Rodents In The Vault By Olusola Ajiboye

Rodents In The Vault By Olusola Ajiboye

Nigeria is a limitless pit of gold, which gets replenished each time it is mined. A plethora of riches that times, nature and men cannot exhaust.

Nigeria bears a larger than life opulence with resources other than gold, tucked in the belly of her soil. Crude oil, Liquefied Natural Gas, Tin, Coal, Bauxite, in trillions of cubic meters, showcase God’s blessings deposited in Nigeria.

The country’s huge population is not a symbolic feature of her greatness but an underutilized source of power and domination. The 200million inhabitants of her nine hundred and ten thousand, seven hundred and seventy (910,770) square kilometers are such weapons which can stamp the country’s authority beyond her territorial borders.

Her aquatic splendor, rich coastline, bountiful flora and fauna, water resources among sundry free-gifts of nature are what other countries earnestly yearn for at any price. Nigeria is blessed perhaps, beyond measure, but her citizens are perpetually poor.

Can there be a correlation between these two extreme stretches?
Poverty and riches are two opposites sides of a coin. In saner climes these two sides don’t co-habit and don’t meet. In our clime they do. Extreme riches and extreme poverty walk side by side.
The bizarre situation is fueled by a governance system that is appalling low in standard, quality and probity.

Corruption in top echelons of government makes Nigerians swim in oceans of riches but draped in muds of poverty.

Nigeria and corruption have a long history from the First, Second and Third Republics. It is an unbroken chain of graft, misappropriation and theft of public funds and assets. The rouge-kleptomaniacs in the Buhari presidency have however shot corruption to a level that makes the saga of Robin-Hood and Jugunu, two notorious outlaws in the American and Indian movies, a surreal representation of a simple dream.

The Buhari presidency is an unabashed narrative of a government perpetually breaking its own laws. Anti-graft agencies have been reduced to diming shadows of inaction, criminal conspiracy, lack of coordination and incompetence to either plead its case or execute its judgement.

Can readers take a cursory look at top government and political office holders indicted for series of financial improprieties against the state since President Muhammadu Buhari assumed power in 2015? Ibrahim Magu,

Olusola Ajiboye, a veteran journalist writes from Osogbo, Osun State Nigeria.