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LET’S REMOVE THIS CURSE  

By Biodun Opaleye
Recently, I interviewed a cross section of retired people in our society irrespective of where they retired from. I discovered that most of them until recently earned between N800 and N2,000 not to talk of a huge percentage that earned nothing, judging by the small percentage of our working population out of the unwieldy 100-120 million Nigerian abandoned population. Everybody is now turning into a trader if he or she must feed daily from hand to mouth.

The unpleasant spectacle is the huge percentage of ageing men and women I interviewed, who up till mid-day might not have eaten any food probably waiting for providential major meal for the day. As I watched many. I could imagine them cursing the society from within their hearts.

Recently I overhead two prominent Nigerian citizens on radio and newspaper condemning the present members of the National assembly for being incompetent in one thing or the other. How I wish they, the critics sympathies rather than condemn them. My reason is that when Abacha problem emerged and he wanted to liquidate the rich and the learned citizens, the two classes of people had the means to run away to either Britain or the U.S. Majority remained at home leaving people like Pa Adesanya, Ige, Obasanjo, Adesina, Ola Oni and others to risk challenging Abacha for whatever consequences.

Now, it is the majority of those who were  destined to die but did not die, that got elected into our various houses of assembly now, pioneering democratic reforms with God’s help and assistance from the major world powers.

Methinks if any Nigerian is truly educated or rich, when trouble comes, he should his/her God given means to protect himself and his compatriots. Admitted that the present crop of politicians are learners, yet our history is still current that the former politicians, despite their resources (better education and riches) led us into the hand of Khaki boys. I was already eighteen (18) years old in October 1st 1960, when Nigerian got her independence and I know all the then political foxes and fake academicians in this country.
Even in religions sector of our society, we now discover the youth to be running hay-wire because of the hypocrisy of the adults, who occupy various positions to operate their own agenda.

I had been to about four continents of the world, the latest being America and I discovered that the civilized/developed countries in their welfarist program took much care of what call senior citizens ages 55 and above. These in their advancing wisdom always make sure the nation does not run aground anytime.

I was pleasantly amuses in 1998 on my first visit to the United State of America. Right from the Houston port of disembarkation, I and others in my visiting group were given senior citizen regards, courtesies and assistance.
Said my partner “Biodun! You see what I mean! These are little thing America does that makes her unbeatable and irrepressible by any charlatan.’

In fact, by President Olusegun Obasanjo’s recently launched poverty Alleviation programme” he seems to have re-moved the curses which Nigerian youth had been pouring on their fatherland for as many years as this writer can remember.  Admitted that most Nigerian senior citizens (60 years and above by Nigerian standard) has lived substandard lives since above by Nigerian standard) had lived substandard lived substandard lives since independence , yet a few things can still be done to help them so they don’t pack up too early.

CHIEF OLUSEGUN OBASANJO
For example, anybody sixty years and above should be exempted from taxes except where he/she has a business of above one hundred thousand naira. Also, since an average Nigerian does not feed well to acquire immunity against nutritional deficiencies, decent public eating houses at affordable prices like the McDonalds of the USA. Mr. Biggs (UAC) of Lagos. The Tantalizers of Lagos. e.t.c. should be encouraged in Nigerian cities like Ibadan, Ilorin, Kaduna, Kano, Jos, Enugu, Port-Harcourt, Calabar, Warri, Benin City, Abeokuta and maybe a few other viable places. Other cities would soon join the cue when they note the successes of the listed cities.
My reason for the above is that most of us who brag about our “tuwo, iyan, amala, starch, rice, eba, gari, eko, apu etc are not honest. Only a few of us can afford the price of each of the above with what is adequate nutrition-wise to accompany them with, like fish, meat, vegetables etc which most citizens cannot even afford now. Our industrious women folk do improvise with food despite scarcity, even though some of them wear daggers and amulets.

Let’s be honest, in that even though it is the private sector that handles McDonald in the USA for example, yet one can see the gargantuan economical welfarist image of the government behind the food company. So we can say America actually feeds her citizens let Nigeria feed us too, and by the look of things at present greater things are coming particularly from Oyo State capital and Abuja Federal Capital.


I was a staff of the Baptist Press Ibadan in 1969 when by 9am Daily. The  American lady press manager would stop the press” to announce the arrival of the “Fresh Milk Boy from Iwo Road Dairy Farm. And for one shilling for small carton and to shillings for big carton, we would all troop out to have our healthful fill. The American woman (Miss Barbara Epperson  now deceased) also reduced the price of soft drink from Six pence to three and half pence per bottle. By mid-day everybody was free to go out to have his snacks or meal from his/her body was free to go out to have his snacks or meal from his/her favorite joint. Our salaries were not much, but we were free healthy and responsible workers. I even almost want to say now that our staff were more intelligent than others elsewhere. Thus Governor Adesina has proved himself a civilized Nigerian, by the re-acquisition of Iwo Road Diary Farm.
LATE MISS BARBARA  EPPERSON, DIED IN MIAMI OKLAHOMA IN DECEMBER 9TH, 1994 AT 73 YEARS OLD.



Tell any Nigerian boss to grant the above and he/she will first demand your blood before cutting off your head. Say what you like the only two pragmatic leaders like late Miss Epperson I can see today in Nigeria are President Olusegun Obasanjo of Abuja and Governor Onaolapo Adesina of Ibadan. Others can and should copy them if various curses on Nigeria are to be removed.

In fact, Nigerian students should be made to read biographies of George Washington Carver, the Georgian Black scientist of peanut fame, black educationist and Booker Taliaferro Washington. They too can catch their vision.
A level 10-19 Nigerian man or woman today who wears ten thousand naira “cupion-lace but eats monotonous and substandard male of less than one thousand naira per fortnight is a social parasite as we often seen in social functions today. Such a person is even a fool and he/she might not even know it. Thank Obasanjo for the University Primary Education relief! Thank Lam Adesina for the free education, free health and even free mill from Iwo road Diary farm” programs!

Obasanjo and Adesina should send many youth back to the farms and provide adequate infrastructures for them there. The many youth in the cities are mere   parasites there. They speak English and vernacular but cannot write them down. Those who secured job are under paid to make meaningful living out of their earnings. The remaining ones resort to crime and prostitution. Any body who in that sixties tasted Vom-Jos fresh milk and that of Iwo Road would know that by the re-opening of Iwo Road Diary Farm, Lam Adesina is up to something great.

Certain social misdemeanors are a curse on any nation. Thank God for people like Obasanjo and Lam Adesina who see better than others not because they are more endowed than others but that God had earlier led them through harrowing experiences of life.
LATE ALHAJI LAM ADESINA

Who then is the teacher of today’s youth? But thanks be to God for such, a time as this when Nigerians like Obasanjo and Adesina re-raised by God like Moses, Joshua and Ezra to the people of Israel to lead Nigeria out of the forty-years old woods.
As for detractors, I don’t even discuss them. Let them face God! Let them face America! Let them face European Union who could no longer afford to see Nigeria tumble again into tuareg or hottentot 29th Century administration.
God help our present political leaders remove these apparent curse from Nigeria’s head. “Ita Fiat”.
LATE DEACON BIODUN OPALEYE, DIED JUNE 3RD 2017 AT 75 YEARS OLD 

Opaleye is PRO, Nigerian Baptist Convention, Baptist Building, Oke Bola, Ibadan.

The article was first published in The Nigerian Tribune of Wednesday 19th April, 2000.

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