Throwing Fire Cocktails To Burn Down Family House
There was an old song by Kenny Tone basically singing that it is the people that are bad not the world they live in. Anyone that claims they are confounded by the lack of development in Africa must be fooling himself if he cannot point to man-made disasters by Africans. Crimes by people, who called themselves Africans against Africa, can never be tolerated in any continent. In this day and age, they will either be shot by firing squads or be banished into dungeon forever.
We know the punishment for anyone that throws monkey wrench into the smooth running of a machine, company or economy. Every industrial revolution that has taken place in this world, has been fueled by oil. Those that have oil, some oil or none; paid the price at considerable cost to get oil. They went to war to secure oil, sacrificed lives for oil and were also willing to sing and dance, despite their might, with world’s incompatible dictators as long as oil flowed to them.
God in his mercy saw this and decided it is time for Africa to rise. He created abundant oil in a few countries and bless them with human resources to manage it. God actually appointed and looked to Nigeria as a place worthy of delivering Africa. Even the world saw Nigeria as the next regional power judging by the caliber of its leaders: gifted young and driven for progress.
However, Nigerians turned chicanery, crimes against itself and high treason by court orders to due process, democracy and worst of all: fake oil scarcity into subsidy for the poor. They know Nigerians want some advantages for the oil produced in their backyard. So developed a racket that deluded the people by paying one another what they defined as oil subsidies. Intentionally sabotage production and when caught red-handed on video taking kickbacks, never prosecuted.
Who could ever predict that great leaders would produce vagabonds willing to thrown Molotov cocktails persistently into a major producer of tin (aluminum), columbite (iron) and coal? They would rather let everything burn as long as they sell our future for a mess of potage only to be wasted in foreign lands as Africa burns. They think God provided oil as manna from heaven so they can scrabble for their national cake and vamoose with their families far away from home.
While oil became the black gold, Nigeria replaced Saudi Arabia and other countries as USA main supplier of oil during the Embargo of the seventies. Though Nigeria can’t account for its oil, we must give credit to some that built refineries across strategic locations in the Country to save, conserve foreign reserve and planned local consumption for industrial take off. As Nigeria was accruing foreign income from crude, the stage was set for more cash from refined oil products.
True, along the way, we lost big on porous Ajaokuta Steel Industry that almost became obsolete before it saw deficit production. A blue print by brilliant scholars for local production of auto industry never went beyond prototype: discouraged by imports. Fortunately food production was so good at a point, Nigeria was exporting food to West Africa. Getting drunk on oil, led to most of our troubles. We even gambled on war before oil became our main foreign income.
Nevertheless, crude oil was flowing and refineries were built. There are very few countries that have oil flowing and refineries working that have not made economic progress: except Nigeria. We had forgone our booming agricultural sector, coal in the East, cocoa in the West, groundnut in the North. Ajaokuta Steel became economic drain while we got addicted to foreign products. Any foreign good became our obsession that exploded into bloated market stifling our progress.
We used to blame others and cry over the injustice done to Africa. But we were not prepared for greater evils within us. We got hooked on tailored preferences of new or used foreign goods. Draining our foreign reserves. Foreign tastes created a market that Nigerians in particular and Africans in general have yet to recover from. It is no more the injustice of colonialists; it is our unsustainable demands for theirs that undermined and drove down our currencies and markets.
In spite of these, we could have prevailed but for those willing to burn not only Nigeria but also denied Africa of potential leadership role. We had oil at the right time with the highest price ever and we also had refineries that could satisfy, not only local production but also enough for export to other countries. In order to realize this blessing, we were required to be judicious and prudent in connecting the dots to get rolling in accomplishing the land of milk and honey.
However, vagabonds of Africa did everything unimaginable: threw monkey wrench into these refineries to sabotaged oil production. Since oil started flowing in Nigeria, we do not know how much, we neither move towards full production nor have refineries been able to work close to full capacity. Instead of looking at oil producing villages as modern cities in Africa, they became swamp of environmental disaster. Instead of jobs, we saw idleness in the land of the blessed.
Saboteurs make sure refineries never work so imported generators could flourish. We exported crude oil needed for our refineries. We imported only half of it back refined, at gold price. Oh, other half is bought in different transactions at diamond price as lubricants, residuals, heavy oil, tar and coke. They buy raw from us, we buy refined oil from them in international markets.
We turned against one another, not those that fail to produce our food, neglect our coalmine, that also sabotage the only product that every country sought for industrialization. They started producing and encouraging what no country would tolerate as saboteurs, religious fanatics and terrorists in the name of due process, democracy and dictatorship. Every country that has been visited by these leeches has always found ways to deal and help them get to the door of hell.
If they want to see Allah, Jesus or Jehovah, every country has always found ways to speedily grant them their wishes. And the poor? Too busy arguing on non-existing diversionary subsidies.