With the current state of Nigeria where almost everything in its surface is in turmoil and chaos, you would allude to the fact that there is a conspiracy in this country of ours.
This conspiracy is very rife to the point of almost exploding in our
eyes. I think our political elites have conspired and ganged up with themselves to consistently ensure that the poor masses remain in peasant penury. If you take a critical look at all the sectors of the country, there is the perpetual sabotage against the lower class for the status quo to continue. The poor in this part of the world are practically non-existent. I remember last year, when a bill for the Sum of twenty thousand naira was canvassed as monthly allowance for unemployed graduates to the National Assembly, the Senate President David Mark quickly discarded it without considering it merits. This was the same man when. as the Minister of Communication, said “Telephone was not for the poor.”Just last week at the National Conference, a motion was moved for the upward review of the Minimum wage from eighteen thousand to forty thousand naira, in like fashion, it was hurriedly jettisoned. What really do our political elites have against the down trodden amongst us? Did the poor asked to be poor? It’s a given that the poverty rate in the country cannot be divorced from the inept leadership we have been bedeviled with across board. Even the laws and policies are deliberately skewed in favor of the Elites among us and starkly against the majority of the populace. In the same vein, law abiding citizens amongst us get the shorter end of the stick. Or how on earth would one explain the juicy contracts distributed to Niger Delta Militants who held the country to ransom during the struggle in the Delta. Some were sent abroad for training with bogus monthly allowances. Tompolo and the likes were given contracts in Billions of Naira.
What then happens to the law abiding Nigerians amongst us? I mean those that did not bear arms? Criminals get rewarded all in the name of Amnesty and rehabilitation! What a bad precedent! According to Amnesty International, over fifty percent of Nigeria Prisoners are been detained without trial. Who are those in these prisons? They are definitely the underprivileged without resources to pursue their case. The so called Pro bono being bandit around by the Lagos state Government and Lawyers is not effective. The people are not even aware of the free legal services at their disposal. What do you have with the Elites and the Law? They simply manipulate the law in connivance with some unscrupulous lawyers. They either go scot-free, get light sentences and ask to pay fines, adopts the plea-bargain mechanism or drag the trial on as long as they want.
The former Governor of Edo state Lucky Igbinedion was asked to pay a fine of a meager three million naira after embezzling tones of billions. Furthermore, our President’s mentor Depreye Alamesiegha went scot-free with the plea-bargain instrument. Just last year, a Senior Civil servant paid over five hundred thousand naira through his breast pocket in the court premises after an Abuja High Court pronounced him guilty of impropriety. Today, we have former Governors who are practically protected for life with their perpetual injunction from arrest. But we all know the poor do not benefit from these privileges. We all know what happens to a poor man who still maggi. Don’t we? I really hope the Elites nay the leaders would listen to Mother Theresa when she asserted “Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat” The value of a country is known, with the way it treat its people especially those at the lower rung of the ladder. I rest my case!
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