OUR GREED … OUR PAINS (1)
By Rev. Fr. Leonard O. Anetekhai


Nigeria is a great nation in every respect. Its rich, vast and abundant resources to its wonderful people, makes it great and attractive to the outside world. Nigeria has prided herself as one of the most populous and panoramic nation on earth, a peaceful and striking place. As a people, we are hospitable, kind-hearted, full of life and resilient. Only a few nations in the world can boast of the peculiarities for which the nation prides itself.
Travelling the nook and cranny of this great nation, one can state without any reservation that it is the best nation in the world. Let us put aside the affluence, splendour and global acclamation of countries in Europe and America, including even those in Africa such as South Africa, there is none that can rival Nigeria in terms of its quietness, greenness and resplendence. Nigeria is simply a great nation!
Every Nigerian is entitled to his opinion just like mine. Believe it or not, if there are more suitable or grandiose words with which to express the splendour of this nation, I would be glad to use them. Aggregating the endowments of this God's nation will leave one perplexed, stupefied and speechless. What most powerful and richest nations in the world cannot boast of can be found in Nigeria. Name them: gold, diamond, tin, coal, crude oil, all kinds of domestic and wild animals, groundnut, palm tree, cocoa, rubber, assorted aquatic animals, magical landscapes, exciting grasslands, fine mountains and hills, game reserves, waterways, rivers and lakes, caves, holiday resorts, etc. It is just impossible listing all the goodies with which the good Lord has blessed Nigeria in one fell plunge, like a fisherman with so much of beautiful fishes in his net.
As a good people of a great nation we are hospitable, welcoming and kind-hearted. It was unanimously agreed of recent that Nigerians are the happiest people in the world. In fact, some commentators have opted to describe Nigerians as the salt of the earth. There is nowhere in the world you don't find at least a Nigerian. It is generally believed that anywhere there is no Nigerian is not good for human habitation. This verdict was not borne out of any frivolous assessment. Rather, it is a product of a meticulous and unbiased evaluation of the pressing circumstances under which we have lived and survived all these years. Despite our overwhelming peculiar national difficulties, Nigerians still spare time to pray, recreate and smile.
Nigerians are also very innovative, resourceful and creative. These expertise spans through every field of human endeavour. Outside the shores of Nigeria, we have great engineers, nuclear physicists, computer scientists, politicians, barristers and solicitors, accountants, academics, soldiers, and doctors, etc, who are Nigerians. Wherever Nigerians find themselves, they take as their home; investing their resources to make the place develop and thrive.
Now to the enigma: why is Nigeria yet to get over its basic problems to expand its tentacles of development in such a way as to assume its rightful place in the scheme of things in the world? Is it not contradictory and pathetic that a nation like ours that has so much excellent attributes enumerated above should still be held with disdain by other nations in the world - not excluding some small countries on the Continent of Africa? The profile of Nigeria in the outside world is below average. In fact, Nigeria is viewed as a failed state by the developed economies for the simple reason that she has thrown away golden opportunities in the past to become great in thoughts and deeds. Just cast your mind back to the Fifa World Cup in South Africa, the goal Yakubu Ayenbeni missed against Greece shows the way our opportunities of becoming a great nation are played off target, because of greed.
Citizens of Nigeria are treated with contempt by security and immigration authorities at entry points into other countries, particularly the developed ones. They see Nigerian travellers as drug-pushers, child-kidnappers, money-launderers, and involvers in other forms of criminal activities. Of recent, due to the infamous action of Abdul-Muttalab, Nigerians are being seen as sponsors of terrorism. Even though the United States has reviewed its policy on Nigeria with relation to terrorism, the harm has already been done.
This ugly situation we find ourselves today, if I speak the minds of Nigerians, is a product of the ineffectiveness that has characterised leadership in the country. Right from independence, Nigeria has been very unlucky with its leaders. The period after independence up to the mid 60's witnessed a tensed effort to save it from self-perdition. But our gangsters who pride themselves as politicians, have made things worse for us. Everybody wants his own share of the national cake, even when it stands against his or her neighbours' good living. Our “lawbreakers” in the National assembly are in the fore front of this greed, the only cancer that is ripping us of the good name we share as a nation. They are devious tax dodgers and evaders and do not pay for the public services they enjoy; they steal and rob public coffers with their gold pens in addition to committing other nefarious activities. How many of these men and women have left office with complaints of salaries not paid? No wonder they never get satisfied and want to come back, even for a third term. Yet, we have civil servants with long years of arrears not cleared. Our greed is our ruin.
It is a colossal shame, an abundant negligence of moral and civic responsibility for a country like Nigeria on the eve of her fifty anniversary as an independent Nation, with its enviously educated citizenry to be so subjected to the stone age mentality of zoning political offices to geo-political regions a concept that has produced inept, incompetent and utterly worthless set of leaders and invariably taken our country to its seemingly inescapable waterloo. This certainly is not patriotism, but greed for what individuals will want to gain and not for the common good.
Nigeria today is populated with spiritual and political vampires who are suppose to fight for the common good of Nigerians, but have joined their tables to feast on the interest of common masses they stand to protect. Take it or leave it, developmentally we are sick and our sickness has gone beyond getting the best doctors, it goes with getting best drugs too. There will be no such thing as best doctor in absence of good drugs. We cannot rely on the fact that we are good people, when we have cancerous leaders, who are eating us up to a natural death.
Greedy leaders with personal investment outside the country, bank our money oversees and flying aboard for any medical care even headache is a routine. For me, I believe a decree of execution should be passed for any leader that will loot the treasures of the country to another country; a leader that fails to perform effectively after first year in office, should be removed immediately and every leader should be held accountable by his vow to office and if he fails to deliver, his case should be seen as breach of contract and so all he made from the time in office to when he was removed from office should be stripped from him. All the past leaders that had looted the nation in their various capacities should be forced to surrender all they had looted.
But who will begin the fight for a common good, when our syndrome is what I STAND TO GAIN GREED? Like us think…We will enjoy this life better if we accept to live in honest, humane, peace and harmony together. God, help us get to where you will want us to be in Jesus name….Amen!