If each is to pay N10,000 per bed space, this means NI0, 000 x 30 x 10,000 N3 billion p.a, not enough to buy a N10 billion plane for Mr. President but considered too much for about 300,000 students or so. N10 billion is reasonable for a presidential plane while N3 billion is too much for the largely poor 300,000 students! How much of moral conscience is left in us in the face of such discrimination?
And by the way, isn’t this money suppose to go to the federation account and if yes, is it in the 2004 budget? Is it another N1 .5 per litre by default not meant for constitutional scrutiny?
Whatever, we must be very careful on the pressures being piled on the Nigerian poor particularly when government no longer impacts on his life that much. When the majority is hungry, there is anger with very serious security implication.
COST OF PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
The moral imperative in the above observations
flashes in the face when jaxposed with the revelation that Obasanjo borrowed N1 .5 billion, from an unnamed businessman, to fund this campaign. If the person who made this revelation felt he was helping the president then he has misfired. Not even the side attraction that the facility is being repaid by friends and associates, would minimize the damage.
On what condition was the fund loaned? How are they to repay? From inflated contracts? If not how? This, freely made announcement has opened our eyes to the ways of our anti corruption crusaders who preache one thing and does the other.
Whatever, Nigerians have not forgotten the N2.8 billion Corporate Nigeria donated towards the campaign and the announcement to this effect was freely offered by their spokesperson, who refused to be restrained by the provisions of the Corporate Affairs Act. Obasanjo never denounced the donation even as its illegality was made known to him. Was the N2.8 billion donation corrupt money or not? What did Corporate Nigerian expect in return? Nothing?
This apart, at a fund-raising dinner for the campaign, about N1 .5 billion plus a plane were donated. Now, we ask, how much did it cost Mr. President to fund his campaign through loans and donations? Apparently, N18 billion and a plane? Freely given without strings? Talk about fighting corruption.
VICTORY BEFORE ELECTION
A newspaper, in its edition of February 23, 2004, quotes Senator Ibrahim Mantu, deputy senate president, as saying that candidates of his party, for the March 27 council elections, have already emerged victorious, 5 weeks ahead of the D-day. He adds a clincher: The party has done it before and will do it again.
Hmm! Sure he is right. Many emerged victorious in the last 419 election ahead of the election as some came out winners after they were thoroughly defeated. In other cases a few, who were never contestants, were declared winners while still some won in several places where no election took place.
To crown it, about 2 million voted out of 1.3 million registered voters, in one of the states, while several areas recorded 100% plus turn out such that not a single voter died between the time of registration and voting, which was about 7 months!
With this a record, who will dispute Mantu’s declaration of victory some five weeks ahead of election? If such a person exists, we are yet to know his face and if when we know him, he should be told that where there is Nigerian factor there is also Nigerian democracy.
