Nigeria: The cozy abode of modern slavery

Pluto, one of the great Greek philosophers, once said that ‘dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and (it is) the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery–out of the most extreme liberty’. I believe Pluto obviously foresaw the current ugly reality thriving unhampered in Nigeria—our present in his past, when he proclaimed that prophetic sally centuries back. At this point of our enlightened existence, no one needs to be told that the geographical entity, Nigeria, is a historical seed of egocentric and exploitative quest, meticulously sowed by our old colonial masters and uppity watered by our new abulic colonial masters who are maddeningly intoxicated with the wine of ostentatious parade of the wealth they have successfully malversated in the keen sight of those ‘toothless watchdogs’ who can only bark at and pierce the flesh of the poor with their horrendous vampiric teeth. Little wonder did one of my lecturers said that Nigeria is a product of confusion christened by Flora Shaw, when she was in the bedroom with Lord Luguard, enjoying every bit of his loving fondlings and caresses. And I assume that is why we are still kissing the charming feet of corruption till date. Our economy is fragile, majestically stationed on the precipice of total collapse, with a current incurred foreign debt of N7.93trn. But the pricking truth is that I only see our economy improving on press conferences and pages of newspaper when in reality, it is infected with H5N1. Unemployment is rife but our new colonial masters keep on ringing in my ears, the intelligent gnome of J F Kennedy: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country’ but permit me to rephrase that maxim interrogatively and throw it back at them: My dear new colonial masters, what have you done for your country? When are we going to gain independence from your social, economic and political ‘colonialialism’? You have been playing the blame game for nearly a century now, accusing our old colonial masters of performing a surgical implantation of corruption and slavery on the silky fabric of our darling cultural modesty but congratulations sirs, you have successfully taken it two steps further. Our new colonial masters keep on preaching entrepreneurship but how many jobs have the created for the teeming graduates roaming about our streets? Unemployment rates have soared to 23.9 per cent according to NPC and with no fewer than 40 million Nigerians unemployed according to Dr Christopher Kolade as reported on ThisDayLive e-newspaper on the Sept 18,2013. Indeed, it is sardonic and regrettably lugubrious as wittily expressed by Patrick Obahiagbon. 2015 is knocking. The election spirit is hovering the face of Nigeria and as always I assume you are once again counting on our habitual stupidity to fight, maim, and kill ourselves for you, O New Colonial Masters. Bravo! Bravo!! Bravo!!! Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying we shouldn’t go out to exercise our natural enfranchisement rights but I’m only trying to say that a man who is about to clock his centenary come 2014 should stop acting like an imbecile. However, it would be blatantly uncritical of me to dish out much disparaging aspersions on our New Colonial Masters when in truth some of us are still obviously drinking and dining in the chaotic abyss of modern slavery. What a cozy abode! Just like Lucus Annaeus Seneca once said: ‘Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery’. Over the years, we have been blindfolded by ignorance, regionalism, political party sympathy and above all, religion. No wonder, Robert Green Ingersoll did say that ‘Religion can never reform mankind, because religion, itself, is slavery’. We are too busy chasing after perfection, baring the simple fact that perfection is celestial while imperfection is terrestrial. If you are a Christian like me, I know you will want to quote Matthew 5:48: ‘…Be ye therefore perfect…’ but for your information, God only wants us to stay away from sins by condemning it whenever it is obvious. And I also expect my Muslim brothers and sisters to do the same. We are too ignorant, regionalist and sentimental to see the truth—too pious to submit our aural ability to the truth. Whenever a political scandal surfaces, I see Nigerians taking sides based on their religious and regional sympathies. Happy Slavery Nigerians! I wish you many happy returns if you continue this way! You will all agree with me that we are clearly an agglomeration of pathetic victims plunged into the cozy abode of social, economic and political slavery by our new colonial masters. However, I have a plea and wish my dear New Colonial Masters— please don’t allow my children to dwell in this same thralldom conditions too.