alexzanda's o.p.i.

FARM OF SACRED COWS

 

With the least pleasure anyone can possess at times like this, I present to you my nation, home of sacred cows!

Abuja, my nation's capital city, just last week, survived the siege by petroleum product distributors who feel it is their right to hoodwink Nigeria to accept doing business on their terms. 

And my government playing "hero to the rescue" of its poor citizens set a table for negotiation so that these economic terrorists with swag can sit their sagging exposed dirty linen down and talk their way out of the criminal economic mess surrounding fuel subsidy.

 

 On account of how well my memory serves me, I do very much recall at a purported "national town hall meeting,” late last year,  where the minister of finance, our world bank expert, in the bid to preach the need for removal of fuel subsidy had the confidence of authority to tell agitated Nigerians that where names can be named to expose economic criminals responsible for the fraud in the oil industry that justice would take its due course.

 

 Names were named from which the drama titled "I took money and not bribe," became a popular soap for Nigerians to watch and read about.  The intrigue surrounding this drama was played out by the experienced main cast of Honourable Farouk of the National House of Assembly, Mr. Otedola of Conoil and of course the National House of Assembly members who were self-appointed custodians of the money that is not a bribe.  Some sacred cows while assuming the role of the police to question both sides about the bribery scandal, felt affronted that Mr. Otedola could afford to laugh at them.  And I was tempted to ask, what is wrong with one sacred cow laughing at another cow?

 

With the drama was the evidence that these names that were named could hold the nation to ransom.  As such, we must now have animal farm replicated as negotiations can take the place of prosecution.  No more should all these fraudsters face the law, but they should be categorized as those with "minor and major infractions" where the sacred cows of minor infractions have the chance to negotiate so that they can go on with, I dare say, “BUSINESS AS USUAL.”  And for the sacred cows of major infractions, do you think it is wise to wait for the mirage of a prosecution when that of the Halliburton scandal has not materialized!

I write to be proven wrong that these names of minor infractions would have a fraud sheet of nothing less than hundreds of millions of naira to their names.  But of course, it can be negotiated!   

So, while these sacred cows that ought to be graded as terrorist would enjoy “unlawful immunity," the office of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) would be barricaded by the military with authorization from the office of the minister for power under the guise that the staff of PHCN demanding for their rights should be seen as terrorists. 

 

My nation is nurturing a breed of cows that will do its farm no good.  Where hard working citizens can be denied justice because the culprits are society’s elite or because they package themselves as armed and dangerous, what stops the nation’s future to bear tidings of the increase of disgruntled society’s elite arming dangerously aggrieved citizens so that they too can be opportune to sit with Mr. President, sipping tea with cassava bread as they negotiate?    

 
Also among news gathered in the recent weeks is that certain containers loaded with arms were discovered at our ports.  Maybe as a result that someone did not settle well enough?  Can anyone vouch that some of these containers have not already discharged unto the streets? 

 The rich are getting greedier, the poor are getting more aggrieved and unauthorized arms are been shipped into my country.  Do I need to be a chemist to understand that these compounds are dangerous to mix?

 

NIGERIAN’S GOVERNMENT IS SHORT-CHANGING THE FUTURE FOR A FARM FULL OF SACRED COWS and they expect Nigerians not to have any “beef” about it!  PUN NOT INTENDED!