COPIED
MY LAST STAND ON SOWORE
By Erowos Eleyomo
Columnist
Those who live abroad obviously have a completely different outlook to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness than those who live in Nigeria. This does not make any point of view superior or inferior. After living abroad for over two decades, I find that the people in diaspora have become used to the right to protest, freedom of speech, assembly and the independence of government institutions to protect and defend them. Please note that this system itself is fraught with problems of racism, bias and injustice. It is not perfect.
President Donald Trump is testing the elasticity of this system to its limits. The silver lining here is that at least there is a system to test and it is being tested.
My brothers and sisters living in Nigeria have been abused, oppressed , maligned , robbed, raped and pillaged to the point where the only option is survival. They have to survive in a vicious system of dog eat dog. They have become used to dysfunction. Abnormality is normal. The s___hole country they live in is the the giant of Africa in their own eyes. The diaspora can speak grammar and return to the west. The home based have to stay home all the times and they have to make it work at all costs. They feel powerless in the affairs of their own nation and so they move around as if All is well. They celebrate births, deaths and funerals like aristocrats. They drive Rolls Royces and Bentleys on flooded roads with open sewers that resemble hazard courses on a reality show from hell. On June 12 1993 a man won the first and only free and fair election in Nigeria, the man was hauled into jail and killed. The Nigerian elite simply shrugged it off and continued business as usual with the next guy. They celebrate mediocrity and reward criminal accomplishments with chieftancy , church and mosque titles. They celebrate when their Pastors and Bishops buy private jets and build Universities their own children cannot attend. They support the English premier league more than the English. They stab and kill each other when their English team win loses a match. They spend more money on Swiss, Korean and Chinese lace materials than any of these people do on their own textile materials. Nigeria is good and Nigerians are enjoying they say to themselves.
What am I really saying? Home based Nigerians eat, sleep, drink and party with the enemy. The educated elite in Nigeria cannot divorce themselves from the people who are holding the nation hostage. Pastors, Bishops, Imams, Alhaji’s, Chiefs and business people all hobnob with the powers that be. They are wearing white robes and carefully running through the palm oil mill being careful and hopeful that they would not get stained. Is that possible?
Who can make the Christian or Moslem heaven in Nigeria. The Nigerian heaven must be different from the heaven for the rest of mankind. We start and end every public meeting with prayer. I dare you as a Nigerian to take this test does not bribe police, custom, Lastma, Council etc. who has never paid “extra” to get their passport. How many dates of birth does the Nigerian have? How many different places of birth and even names does the average Nigerian have. Who lives in Nigeria and has never bribed NEPA or PHCN, sorry a local disco. Who in Nigeria has never “appreciated “ an official for doing his job.
We now have the “Nigerian Syndrome” that has replaced the “Stockholm syndrome”! I have read and I see my brethren fall over themselves to paint a Sowore as a villain for calling for a revolution. They justify the arrest and rearrest of Sowore as necessary for peace in Nigeria. What a joke! Where is the peace in Nigeria. A country where they kidnap and kill people for fun. A land where you have to pay Omo Onile 5 times for the same land. A place where to paint your own house area boys would charge you money. A country where you need generator. Borehole, water treatment plant, security fence, security guards and air ambulance to live peaceably. A country where if you get shot and they rush you to hospital the hospital would request police report while you bleed to death. But guess what all this is normal. Biko Haram fighters are arrested and freed, soldiers are not given equipment to fight terrorists. Governors rule for 4 years and give themselves a golden parachute pension that can pay the pension of 10,000 pensioners who worked for 34 years and have to sit in the sun in their 80’s and 90’s to prove they are “alive”. Femi Kuti said plenty nonsense Dey for Nigeria and his father said we are suffering and smiling. In their collective foolishness, the Beast of no nation is celebrated as they live in sorrow, tears and blood( apologies to Fela). Nigeria deserves the rulers they have as the nation eats up its leaders.
They say government cannot fold their arms and look on for Sowore to distabilize Nigeria! The same way Saro Wiwa and his Ogoni brothers where terrorists and underwear abi. The same way Gani was committing treason. The same way Dele Giwa committed similar offenses. Beko, Wole Soyinka, Fela where villans under various good Nigerian governments.
I guess there is nothing we can do about it. We are just different. So we have “ The abroad syndrome” and the “Naija Syndrome” . It is what it is. I am proudly Naija, suffering, smiling and looking good at the same time. I am proudly Nigerian, we have physicians and nurses in every hospital abroad but we don’t have health care in Nigeria. I am proudly Naija, we have engineers and inventors all over the world doing great things but we don’t manufacture even tooth pick. I proudly Naija our music and Nollywood is shaking the world but our condition is like a horror flick every passing day.
As for me, I consider Sowore to be fool hardy. He should come back to his family in New Jersey, go back to eating burger and running in the park with his children. He would be able to enjoy hot water baths, 24 hours power, and good roads and have due process. Nigeria and Nigerians are fine with the Nigerian paradise. They don’t need an American agitator to come and spoil the peaceful, beautiful country they love. After all, Sowore wants to do is to cause problems in Nigeria and turn Nigeria into a country with no light, no water, no peace. He want to turn our beloved country into a hell hole. Sowore is jealous of the tranquility in Nigeria and he wants to ruin the nation and turn it into S—-hole America. He is a devil on assignment who is jealous of the law abiding Nigerian government and state. He wants to take Nigeria back from the prosperity and change democrazy has brought. The anti corruption fight has been so successful. Jagaban and his 40 angels have been doing a marvelous job in our paradise.
Sowore is a fool. My advise to him at this moment is to beg them, beg the Beast of No Nation in power, beg the 4 SANS and Constitutional law professor Pastor in power in Nigeria to let you come back to horrible America. Nigeria is too good for you. It is a shame that you have chosen to fight for people who don’t want to fight for themselves and who would celebrate their oppressors and jail their liberators. The first rule in revolution is to find out if the people you are fighting for want to be free. Harriet Tubman said she would have freed more slaves if they knew they were slaves. Sowore come home and forget Naija.
By Erowos Eleyomo
Columnist and thinker
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