NIGERIA @ 59 – Celebration of a ‘cake -less’ birthday!
‘If a fool at forty is a fool forever, what then should be said of a fool at fifty-nine’?
Dear Mr. President, Congratulations on our nation’s independence. Hurray! It’s
Independence Day!
Today, Nigeria clocks fifty-nine years of age yet with absolutely nothing to show for
it but ‘white-elephant projects’ that many of your ministers acclaim to themselves
In sheer mediocrity.
Dear Mr. President, whilst you busy yourself in your euphoric jubilee, please
remember our roads are still death traps, our economy is still in shambles; people
still live below a dollar per day, our electricity supply is still worse than epileptic; I
still bear with the noise and fume coming from my neighbour’s industrial generator,
our educational system is still a mess, our currency is a write-off and oh yes, fraud is
still very much our household name.
Dear Mr. President, I’m sure you very well know it’s been fifty-nine years of a
vicious cycle of woes and struggle. Fifty-nine years of insecurity, bloodshed, lack and
strife. Fifty nine years of the flagrant breach of democracy and rule of law. With each
passing year, rather than adding a feather to our cap, we simply top up our can of
woes waiting till it gets full!
Mr. President, they say a fool at forty is a fool forever, but what then should we say
of a fool at fifty-nine?
May I remind you, Mr. President that many of our sister countries whom we pride
over as an elder have by far overtaken us? Ghana is only ….. yet they have celebrated
years of uninterrupted power supply, South Africa is only…… Nigerians run there for
greener pastures, Kenya is only…………
Written by John Olonade
From Ibadan
