BY EZEKWEREOGU JOHN
LUCKY CHIBUNDU [EDITOR]
My Independence message is simple. And I am told to start this way: IF EVERY NIGERIAN WERE LIKE YOU, WOULD NIGERIA BE A BETTER PLACE? A simple but very pressing question.
Are you involved in any form of corruption? You are driving, the police stopped you on the road, and you don't have your drivers license. What do you do? Offer him a bribe? A good citizen does not do that. Let him charge you to the appropriate authorities. Yes, say "NO" to corruption! You condemn the police for taking bribes, but you give it to them. Nothing stops anybody that gives bribe to the police from lobbying* as a legislator if he becomes one tomorrow.
(I used the word "lobbying" in its Nigerian connotation, which by implication is when people with inordinate socioeconomic power are corrupting the law [twisting it away from fairness], usually with money [bribe], in order to serve their own interests.)
Did you "sort" your NYSC posting? Did you "sort" any course in the university? If you did, what makes you think you will not rig an election if you become a politician tomorrow? I am helping you to discover that you are corrupt and therefore detrimental to the welfare Nigeria, and I am being simple. I hope you are getting the picture: leaders are the problem of this country per say, and they are just reflecting the problem too. Most Nigerians are like them. The only difference is that those Nigerians have not been "opportune" to be at the "top."
When I was at the university, my bank mistakenly paid N10,000 into my account. As a student, that was a lot of money. I knew what to do, but I decided to ask some people what I should do to know how they see things. Not one person told me to return the money; they all told me to keep the money. Some even said that is how God blesses people. And when I took the money to the bank, the banker that attended to me was agape. From the way he looked at me, I can beat my chest that he was saying in his mind, "This one is a fool. Is he a Nigerian at all?"
Most of the people I told that I returned the money called me a fool to my face. That is Nigeria; a country where you are considered a fool for not keeping what does not belong to you. Tell me, what stops anybody with this mindset from embezzling public funds if he finds himself in a public office tomorrow.
Well, I knew I was not a fool for doing what I did. What is more, I saved someone somewhere some problem. I mean, N10,000 would have been deducted from someone's salary. That is what happens when you keep what does not belong to you; you "gain" and someone loses. And that is how politicians/ leaders in Nigeria behave "gaining" (embezzling) public funds and the public is losing.
The leadership of this country is corrupt precisely because the society is corrupt. leaders did not fall from the moon; they came from the society. They are reflecting the rot in the society. It takes a good society to have good leaders. Our society cannot be corrupt and you expect our leaders not to be corrupt. That is absurd. This is because Nigeria's foundation is built on fraud and lies, and that is why I criticise the (political) leaders. It is the effort the society makes to say "NO" to corruption, which will issue in this leaders. When the entire country is not making serious effort to be free from corruption, it affects the everyone. That is the reason Biafra wants an exit from this forbidden entity or contraption called Nigeria, that is why self-determination is sacrosanct and the only tool we will use to seek our way out of this Country (Nigeria), a lawless country filled with a curse. It is Biafra or death
REST IN PEACE INDEED.
Publisher: Prince Richmond C. Amadi
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