“Once to everyman and nation comes the moment to decide; in the strife between truth with falsehood, for the good or the evil side.” J. R. Lowell, 1819-1891, (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS,VBQ, p 254). For great nations, the choice comes once or, at most, twice. For Nigeria, the choice had come several times. And, the fact that, today, the failure of a country which was more advanced than South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand, among others, in 1965, is unanimously attributed to the lack of purposeful leadership is an indictment of the leaders as well as the followers. To the best of my knowledge, nobody had been elected into office, either at the Federal, or State, level who had not enjoyed some significant measure of support. Even when the votes were supposed to have been rigged or bought, with “Stomach Infrastructure”, fellow Nigerians had been involved in the deals. Nobody alone can impose himself on a nation of 170 million people. As Joseph de Maistre, 1751-1820, in VBQ p. 80, has warned us, “Every country has the government it deserves.” So if Nigeria, a potentially rich, but, actually poor country, has a government in which a Minister can purchase two bullet-proof cars, at inflated prices, that is what we deserve. If another Minister can spend billions of naira leasing a jet for her official use; and, then go to court to stop anyone from asking questions, because her “boss” never did, that is what we deserve too. If the BOSS himself runs a Presidential Airline with nine aircrafts, while the Presidents of France and Brazil and the Prime Ministers of Japan and Britain manage with one each, that is what we also deserve. By contrast, we now have a challenger, who was a former Minister for Petroleum Resources (he leased no jets) and a former Head of State (no Presidential Airways then). Yet, he could state, without fear of contradiction as follows: “While others who have occupied those same positions have grown mysteriously rich, I still live on my army pension. I own no foreign bank accounts, I own no companies profiting from government contracts.” To me the difference is clear; as clear as drinking tea or coffee with milk; or drinking mud water. Let those who had become mysteriously rich explain the source(s) of their wealth to Nigerians – including how much tax they paid on them…. vanguardngr/2014/12/ jonathan-versus-buhari-clear-choice/
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 08:08:47 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015