Since I was born and transited through the process of upbringing, the goal post of Nigeria’s political life has been moved to various positions of regions, religions and tribes – no thanks to the British colonists that started it with manipulated census results. This manipulation eventually made us infamous. Initially we started as an agrarian country, then we found oil. The military intervened and oil took over the finance of the country through the use of literary administrators. Due to rebellion they had to fight a civil war to unify and retain the nation as one. Obviously and naturally our seduction, mainstay and prop was oil.
In contrast, the Asian countries that became simultaneously independent as we did concentrated on their natural resources while we lived on our oil and frolicked extravagantly as our modus operandi. The returns made us opulent and pleasure-seekers and celebrants such that it became insufficient for our fostered appetite. We went to town with reckless abandon. Our social chemistry changed to a higher compound. Those that tasted of it grew into a lavish social generation. The new way of life generated a culture.
The Asian countries that had their independence at the same time as us had no oil, but they worked on their development by concentrating on other natural resources.
Woe deteriorated Nigerians’ lifestyles. Once an affluent and rich African nation, we became a pariah and beggarly. Exploitation of oil on a global scale and insufficient supply made people become desperate, painful and regrettable. Embarrassingly, the military handed over to civilians and politicking began earnestly and desperate.
Episode 2 of our nation’s existence had begun. Out of desperation human sacrifice became ritualized and the carnival became virulent and religious activity enlarged into a tool of exploitation.
Who will salvage us, or can we salvage ourselves from these self-inflictions? Who started this malaise?
What a regrettable opulence.
Mohammed Garuba
Husimaw 