Paris is a city to gaze at, with its wide boulevards, impressive monuments, great works of art and magical lights. It is a city of taste, with its great cheeses, chocolate, wine, bread and processed meat products. It is a city to hear whether you like opera, jazz or any world of music; it’s a city to smell, perfume boutiques, cafes fire in winter. It is a city to feel: the wind on your face as you cycle along the seine. Above all, Paris is a city to discover.
Can it then be an understatement if one says that Paris is a paradise on earth? Paris cannot be the only wonderful city in the planet, most European and American cities are also masterpieces. Little wonder that many of our leaders, wealthy elites, politicians and celebrities choose to spend their vacations abroad or even send their wards to school abroad.
El-Rufai tried when he was the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory to include Abuja in the list of the beautiful cities in the world but he was given all sorts of names, no wonder Nuhu Ribadu faced the same persecution. For how long are we going to be doing it the same way? Is it not a thing of shame for Nigerians to be travelling abroad to treat ordinary ailments like headache and fever? All our hospitals are left uncared for; they are in different degrees of dilapidation: no drugs, no competent personnel to attend to patients and the hospitals rely on generators to perform surgical operations where they are to be performed. Education which is supposed to be the right of every Nigerian is now a privilege. With the incessant increase of school fees, how many Nigerian youths are privileged to be in school today?
Government cannot even provide water. A natural gift from God has been turned to luxury or ostentatious commodity. Our roads are death traps. Unlike most major cities in the world, I wonder if there is any city in Nigeria that can boast of all infrastructures despite the natural, spiritual and human endowments.
Who will save Nigeria? Why is it that the ugly both in physique and mind are the ones parading themselves at the corridors of power, playing and exchanging us like relay batons? They always come with all kinds of lies, where most of them have travelled to almost all parts of the world. I think it is high time Nigeria stopped calling itself giant of Africa.
Anytime a foreigner comes to Nigeria, one must surely believe that his mission is to come and invest, to enslave us indirectly and to exploit us. Or what can we call what all these multinational companies do in Nigeria, something nobody can do to them in their country.
Let us work with the rule of law if we want positive change. Almost all the governors, ministers, commissioners, public office holders and political appointees embezzle money. But why is it that very few are being brought to book and others exempted? A thief is a thief irrespective of the amount or the designation of the person.
Enough is enough, since Rome was not built in a day, Nigeria too cannot be built in a day. A new Nigeria must be born, a thousand kilometers journey always start with a step and all hands must be on deck to move Nigeria forward.
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