Richer than you think

When the PDP took up the mantle of leadership from Father Christmas Abdulsalami Abubakar in 1999, Naija had a land mass of 923,768 square kilometres. In eight years after the Wizard of Ota failed his Third Term bid, a huge chunk of that land mass had been willed to Cameroon as Christmas gift. The magic […]

When the PDP took up the mantle of leadership from Father Christmas Abdulsalami Abubakar in 1999, Naija had a land mass of 923,768 square kilometres. In eight years after the Wizard of Ota failed his Third Term bid, a huge chunk of that land mass had been willed to Cameroon as Christmas gift. The magic was that some people slept as full blooded Naija, and by dawn they had changed nationality. The woman who could have led the protest received her own oil blocks and Bakasi is history.
A huge chunk of the land the PDP inherited from the military was arable land. Agronomists say that if you mistakenly swallowed an orange seed as you travelled from Sokoto to Lagos and your vehicle stopped at a bush toilet near Akure for you to do the big one, you may have accidentally planted an orange tree. So, next time they try to sell you orange on that route, ask for its DNA. Under President Jones, our agriculture has been transformed. Although it is still the largest importer of Thailand rice and French champagne, Naija taught the world to plant, harvest and nourish. Too bad Umaru Dikko departed before he could see that Naija citizens no longer eat from the dustbin, their bones dry with kwashiorkor. If I lie, ask those who did not receive their December salary. Don’t mind the BBC who discovered a refuse dump musical star. It was cheap blackmail arranged by the opposition.
Under the watch of PDP, a huge chunk of the Naija landscape is now a caricature Caliphate headed by a mass murderer, kidnapper and paedophile. It would have been funny if it was not tragic, but President Jones endorsed this by failing to verify which part of the boundary is still his. His kinsmen are fortifying the delta by acquiring arms; MASSOB is testing its popularity by capturing government houses and releasing peculiar vehicle number plates in the east. The rest of the country is leased to armed robbers. In actual sense Dr. Jones is president of Abuja which he shares with Malam Mungu and the ministers.
These issues do not detract from our riches. We are richer than the prime minister is trying to make us believe. We can bury $20 billion without biting an eyelid, put millions of dollars in chartered airplanes to South Africa and when another $1 billion is missing from the treasury, it may take us months to jog our memory that we had used it to pay local contractors. That is how effective the World Bank manual with which we manage our economy has been.
According to Oby Ezekwesili, we have 34 solid minerals, one of which was developed for us by multinationals. If anything goes bad, we can neither fix it nor do we have spare parts, we must return to maker. Why develop the rest when governors can gather like Forty Thieves around Ali Baba and share the booty? Now, those in whose backyards the treasure is say they do not share the generosity of the Japanese who make their cars and freely releases them to anyone who needed and could afford them. Like selfish children, they want it all for themselves. Enjoy the pun if anybody says selfishness is a creek tort.
As a result of our prodigal management sense, after our Biblical seven years of plenty in which we saved nothing, we now have two budgets in parliament. Which one gets passed depends on whose story they believe – that of the prime minister who swears that we are broke or that of the governors, ministers and heads of parastatals that raised N23 billion in less than five hours to keep up the narration for another four years. Do you now believe me when I say that we are richer than we think? Add that to the N98 million that came from traders, bukateria owners, vulcanizers, welders, mechanics and other artisans in paradise, and you can see why IMF should be borrowing from our war chest.
This impressive war chest from governors who are too poor to pay the minimum wage is to take us to the final destination – the fresh air factory. Trouble is, doctors suspect that most passengers would have died of toxic smoke before the bus gets there.