Wanted: President Gaddafi Of Nigeria!

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

“This is an example of a country that has fallen down; it has collapsed. This house has fallen” – Prof Chinua Achebe

A very offensive and utterly depressing scenario thrown up by the raging storm in North Africa is the unedifying sight of several Nigerian rulers thumbing their noses at the “sit-tight” dictators in that region being consumed by their people’s overflowing frustration and fury, while flaunting their “democratic” credentials to underline their cock-sureness that such popular uprising will never happen here to threaten their own hold on power.

Watching these mostly deficient rulers calling with self-righteous air on leaders of these countries still hanging on to power despite mounting opposition against their regimes to respect their people’s wishes for change and stand down can be very exasperating indeed.

*Col. Muammar Gaddafi, Embattled Libyan Leader and Hosni Mubarak, Ex-Egyptian Ruler: One Gone, The Other About To Go?

Now, what can these Nigerians rulers show in character and leadership to embolden them to talk down on the embattled North African leaders most of whom have generously given their people quality life and enviable infrastructure that hapless, perennially shortchanged Nigerian citizens can only continue to day-dream about until a messiah emerges someday in these parts to clear the Augean stable? Indeed, it is quite in order to call for democratic rule in those countries, but Nigerian rulers (and former rulers) should hasten to disqualify themselves from joining the chorus.

The mere fact that Nigeria is stuck in a very iniquitous relay race that always imposes on us (yes, they are NOT elected, but mostly imposed through massive electoral fraud, ) every four years a gaggle of mostly treasury looters with each new set being far worse than their predecessors, or even recycling some clearly expired drugs that have done nothing in their entire public life to add any value to the lives of the citizenry should in no way embolden our rulers to suddenly forget that were there a reliable justice system in Nigeria, many of them should be rotting in jail for willfully turning a generously endowed country into Dante’s Inferno!

Just imagine the amount of public funds reportedly (and un-reportedly) being stolen and squandered daily under various guises with utmost impunity by too many public officers and their accomplices, and the great transformation that would happen to public infrastructure and the lives of the citizenry if this organized banditry can at least be reduced by fifty percent!   

* President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali -- Forced Out Of Office By  Protesting Tunisians (January 2011), Thus Ending  His 23 Year Old Rule. He Fled To Saudi Arabia

 Indeed, were the various anti-corruption and security agencies in Nigeria to do their work with conscience and diligence, Nigerian prisons would today be brimming with ex-public officers who had helped themselves from the public till. Recent studies have shown that due to this boundless plundering of the public treasury, about 99% of the country’s resources are in the hands of just 1% of the population, and more than 85 per cent of Nigerians live below poverty level. How can any sane person explain this in a country earning plenty of money from oil exports?

Now, where is even the democracy we claim to have in Nigeria? Is it this severely discredited electoral system that has gradually degenerated from the culture of grossly manipulated elections to almost no elections at all, as we saw in the 2007, for instance? How many “elected” officials have the courts sent packing since then? How many have rigged themselves back into power by perpetrating far worse electoral fraud during the rerun elections ordered by the courts? How many Nigerians can happily and proudly affirm that majority of the characters ruling them today are in office by reason of the votes cast for them on Election Day? Please, Nigeria should never dare to mention among decent people that it is practicing democracy!

We have, most unfortunately, been labouring under a more subtle (and therefore more insidious and enduring) “sit-tightism” whereby we have been ruled by the same looters for several decades. What changes every “election” year are their faces and names, but the same characters remain – several sides of the same evil box! This is much more frustrating because they have succeeded in giving it a “democratic” hue! Imagine Nigeria’s worst Headache, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), assaulting our ears with the oppressive declaration that (whether we like it or not), it would continue to rig itself back into power for the next 200 years. What do you call that?     

From Tunisia to Egypt and now Libya, a deep yearning for mass-participation in the process of making and enthroning leaders has indeed successfully dismantled once formidable regimes and brought some others under considerable threat.

It is Libya’s turn in the sun. Given the determination of the Allied Forces led by France, Britain and the United States to implement the “No-Fly-Zone” imposed on Libya a few days ago by the United Nations (UN), it is becoming increasingly clear that the Libyan strongman, Col Muammar Gaddafi (who prefers the title, “Brother Leader”), would eventually suffer the fate of his erstwhile colleagues like Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Ben Ali of Tunisia. The UN Resolution also stipulates the adoption of other measures to save the people from dying from the growing offensive by pro-Gaddafi forces and the genocide that would have most certainly followed had Benghazi, the opposition’s bastion, fallen to pro-Gaddafi forces. Allied forces had already carried out bombings aimed at crippling Gaddafi’s ability to flout the “No-Fly-Zone” resolution by the UN. Indeed, much of global attention drawn to somewhere else by the very devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan recently and immediately knocked Libya off the front pages across the world, has now returned to the North African country. 

Indeed, Libya needs democracy. The people must have a say in the determination of who rules them. Gaddafi needs to quit power to make room for fresh ideas in Libya and allow freedom to hold and express opinions that run counter to official thinking which have been gradually stifled in the country since opposition to his continued stay in office began to emerge.

But as I ponder the enviable state of development in Libya under Gaddafi’s “dictatorship” and compare it with the boundless decay in our “democratic” Nigeria, and then observe the insufferably hypocritical reactions of our grossly deficient rulers to the Libyan crises, I am forced to wonder if what Nigeria direly needs now is not a Gaddafi who despite his authoritarian leadership style can effectively deploy the vast resources of Nigeria to enhance the quality of life of our people as he has successfully done in Libya?

Yes, for 42 years, he has ruled his country. He has no stomach for divergent views. Yet, the infrastructural development Libya has recorded despite suffering many years of economic blockade makes one wonder which is really to be preferred: A dictatorship that has been able to raise the quality of life or a so-called democracy whose only dividend is the replacement of mostly treasury looters with another band of treasury looters every four years – a ‘feat’ Professor Atahiru Jega, the current Chair of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),  may yet again achieve for Nigeria at the cost of over 50 Billion Naira! Indeed, Nigeria remains a very bad advertisement for democracy!

As I write now, 1.2 Dinar (Libyan currency) exchanges for 1 US Dollar. Yet, one dollar is the equivalent 156 Naira! If Libya were to be Nigeria, 1.2 Dinar should be 1Naira.20 Kobo! Can you imagine that?

At N156 per one Dollar, you can now calculate how much Naira is required to buy just one Libyan Dinar!

US President George Bush Meeting With Uganda’s
President Yoweri Museveni At The White House
On October 30, 2007

 In Libya, uninterrupted power supply is taken for granted; but in Nigeria, the people are still groping in darkness despite the mind-breaking revelation that the Olusegun Obasanjo regime had squandered $16 billion pretending to fix the power sector. The last time I checked (and that was this morning), no one has been arraigned in any court for that alleged monumental act of profligacy and economic sabotage.  

The other day, a friend and I arrived at the Nigerian-Benin border about 9.00 PM. The Nigerian Immigration Office (like the country that owns it) was enveloped by pitch darkness and the officer who stamped our passports had to do that with the aid of a very weak torchlight. But just a stone-throw from there, the Benin Republic Immigration offices glowed brilliantly with full power supply. Given that Nigeria has the resources to buy up the entire Benin, what then can anyone make out of this sickening situation? Nigeria appears to be the only country in Africa that is still stuck in the long-forgotten and excruciating past of very poor energy supply, where people in an urban city like Lagos can live for several weeks and months without a flicker of light in the bulbs adorning their living rooms.

The cost of doing business in Nigeria, due to intractable energy crises, has forced several industries to close shop here and relocate to our well-managed neigbours where they would not have to spend millions of naira to operate their power generating sets in order to remain in business. Consequently, many Nigerians have in the process lost their jobs to the citizens of those countries where the companies have relocated.  Yet, products of those companies are shipped back to Nigeria where a huge market exists and sold to us as exorbitant prices.

In Libya, there is clean water rushing from every tap; but Nigeria is generously adorned with perennially dry taps. Any day any liquid manages to gush out from those taps, only the irredeemably insane would dare to taste it.  Any sane person that tries it would deserve to be arrested and charged for attempting suicide.   

*Col Muammar Gaddafi And Robert Mugabe Of

Zimbabwe

The roads in Libya are as good as any you can find anywhere in the world; Libya’s airline is world-class while Nigeria Airways is dead and buried; Libyan hospitals and schools can compare with the best anywhere in terms of the quality of services and infrastructure. But to obtain quality education, Nigerians are compelled to send their children to Ghana, Togo and even Benin Republic. There are even speculations now that very soon, Nigerians may start going to places like Liberia and Sierra Leone to get quality education!

In 1993, I met an America Professor of Economics who proudly announced to me that while he studied for his Masters Degree at the University College, Ibadan, (UCI) in 1958, he stayed at Kuti Hall. I wonder if he can advise any American child today to get near that same Kuti Hall he spoke so glowingly about, or encourage the child of his worst enemy to attend a Nigerian University. But while visiting Ghana the other day, I noticed that at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Americans, Britishers, Chinese and people from diverse nations of the world are proudly enrolled there as students.

One wonders how much Nigerians are spending looking for quality medical attention outside Nigeria, even in countries Nigeria can, under responsible leaders, fairly prosper better than, given the huge earnings that pour into the country from oil exports. Right now, the traffic to Indian hospitals is quite overwhelming.

Several Nigerian rulers may have sneered at Hosni Mubarak when he was being forced out  of power the other day, but for the quality hospitals he either built or maintained during his “sit-tight” years, many of them or their relatives would have since been buried and forgotten. Countless children of Nigerian public officers are enrolled in Egyptian schools, built or maintained by the same ousted “sit-tight” Egyptian leader, because they have lost confidence in Nigerian public schools and colleges devalued by years of wayward and bankrupt leadership.  

There are hardly any reports of religion-inspired violent and mindless killings in Libya despite the country having a Christian minority population. In fact, so sick and fed-up with Nigeria’s crying inability to manage its differences, Gaddafi had to once ask this country to dismember itself along ethno-religious lines, eliciting angry but insufferably hypocritical reactions from our largely failed leaders who instead of burying their faces in shame called him names. Senate President, David Mark, called him a madman! He may probably be, but most Nigerians at that time wondered publicly who was mad between the two men.  

I am not aware that refineries in Libya have since packed up and that Libya is importing fuel from mostly refineries built with mostly stolen funds by their nationals in other countries. The vehicles one sees on the streets of Libya are not like the moving coffins that slug it out on the deathtraps we call roads here.

Even with Libya being a desert place, food was still cheap, and life more promising there , so much so, that, before the present crises, Nigerians utterly frustrated beyond measure by worsening conditions in their country and eager to escape from the hell our leaders have turned this place into were trouping to Libya in droves, and remaining there despite clear signs of being less-than welcome.  Today, Nigerians are being subjected to unimaginable indignities in several countries where they have escaped to and become economic exiles, and sometimes humiliated and deported from all sorts of places including even a place like Sudan!

Yes, I like democracy, no doubt. But if it only exists as a mere slogan to enrich a few and circulate only miseries among the larger population (as is the case in Nigeria), I won’t mind for now Gaddafi’s “dictatorship” which has improved the quality of life in Libya.

The common man on the streets of Nigeria bearing the excruciating pain of directionless leadership and mindless looting of the common wealth is only interested in who would provide his basic needs and give him hope to continue living again.

He would prefer a non-democratic Saudi Arabia where every ante-natal and post-natal medical care, including surgery and several other forms of medical treatment are free; where doctors don’t suddenly go on strike due to very poor working conditions, leaving patients to die; where quality healthcare is so pronounced to the extent of attracting the patronage of Nigeria’s late ruler, Umar Yar’Adua; where quality schools exist for the common man to send his children at affordable or even no costs at all.

To him debates on such issues as how long a particular person had ruled him or the system being operated are more of elite preoccupations, and may most of the time be borne out of less-than patriotic motives to acquire power, and so he feels less concerned. Leadership after all is defined by quality, selfless service and not its opposite. Where this is lacking, nothing else matters!

Indeed, democracy is good and desirable, especially, where it adds value to life. But those who have turned it into a religion seem to easily forget that Adolf Hitler was not a product of imposed leadership through a military coup, but had emerged from one of the freest elections the world has ever witnessed.

So, if Libyans are tired of Gaddafi, and eventually succeed in pushing him out, he should hurry down to Nigeria where years of morally bankrupt and failed leadership seem to have enhanced his attraction.

21 March 2011

Women Who Smoke At Any Stage Of Their Lives ‘Are More Likely To Get Breast Cancer’

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

Women who have smoked are at greater risk of developing breast cancer in later life – even if they gave up the habit decades earlier.

According to a study, women are 16 per cent more likely to suffer from the disease after the menopause – when most cases are diagnosed – if they smoke.

The earlier a woman starts smoking, the greater her risk, and it remains high for 20 years after she has given up.

Hooked To The Deadly Stuff
Overall, if she has smoked she is 9 per cent more likely to develop the disease, according to the U.S. research.

The study also suggests that decades of passive smoking increases the risk of breast cancer by 32 per cent, particularly if the exposure occurred during childhood.

Around 46,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in the UK each year, and one in eight British women will develop the disease during their lifetime.

Researchers led by Dr Juhua Luo from West Virginia University and Dr Karen Margolis from the HealthPartners Research Foundation in Minneapolis studied data collected between 1993 and 1998 from a sample of almost 80,000 women aged 50 to 79.


A Mammogram Check Up    May Be Necessary Even For Ex-Smokers!

During a ten-year follow-up study, they identified 3,250 cases of invasive breast cancer among the participants.

The women were asked a range of questions about their smoking status and their exposure to passive smoking.

The results of the study, published on BMJ.com, reveal that smokers have a 16 per cent increased risk of developing breast cancer after the menopause. The increased risk for former smokers is 9 per cent.

Smoking link: Around 46,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in the UK each year, and one in eight British women will develop the disease during their lifetime

The highest breast cancer risk was found among women who had smoked for 50 years or more.

Those who started smoking as teenagers were also at high risk.
And the study suggests a 32 per cent raised risk among non-smoking women exposed to extensive passive smoking.

Dr Margolis said: ‘Our findings highlight the need for interventions to prevent initiation of smoking, especially at an early age.’

Dr Rachel Greig, Senior Policy Officer at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: ‘The study suggests the earlier you start smoking and the longer you continue to do so, the higher your chance of developing breast cancer.

 We encourage all women not to smoke.’
SOURCE

IMPORTANT NOTE: 

Were You Once A Smoker? Or Spent Time Regularly With A Smoker, Or In An Environment Where People Or Someone Smoked Often? You May Consider Undertaking A Mammogram Check Up   

------------------------------

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Alcohol Gravest Threat To Society, Claims British Scientist

By Richard Alleyne, Cassandra Jardine and Richard Edwards

The minimum drinking age should be increased to 21 and the price of alcohol tripled in order to tackle what will soon be the "biggest killer" in modern society, claimed the sacked head of the government's drug advisory body.

Living dangerously! Pregnant women who drink also 

endanger the lives of their babies (pix: womenshealthcaretopics)

Professor David Nutt said that he had deliberately provoked a debate in order to force the government to curb the growing "time bomb" that is the abuse of alcohol.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph and a press conference, he said that the government's response to the problem had been "puny" and he needed to act to stop the "tidal wave" that is engulfing the country.
"When I say alcohol is more dangerous than ecstasy, cannabis and LSD, I mean it," said the former chairman of the Home Office's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.

"The Government has to wake up to this time bomb and the health risks of alcohol. This whole row is about alcohol. I want parents to know 'alcohol will kill your kids, not ecstasy'."

He said he spoke out because ministers had repeatedly blocked attempts to put meaningful pricing controls on alcohol or increase the minimum drinking age.

NIGERIA: What Is Government To Me?

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

As I walked leisurely into my street last Sunday afternoon, trying as much as possible not to think about the obviously enraged sun bathing me with its stinging golden rays, I would have been forgiven if I had thought I had missed my way and strayed into some very busy industrial area. But then, the place I had just gone to was a yelling distance from home, and so, there was just no way I could have missed my way.

I live in a very small street, secured at both ends by two gates manned by some nice Mallams, whose salaries are paid from the Security Levy I unhappily part with every month. As soon as I passed the gate, I was greeted by the tormenting din and clatter of several power generating sets locked in a clearly mad competition to out-roar each other.



Every house contributed to the bedlam. Eardrums came under serious threat. Hypertension cases became more complicated, drawing victims closer to their graves. Sanity struggled to take leave of several people, as the roaring noise from every house tore into the very hot Sunday afternoon with violent rage, piercing fierceness and tormenting loudness.

Very lethal, thick, black fumes also oozed into the atmosphere, targeting the hearts and lungs of men, having successfully turned the area into one huge fatally saturated gas chamber. Why did everybody suddenly choose to set the machines roaring this afternoon? Maybe, this was what always happened every other afternoon, but because I was not always around in the afternoons, the whole thing now assailed my ears with menacing strangeness.

After sometime, I paused and listened, trying to make some form of meaning out of the whole chaos. What came into my mind was: Yes, this is a failed state! Like Prof Chinua Achebe once said: “This is an example of a country that has fallen down; it has collapsed. This house has fallen.”

My mind went to Countee Cullen, the African American poet, whose 1925 poem, Heritage, opened with a very significant question that had bugged his mind at that time, “What is Africa To Me?”

In the same vein, I could not help asking: What Is Government To Me? Or put differently, of what relevance is Government to me in a clearly ungoverned enclave like Nigeria?



If I provide for myself virtually everything Government is supposed to make available to me as a law abiding citizen, how then does Government justify its relevance, or even existence before me?

Take the issue of security that I mentioned earlier, for instance. One of the very basic functions of Government is to secure lives and property. But in Nigeria, this has since ceased to be part of Government’s priority. In fact, it is doubtful if those in authority still remember that provision of adequate security is part of their responsibility towards the citizenry.

Government has since conceded defeat in this area and seems to flaunt with nauseating relish its inability to protect Nigerians. In other words, it has since relinquished the monopoly it ought to exercise over the instruments of violence and coercion, and Nigerians have become mere lame ducks before hoodlums and criminals who invade homes and offices, taking their time to steal and even sexually abuse women with every fearlessness and fanfare. Robbers are no longer in a hurry because they know very well that nobody would dare disturb their operations, and that policemen would rather take to their heels at the sound of their rifles than attempt to repel them.

And so, because we are now “on our own,” we had to, like many other residents of other areas in Nigeria, engage the Mallams to man our gates? But as we all know, our protection is in the hands of God, because, these same Mallams would be the first to beat Ben Johnson’s track records at the first sound of the gun! And where is the Government in this picture? An absentee as usual!

Nigeria presents the best example of how a nation could be in the absence of any form of governance.

Again, what is Government to me? Darkness, Darkness and more Darkness -- everywhere? The clatter of generators I encountered last Sunday afternoon was a very sad reminder of the painful and oppressive fact that for several weeks now, power supply in my area has gone down to almost zero.


When we could be considered lucky, power would be supplied for an hour or two, and that would be all, in a whole week! But the normal thing now is that week after week, no one sees the slightest hint of power supply, not minding that the agents of that useless body of sadists called NEPA/PHCN would keep sending their huge bills with religious zealousness.

We used to complain of irregular power supply, not knowing that that time was our finest hour. Now, total darkness has enveloped the whole place. I know how much I have spent for some weeks now on fuel to generate my own megawatts for my household. That automatically means that I am my own President and Energy Minster, no matter the clearly idle, unproductive fellows pretending to occupy those offices in Abuja.

If then I am doing for myself what Government is supposed to be doing for me, it can only mean that as far as I am concerned, Government does not exist, having since lost its relevance, the basis for its existence. It might as well be scrapped. A tree that bears no fruits only emphasizes its crying irrelevance.


Powerless Power Plants?

 If anyone needs potable water in Nigeria today, such a one must provide it for himself. Reason? Government is on an interminable recess. In the eighties, one could just walk to any tap, even by the roadside, open it and drink clean water. Whoever tries that now, if at all any liquid gushes out from the tap, could be tried for attempting suicide. And I can guarantee that not even a very large-hearted judge would agree to set him free!


Today, because Government only exists in name, people must sink boreholes in their compounds to provide potable water for themselves. Others must make do with the generous typhoid distributor they call “pure water” (or pure gutter).

In fact, it has got to a stage that if my children ask me today the functions of Government, I wouldn’t know what to tell them, because I wouldn’t want to tell them lies. As far as I am concerned, the most inactive and unproductive institution in Nigeria today is the Government. I had to put it that way because I do not want to simply say that it is useless. Well, Government is not exactly inactive. It has duly distinguished itself as that far-removed, very distantly located band of men and women who only exist to plunder and squander our commonwealth.

They only remember us during election time, not because they really need our votes to acquire power, but it makes them feel good to be able to say that we gave them our mandate – something they had already appropriated long before they came to us canvassing for our votes. They also come to us as occasional sources of irritation, demanding taxes or “more sacrifices” from us in the form of punitive policies like fuel price hikes. We equally encounter them when they run us out of the roads with their blaring sirens.



The Radiance Of A King!
 President Goodluck Jonathan


 Today, in most places, if the road leading to one’s house goes bad, the people inhabiting that area would have to contribute money to fix it, or else, it would be there ruining their cars and giving all of them body aches. Public schools which are supposed to be maintained by the Government have since collapsed, so one has to cough out the very high fees charged by quality private schools if one desires that one’s child should get quality education.

Most Government hospitals have long become very smooth expressways to the grave, which only those who cannot afford any other alternatives still go to gamble with their lives. It is sad, so sad. It is most painful and overly frustrating. It is provocative.

And as I think about these things, I am compelled to ask myself again: What is Government to me? I would have compared it to a refuse dump, but I am reminded that refuse dumps serve some useful purpose. At least, they provide manure for farmers to grow their crops. But as for Government in Nigeria, I cannot readily recall what it stands or exists for, or any form of use it presently is to the generality of Nigerian people, except that it has become a dispensable burden too heavy to bear, and a very easy route for a privileged few to gain entrance into the billionaire club. So sad really.

 -----------------------------------------------------------------

scruples2006@yahoo.com

March 2008

Why Official Corruption Won't Go Away In Nigeria

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye 

The Nigerian state thrives on a very a solid foundation and enduring, pervasive culture of very crude selfishness. Maybe, “selfishness” is not the most appropriate word to convey the exact meaning I have in mind.

But there is this consuming desire and deep craving by the average Nigerian to always have an unfair advantage over his neighbour, to ensure and emphasize the exclusive nature of whatever he does or possesses, and ultimately become the envy of others. 

(pix: online.wsj)

 This should, however, not be confused with healthy striving for excellence and distinction. Rather it is this mindset that makes someone to value whatever he has, only when he has established that no one else has it, or that only a select, privileged few have it.

I have observed that the average Nigerian derives peculiar animation, and in some instance, consolation, from constantly calling to mind some evidences of the advantages he has over his neighours, and some privileges he presently enjoys which his neighbour can only dream of.  
Mind you, this is not an exclusive habit of the affluent and highly-placed in society. Even the very marginal advantage the poor, suffering fellow thinks he has over his neighbour  automatically constitutes the little flame that keeps his heart aglow, and makes him feel like a king in the neighbourhood. He derives profound, refreshing feelings of joy by the fact that he has, and can, at least, flaunt what his neighbour doesn’t have.            

 Many years ago, when heavy traffic on Carter Bridge consisted of several new Raleigh bicycles racing along, some motorcycles and a couple of cars, a man returned to his village from Lagos, with a well tailored new dress, with which he hoped to cause a stir in Church the following Sunday. As his kinsmen converged to welcome him, he brought out the dress and told them he was sure no one had won that dress in the entire community.

How Much Thought Is Spared For these Labouring
Nigerians?


In fact, only very few people had at that time possessed it in the whole of Lagos! On Saturday, as he basked in the pleasant expectation of how he was going to be the centre of attraction in the small village Church on Sunday, he decided to take a leisurely walk towards the marketplace. Along the way, he saw an old wine-taper on an old rickety bicycle, heading to the market to sell his palm-wine. As the man got close, he discovered, to his utmost shock, that the man was wearing that same cloth he was hoping to flaunt on Sunday; but the difference was that the wine-taper’s own was now well-worn and terribly stained, meaning that he has been wearing it for months, ever before our Lagos man thought of purchasing his own. Indeed, he was thoroughly disappointed and pained. His flag of pride automatically dropped. The cloth instantly lost all its value and glamour, for the simple reason that a wine-taper had won it before him. And, so, he refused to wear it again.

That is the Nigerian!   I don’t know whether it was the British that planted this insidious seed in Nigerians or merely helped to water and tend it, for their own self-serving reasons. The British had created the Government Reserved Areas (GRAs) and several other segregating and divisive facilities, and took some special “natives”, the educated and privileged few, away from their own people, put them in those secluded areas and planted in them a mindset that made them regard themselves as “special” and “different” from the rest.

This may have helped them to perfect their divide-and-rule policy, but also succeeded in engraving in the minds of those lucky natives that they were indeed better than the others. And so, when the British unwillingly granted what they called Independence to Nigeria, they ensured that this iniquitous status quo remained. Through this privileged class which they had created and successfully alienated from their own people, the British still ruled Nigeria.
That is why our rulers live in fortresses, far removed from the people they claim to be serving.  In Nigeria today, a successful man is one who has “left the others” to join the privileged, eating class. In several cases, this may not be as result of hard work, but merely because the “lucky” fellow has some acquaintance with some other fellow in the corridors of power.

The truth we all know is that one may just start swimming in boundless opulence tomorrow just because he had got the “right connections”, which may merely be that he is a distant to cousin to the hairdresser of  the girlfriend of the ADC of one of our rulers. When that happens, the person quickly leaves his fellows behind to “join them” to enjoy. This situation exists in degrees and categories, as I mentioned earlier, and it has created a craving in everyone to strive, not just to better his lot, but to show how he is  “better” than he his neighbour. And that is why, at the slightest opportunity, anyone with access to the public till will seek to corner all the juicy advantages there to himself, and create another world of limitless comfort for himself which would automatically place him far above the rest of the people. This is the situation that produced the “big-man” syndrome.  

President Goodluck Jonathan and VP Namadi Sambo At
The Inauguration Party In Abuja


Recently, one of my ardent readers sent me an email to say that in Warri where he grew up, what they call these toy generators from China is: I-Better-Pass-My-Neighbour. So, when NEPA/PHCN envelopes everyone with impenetrable darkness, and those who have these toy generators put them on, they mean to demonstrate to their neighbours choking with thick, oppressive darkness that they are better than them. Yes, I better pass my neighbour!  

This mentality appears to be what guides the conducts of public officers in Nigeria. And when you look at the situation closely, you then begin to understand why Nigerians are suffering in the midst of plenty. For those in authority, it is a complete insult to suggest that the rest of the people should enjoy basic amenities like electricity, good roads, potable water and security. No, that would make everybody equal.

The GSM was a huge mistake that must never be repeated. Initially, they collected so much money from telecom operators and unleashed them on Nigerians to cut their necks with prohibitive prices, so that only the rich can afford GSM phones. But, the era of exploitation did not last. Globacom, just came into the market, overthrew the heartless, inhuman cartel, and today, the poor man in Lagos can call his poor mother in the village. Now, the rich can only emphasize their wealth by the number and type of expensive handsets they carry at the same time.    I-better-Pass-My-Neighbour.

That’s the mindset that rules the Nigerian ruler’s mind. There was a Nigerian ruler who was asked why he banned tokunbo vehicles during a phone-in radio/television programme. He did not know when he let out his grouse, which was that there were too many cars competing for space with his convoy on the streets of Abuja! “Everywhere in Abuja, what is you see is Golf, Golf!” he fumed. Now “Golf” is that Volkswagen vehicle thy call “pure water”, which the poor man, at his  own level, too, flaunts, to show that he is better than his waka-waka neighbour.

Now the Oga up there is not happy that private cars were becoming too common on our roads (even when the public transportation system is in such a chaotic state), that it was no longer the exclusive preserve of rulers and the rich, their children and cronies. And so, a ban had to be placed to put the poor back in his place, in the spirit of  I-better-Pass-My-
Neighbour.


   
   Olusegun Obasanjo: Nigerian President When
   This Article Was First Published


Today, the roads are so horrible that each time you ply some of them, you may have to visit your mechanic. But in order to rub in his marked difference from the rest of us,  President Olusegun Obasanjo does not use the roads to get to his home. Once he arrives at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos, a helicopter will pick him up and drop him gently on his farm in Ota. How else can his neighbours be made to know that the “big-man” was returning if not with the flourish that the helicopter noise ushers in? I-better-Pass-My-Neighbour! 

 So, in Nigeria today, instead of a ruler to provide social amenities to benefit for everyone, he uses public funds to create limitless advantages, privileges and comfort for himself, so that everyone looking at him, his wives and children would really realize how unlucky he was to not have been born into such a family.

That is why a state governor can have the heart to steal N126 billion from state coffers. While public schools here are left to decay, children of rulers are flown out of Nigeria to attend quality schools in Europe, America, South Africa and even Ghana; they hop across to see “their” doctors in far away Canberra to treat common cold, and go to Kuala Lumpur to see “their” dentist. Nigerian public officers steal so much money to buy themselves houses in France, UK and the United States. Yet they have not asked themselves how many Americans have homes in London or France, or even how many people born in Boston have ever visited New York, let alone own a home there.

People steal and accumulate even more than they would ever need, just to ensure that forever they can always say: I-better-Pass-My-Neighbour. 


Volkswagen Golf: Its Proliferation On Nigerian
Roads Threw The Ire Of The President


Like I said, this mindset is at play anywhere. Go to any embassy and see how Nigerian Security men employed there will treat you.

One day, while conducting an investigation for a story on the thriving visa racket at the British High Commission, I was reading a notice board outside the High Commission’s gate when a Nigerian Security man came and told me that I had stayed too long on the notice board and  should  leave. In fact, I had been there for less than five minutes. As I looked at him, flaunting his badge of slavery (uniforms), I knew exactly what was at play. He was working at the place where Nigerians scrambled to get visas to Mars, and I wasn’t! I-better-Pass-My-Neighbour.

 Until we kill this spirit, looting will never stop in Nigeria. The rulers would always ensure that mass poverty continue in the land because that is  the only situation that emphasizes how “lucky” they and their families and cronies are. That would also ensure that during elections, the poor can easily be manipulated with little gifts to sell-off their votes. In many countries there is nothing like “inferior” or “superior” hospitals.

Everybody, whether President, Governor, Senator, the jobless or school boy, is entitled to quality healthcare. But here, the craving is to show our advantage over others. Some even ensure they prepare their executive graves before they die, so that even in death, they would still be able to make the statement: I-better-Pass-My-Neighbour.

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First published in March 2006 in Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye's weekly column (SCRUPLES) on the back page of Daily Independent newspaper. 
 scruples2006@yahoo.com 

Mattie Stepanek: A Fan Remembers

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye


"I want people to know that in every life, there are storms. But we must remember to play after every storm and to celebrate the gift of life as we have it, or else life becomes a task, rather than a gift. We must always listen to the song in our heart, and share that song with others"
—Mattie Stepanek (July 17, 1990 – June 22, 2004)

---------------------------

In a well received article in the summer of 2003, I celebrated Mattie Stepanek, the then 12 year old and terminally sick American poet from Rockville, Maryland, whose five volumes of poetry had at that time sold more than a million of copies. In fact, three out of the five volumes had by that time made the New York Times Best Seller List.

I am compelled to remember Mattie again today: a child I never met, but who became my friend through his very moving poetry and public statements.

Mattie Stepanek

But, sadly, Mattie Stepanek is no more. On Tuesday, June 22, 2004, just before his 14th birthday, Mattie passed on at the Children’s National Medical Centre in Washington as a result of complications related to muscular dystrophy, the disease he had battled with since he was born. He was only 13. 

At 11, Mattie introduced himself thus: “My name is Matthew Joseph Thaddeus Stepanek. I am almost 11 years old, and I home-school, doing a high school curriculum. I began writing poetry when I was about 3 years old, and now have a collection that contains thousands of poems, dozens of illustrations. I have even bound some of my books at home, and a bound anthology of my writing was presented to the Library of Congress during the Fall of 2000. I have also won many awards for my writing, including the Melinda A. Lawrence International Book Award in 1999 for ‘most inspirational work.’ I have a rare form of muscular dystrophy called mitochondrial myopathy, and I also have something called dysautonomia. That means that ‘my automatic’ systems, like breathing, heart rate, body temperature, oxygenation, digestion, and things like that don’t always work well on their own. So, I use extra oxygen all the time, and when I am tired or sleeping I use a ventilator that breathes for me and save energy and move my medical equipment around. My two brothers and one sister died during childhood from the same thing I have, and my mother uses a wheelchair all the time because she has the adult form of this disability.”



Mattie Stepanek With His Mother, Jeni Stepanek,
When He was 11, In Their Home In Upper Marlboro,
 Maryland, USA, On Monday,  November 5, 2001(AP Photos)

Mattie’s life and story had a way of melting one’s heart each time one encountered them. He began writing poetry at the tender age of three. Although he had   this terminal illness, he was able, with his very appealing poems and emotional speeches, to affect the lives of many people around the world.

 Each time I read his poetry or anything written about him, my heart melted, tears came to my eyes, and I longed to meet him, pray for him, say nice things to him, and see him get well and indeed possess in full the life he loved and celebrated so much. It was amazing how a child so sick and dying could inspire so much confidence in others and make them see reasons to “celebrate life” despite the odds.

After watching Mattie’s celebrated appearance on Oprah Winfrey Show, 81-year old Elizabeth Haestie said: “I ‘met’ Mattie for the first time on the Oprah Show. I am an 81-year old English lady, in good health, but sometimes feel somewhat depressed that I don’t have a great many more years ahead of me in this life. But Mattie has knocked all the feelings out of my mind altogether, and I don’t think they will ever return. I am an ‘old soul’ too, Mattie, as you are and I shall remember you and your mother all the rest of my life.”  





Mattie Stepanek With Former United States
President, Jimmy Carter

In 2001, Mattie was appointed the Maryland Goodwill Ambassador for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. A regular face at big events where he spread the message of peace and hope, his enthusiasm and positive outlook despite his fragile state was the challenge many distressed people needed to keep hope alive. He featured regularly at fundraising events aimed at helping the efforts to find a cure for neuromuscular diseases, and offer support to affected children and their families, to go on “celebrating life” till a cure is found.

Mattie Stepanek had told Washington Post in 2001 that he believed a cure would be found for this disease, maybe after his life time. Mattie had been interviewed on Larry King Live on the CNN and on several other top television shows in the United States, and his appearances made tremendous impact on many viewers.  

Heartsongs! That’s one word, (his own coinage) that dominates all of Mattie’s poetry and appears in the titles of all his best-selling collections of poetry. Mattie’s consistent counsel to all was: life may be full of stress and pains, but never allow them overwhelm you; resist despair and don’t allow yourself to sink. Listen instead to your ‘heartsong,’ the profound melody that rings deep down your heart: discover it, follow its rhythm, and with it usher sunshine into your life and that of others.  





Mattie Stepanek With Oprah Winfrey

In 2001, VSP Books collaborated with Hyperion Books to publish Mattie’s maiden book of poems which he called, HEARTSONGS. It was a venture that turned out an outstanding success. Mattie soon became a national bestseller and an American celebrity. With his books, Heartsongs, Journey Through Heartsongs, Celebrate Through Heartsongs and Loving Through Heartsongs (released in 2003 by Hyperion Books), Mattie’s pride of place in American poetry was firmly established. Mrs. Cheryl Barnes, who with her husband, Peter, and their company VSP Books had collected Mattie’s poems which they issued in a paperback in a 2001 collection, told Washington Post that she “had a hard time believing a child could write with such wisdom…He’s bright beyond his years. He is a   truly remarkable child.” 

Former U.S. president, Jimmy Carter, became Mattie’s hero due to his global peace efforts and rigorous disease-eradication campaigns. In September 2001, while Mattie was confined to a hospital bed in the intensive care unit, staff members of the hospital arranged for him a 15 minute telephone chat with Mr. Carter where Mattie raised such issues as the problems in Bosnia and Africa. Surprisingly, he did not talk about his ill-health. Highly affected by this brief encounter with such an exceptional child, Carter decided to write the foreword to Mattie’s next book, Journey Through Heartsongs. But Mattie and Carter were to meet face-to-face when Dianne Sawyer featured both of them on her live television programme, “Good Morning, America.” 

In his emotion-laden eulogy at Mattie‘s funeral service in Wheaton, Maryland, on June 28, 2009, Mr. Carter stunned the congregation with the following words:  “Since I left the White House,” he said, “my wife and I have been to more than 120 nations. And we have known kings and queens, and we've known presidents and prime ministers, but the most extraordinary person whom I have ever known in my life is Mattie Stepanek.”





Mattie Stepanek

Mattie’s speech during his October 19, 2001 appearance on OPRAH TV Show dwelt on his desire to be a peacemaker in the world and his love for life and poetry. Oprah Winfrey was so moved by the passionate concern of this ailing little boy for peace in a world that had no answer  to his health problems that she had to exclaim, after reading a portion which she said was her favourite lines from Mattie’s poetry: “I think that’s so important, especially now, when everybody is feeling a sense of fear and having been terrorized, to look at what you have in your life and have a sense of gratitude and see the miracles in your life. And you, even though you’re hooked up to all this equipment --and we had to plug you in during the commercial break, give you more oxygen -- you still see miracles everyday in your life.” 

It is sad to note that Mattie Stepanek could not have seen his first birthday let alone dream about writing poetry if he were a Nigerian boy. Where are the medical facilities in today’s Nigeria, especially, after a succession of thieving rulers had passed through town, to sustain the precious life of a boy so sick, so tender, and yet so amazingly gifted and determined?

After my 2003 piece on Mattie, his mother, Ms. Jeni Stepanek, then 47, sent me a very moving email    and said: “I was surfing the net… [and] came across …your article about Mattie, and was so touched by your words. Mattie’s reward in life is the ability to touch others deep in their lives such that it makes a difference to them …Thank you, and perhaps we will meet you during August. Take care, Jeni Stepanek (“Mattie’s Mom).”





Oprah Winfrey: One Of Mattie Stepanek's Big Friend

 I also got another email from an American lady who informed me how happy she was that I could celebrate her hero.  

As, my heart goes out today to wheelchair-bound  Jeni Stepanek and all who loved Mattie Stepanek, I feel compelled to tell every youth in Nigeria reading this piece not to miss the lesson in Mattie’s short life, namely, that no one has any reason to fail in life.

Here was a child who had every reason to relapse into self pity and debilitating passivity, live a miserable and unfulfilled life and pass on unnoticed. But he chose to ignore the obstacles before him, fully realized his potentials within the little time he had, and became a national hero. His last literary effort, a book of essays, entitled Just Peace, is also a best seller.  

So, every youth should look into himself or herself, identify his or her God-given potentials and make the best use of them to excel. Surely, the obstacle most youths complain about would pale to insignificance when compared with Mattie’s, who according to Jimmy Carter had suffered more than anyone he had known.

Yet, he succeeded, and in one of his poems, Heavenly Greetings, he wrote this appeal to God:

Dear God…
I have wondered about
How You will meet me
When I die and come to
Live with You in Heaven.
I know You reach out
Your hand to welcome
Your people into Your home…
 …my mommy…told me that You
Reach out both of Your hands,
And welcome us with
A great big giant hug.
Wow!
I can't wait for my hug, God.
Thank you,
And Amen.


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scruples2006@yahoo.com