How calamity has befallen our nation!
A calamity has befallen us. It is not the calamity of rigged elections or the corruption of the judiciary. It is the shame of a nation. We can't hold our heads high again.
"How does the city sit solitary that was full of people! How is she become as a widow! She that was great among the nations, and princes among the provinces, how is she become a tributary." (Lamentations.1:1)
I don't think Nigerians are seeing appropriately. I don't think we know the calamity that is befalling us right before our eyes. I don't think we have elders who can see very well and point us to the way forward, those that were grown when things were quite good in Nigeria, those who were there when even Britain, Nigeria's colonizer was afraid of her colony when General Murtala Mohammed spoke and ex British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher caught a cold. When Gen Olusegun Obasanjo with just a speech nationalized British Petroleum and there was nothing Britain could do but to beg. I don't think there are still those who saw it when our naira was accepted on the streets of London just as the dollar now has become the unofficial currency of Nigeria, that the federal legislators are putting together a new law that will make the spending of the dollar in Nigeria a crime. Would you mind them? They know their law will certainly fail because they and other leaders are the greatest culprit in the bastardization of the naira which is fast becoming a mere paper. Who was there when the Nigeria Green Eagles ruled the world in soccer, who witnessed that great success? Let them rise and bemoan Nigeria, let them weep till they cannot find a tear to shed again. A calamity has befallen us. It is not the calamity of rigged elections or the corruption of the judiciary. It is the shame of a nation. We can't hold our heads high again.
Somebody said the president, Bola Tinubu is burning. I wanted to be sure I got his meaning so I checked two very good dictionaries. The two of them returned two meanings both of which set me further confused. One is "enthusiasm;" yes the president has zeal, there is no doubt, but whether that zeal is in the appropriate direction or from the heart is another question. The president removed the fuel subsidy because as he said he was reforming the economy but that removal left Nigerians seriously pauperized. The second meaning is "agitated," which also accurately defines the president because the court challenges and the economic shock waves are enough to leave anybody agitated. Now the agitations are over, the court has confirmed Tinubu's presidency, the atmosphere is clear, and even the immediate staff including his military chief security officer were seen on camera congratulating their boss, "Your job is secure," the president interjected.
Up from his agitation, the president resumed with enthusiasm. He made a trip to Saudi Arabia to see the Saudi crown prince. It was a cordial economic visit that was well reported but it revealed the calamity that is befalling Nigeria more than anything. Bola Ahmed Tinubu was before the crown prince cap in hand. He spoke extempore, a speech from the heart that was applauded by the Saudi minister of finance. But Nigerians must be weeping. This is the same Saudi Arabia that recruited highly qualified medical doctors from Nigeria just some decades back. Tinubu begged the Saudi authority, "we assure you that we have reformed our economy.” He assured them that when they came to Nigeria they would be free to take in their money and freely repatriate it. In other words, a door is opened for Saudi businesses to also come in and rape Nigeria. Why Saudi? Muhammadu Buhari, Tinubu's predecessor and of the same APC had borrowed silly from China and China is not ready to do deals with Nigeria again. Now it is Saudi Arabia, a nation that Nigeria will not give a second look just some years ago.
Saudi Arabia is going to help in the reforms that are going on in our CBN by giving us dollars to shore up our foreign exchange, another name for borrowing us dollars. We won't earn those dollars, we will only borrow them but both Tinubu and the Saudi Arabia authority didn't use the word borrow. How long can that help last? How much freedom does that give the nation from Saudi Arabia? Nigeria funds Saudi Arabia in our yearly pilgrimage to that country. How does that help Saudi's Islamist agenda? That is sad, we fund Saudi Arabia yearly with billions of dollars taken from the nation's stock and now we are borrowing from them. It is a real shame. It is a calamity of a nation that does not have a grip on its development agenda.
Religious blindness will not let us question that the billions of dollars we pump into Saudi Arabia, in religious tourism are the same dollars we've gone to borrow. Do we have to go to Mecca? Very big question whose answer may throw the nation into flames because our religion does not allow us to think. We are more Christian than those who brought the religion and more Islam than Arabs. Our direction of borrowing has shown our failure with our religions. We have gods that the nations of the world want to see, especially the West and even Saudi Arabia but we denounce those gods and we disallow them to earn us dollars. You can be a Muslim or Christian and still spend the billions that will come from an annual pilgrimage to those gods and that will not affect your relationship with your God, it is just simple economic sense. Israel is wise, she has nothing to do with Jesus but has gone to create the scenes of Jesus’ ministry in his lifetime and Nigerians are rushing there to give billions of dollars every year. Why are we blind?
For blind Nigerians who are not ashamed of our begging, the pilgrimage to Mecca can continue and even to Jerusalem where the Jews hate Jesus and the Christians despite that, there is no prescription in the bible for anybody to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but reasonable Nigerians must demand that no government must fund anybody on those trips again and anybody who must go must look for his dollars privately and must obtain his visa and ticket privately. Federal, state and local governments must henceforth stop funding religion. But who will broach this? He will be stoned to death on the streets of Kano and in our huge churches in Abuja.
If the shame that is befalling our nation does not take us out of our stupidity and give us the sense to keep ourselves together and build our economy not only on oil or solid minerals but also on services the chief of which is tourism, the periodical visits to the gods, we will continue to be put to shame.
Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos