About my last Post

I read the comments on my last post "In 2011" and I also had the opportunity to talk about my views with some of my dear friends who had read the piece and I am happy because I gained alot. Although, apart from a sense of relief that we were able to expound on the issues satisfactorily, I also got the sense that my views about corruption being over-rated seemed a little "off-key" if you like, as such, i tried to reflect again, but in all fairness to how far I could go, I still maintain that it is overrated.
My point being that Naija is not the first corrupt nation in the world, i think the only difference if I am to compare with developed nations is the degree of sophistication and then in a positive light, respect for human dignity by way of basic amenities and the ability to "challenge" the systems and institutions.
A cynical friend of mine once said "If we consider super powers who fight wars in the interest of oil rigs but live permanently on huge budget deficits. Financial Crisis rocking countries home to ancient civilisation because they lied about their "Financial situation" in the first place. Embarassing sex scandals among the elite that look down on the African system of polygamy as well as deceit, abuse of public funds and tax payers money for the weakness that absolute power covets, then we know that Africa still has a long way to go".

Why am I Bitter?

One becomes bitter and emotional about Naija only because in our own case, the rich get richer at the expense of basic amenities and a literal robbery of :
1.Rights: as a result of failure to provide basic necessities.
2. Vision : for lack of an enabling enviroment to exercise ones mind in making things better rather than tailoring it to dwell solely on the need to survive.
3. Self respect and worth: insisting on a myopic way of doing things and in the process discrediting others to make them feel inferior and insignificant as long as it is skewed to satisfy a famous exposition by George Orwell "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others".
4. Justice, equity and fairplay: creating an enviroment for only hustlers to thrive, enabling unhealthy competition and legitimising the "who you know syndrome"
I think I do not have to go on since I am already bitter from mentioning 4, however if I am to return to the safety of my naivity the hopelessness and exasperation often derived from all these, makes me willing to cling to a justifiable excuse which in this case is CORRUPTION so how do we deal with it? again my naivity says that this stems from a long standing principle of a divide and rule policy and for what it's worth, we have to know the past to understand the future- very articulate cliches if you ask me, but here again I am tempted to start listing corrupt leaders and blame them for everything thereby, losing sight of the goal. An Irish political philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke once said "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil (Corruption) is that good men do nothing." - the corruption in bracket was put in there by me. 

 

About Social Class and defination of goals!

I haven't defined the social class I belong to, but from the top of my head, I'd like to think of myself as a moderate Socialist and a Conservative Capitalist but I have a weakness for some of Karl Marx's teachings and I love the following quotes: "The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs." or better still, "The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them."
I brought the issue of class to underscore the need to have a goal or something you believe in so that the "struggle" is legitimised in all ramifications and followed through. What i want to say is defining our society, political leanings, economic policies and what we stand for is a start.
For example, all I need to do here when writing or translating stories about politics is look at the name, colour or symbol of the party in question and I already know if they are pro or against war or what their policies are on the tax system, whether they lean more towards policies that protect the enviroment etc, it was a thorn in the flesh to master, but studying its evolution especially from the post war period was quite revealing, and I thought no wonder all we ever do is attack ethnicity and religion rather than apply our differences in supporting a noble cause for humanity..... maybe this is how it was meant to be but really what role does the ordinary man play in all this rather than playing the slave to "CORRUPTION"?