A Stupid, Sentimental Decision

Muhammadu Buhari is easily the most selfish President Nigeria has ever known.

Everything is about himself and his Fulani ethnic group.

Here he goes blasting away $1.96 billion in borrowed money to build a railroad to Maradi in Niger Republic.

As I write there is no railroad linking Lagos with Warri, Port Harcourt and Calabar all in Southern Nigeria.

There is none linking the heavily commercial cities of Aba with Onitsha, through Benin-City unto Lagos.

Yet here is your President dear Nigerians building a railroad for Niger Republic.

If he was building it up to Nigeria's side of the border while letting Niger Republic take care of their own side of the construction, it may have made a little bit more sense, even while there is no economic urgency informing the action apart from parochial, sentimental reasons.

After all that is how Britain and France shared the burden when they built the Channel Tunnel better known as Euro Tunnel.

But no.
Nigeria the poverty capital of the globe must build Buhari's ego- driven elephant project alone.

It is speculated that Buhari's father or grandfather comes from Niger Republic and only migrated fairly recently to Nigeria.

If this assertion is true, he is milking Nigerians and saddling them with debt to link Nigeria his newly acquired footstool with his ancestral home in Niger Republic.

The money involved is not cheap either.
We are talking of about =N=800 billion that Nigerians will have to pay for Buhari's sentimental project.

But that is just the start. By the time the project is completed its cost may have increased through variation to at least $2.5 billion or about =N=1 trillion.

You dear Nigerians will pay for every kobo of this outlay without any benefits.

How many Southerners or Middle-Belters will dare venture up north to work on this project without becoming hostages of Fulani bandit-terrorists?

You dear Nigerians will essentially be paying for the employment of thousands of citizens of the Republic of Niger for the work going on their side of the border.

At the same time your children and wards will continue to roam about jobless along the streets of Nigeria because they will be unable to participate in the project for fear of Fulani bandit-terrorists.

This is the true meaning of the pauperization of a people.

Meanwhile Buhari's expansionist brigade has the temerity to tell Nigerians to their face that there is no going back on his plan to nationalize your waterways and adjoining.

So while he is seizing your lands to resettle his Fulani kin, you Nigerians will also pay for the building of the railroad that will transport your enslavers from the Sahara desert to your homestead.

It is a win-win for expansionists and a monument to the stupidity of Nigerians if you sit by idly and let this happen.

Woe be unto any indigenous Nigerian Senator or Representative who votes either in the open or in camera for the enslavement of Nigerians.

Whether they are bribed, misled by political ambition, induced by promises of appointments or stampeded by threats and fear of EFCC arrest for past corrupt actions, I say woe be unto any indigenous Nigerian Senator or Representative who votes for Buhari's Water Bill.

The pauperization of Nigeria through frivolous projects such as the one under discussion is what you get when people elect nincompoops as political leaders.

May Nigerians never again witness or experience a President like this one.

Anthony Chuka Konwea, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE, MNSE, FNIStructE, MNICE.