The reality of Nigeria..

Came home from a crazybusy week at work dizzy and fell into a funk. I spent an hour with a consultant in one of the Ministries this afternoon. After all my bright enthusiasm for my two projects in the past few months (moving the Office of Statistics HQ from Lagos to Abuja and an inter-governmental IT project) his commentary on the many specific forms of corruption within Federal Government was profoundly depressing. Basically, the accounting standards at the Federal Govt level are extremely shoddy and riven with holes, ambiguous practices and get-out clauses. Humankind can only take so much reality. Nigeria must be one of the most sinful places on the planet (can’t think of any other for it). Here is a country with so much wealth of natural resources, yet where 70% live in near absolute poverty, without clean water, access to effective healthcare or a decent education. And so few are prepared to risk their lives to transform the place. With religious zealots North and South of one form of monotheism or another, the brains of the masses are filled with the sedatives of soteriology and eschatology. Tomorrow will bring a brighter day if only one is ‘prayerful’ enough. And yet the country suffers from a complete lack of collective ethics and a civic ethos. Religion in Nigeria is a form of inoculation against actually doing anything, as well as a breeding ground for the hatred of difference. From today’s vantage point, I fear for Nigeria and whether the 2007 election will be anything other than a complete sham. Meanwhile, the powers that be have the hutzpah to complain about this week’s coup in Togo.

Staring the reality of Nigeria in the face for more than few seconds is a bit like staring at the sun – one will be blinded by the scorching degradation – how low humanity has managed to lower itself. And still the West lauds the criminals and avoids concrete actions which would lead to positive change, while commissions are set up and hands are wrung and asinine songs are sung (‘Do they know its Christmas?’). Its not Auschwitz or Rwanda, but the sheer misery of millions of lives here, a direct result of the greed and immorality of others, can only be seen as a crime against humanity, if not a form of spiritual genocide.