So i wrote this piece about 5 or more years ago when the Niger delta militancy was at its height, i found it somewhere in my archive and decided to share it.
What has changed? let's see Militants have stopped blowing up our oil fields, The US Economy is experiencing a consistent boom ,Oil prices are at a ridiculous low price, FDI has reduced, and the kidnappings are almost non existent.
what has not changed ? Our country is still painted by the media as Vile, dangerous, corrupt and a high risk country,we are yet to do anything to halt the fall of the naira against the dollar, we have not diversified our income resources and yes Nigerians are still wearing masks ....OK
I remember the first time I saw a masked ball on television,
it was a mixture of excitement and fear, those two feelings usually bring about
an anticipation nothing else can give you.
See I was about five or six years old so masks represented
something monstrous underneath,
Like a masquerade or monster ……you can see from this analogy
that I was not a fan of batman and spiderman at that age.
But just within the contours of the shape you could make out the delectable beautiful features of the actors and actresses, their red lips and pointed nose could not be deformed by the ugliness of the masks they wore on their faces
I think that was the beginning of trying to understand the
paradoxical nature of the world we live in.
Masked balls we see them everywhere, believe me I’m not
talking of social masked balls with the elegant dinner gowns and athletic
muscular men in sharp tuxedos and Cuban cigars, hmnn that would be nice…but I’m
actually referring to the illusory image a few blind men seem to have about the
world we live in.
Take for instance our beloved country, painted by the media
for long as vile, dangerous, corrupt, a high risk country to visit or invest
your money in e.t.c
But that has not stopped them from trooping in like a pack
of wolves
Coming from Europe, Asia and America
sometimes tripping over themselves in a state of heightened anticipation, now
it’s the turn of South
Africa and the Arab countries.
They are braving the kidnappings, high tax increase and
recurrent power failure to flock in here like buffalos in search of green
grass, and why not the great American economy is in all time low that nobody
ever thought they would see in their lifetime and oil prices are at an all time
high.
I cringed with embarrassment
when I watched an episode of the
Oprah Winfrey show where the host enlightened her viewers on the tricks
used by Nigerian fraudsters and how not to fall
prey to these tricks, even though I thought the information was a bit
exaggerated but there is no denying the infamy that episode brought on us as a
nation(might I add that the authorities
did nothing concrete about that) and there is no denying the truth to a
lot of the accusations leveled on Nigerians however the ripple effect has not
been as disastrous as we all expected.
Foreign investment has continued to boom and Nigerian
businessmen continue to strike successful business deals across the Diaspora.
Currently we are witnessing one of the most disastrous
uprisings in the Niger-delta.
Militants are blowing up oil fields and kidnapping is at an
all time high.
Angola
has usurped Nigeria as the
largest exporter of crude oil in Africa and
the barrels we export keep on diminishing.
With all these happening our spending in this country has
not reduced rather it has increased at such an astronomical pace that experts
are warning that our inflation rate will keep on rising if we do not cut
spending and increase our current level of exportation.
Unlike other countries we have not done much to mitigate the
effect of the fall of the dollar neither have we done much to diversify our
income sources since crude oil income sources are reducing as fast as our oil
fields are blowing up.
If this were any other country other than Nigeria we
would have had serious questions being asked and various committees set up and
major suggestions proffered as solutions.
But this is Nigeria,
our problems will soon go away . this is just another masked ball this problems
which look so abysmal are nothing but distorted masks which when taken off will
reveal our beauty untainted, our economy unshaken and our attractiveness to the
world of investors undeniable.
We will overcome and they will never stop coming not when we
have the most seductive ointment in history CRUDE OIL.
I don’t know if this is true I’m only one citizen in the
midst of millions
The question is WHAT DO YOU THINK WE WILL LOOK LIKE WHEN THE
MASKS COME OFF.
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