CREED OF THE FILTHY RICH COSTS WORKERS JOB

Preach, preach to us brothers and sisters. Presidential candidates promise to clean up of corruption in 6 months and both Houses of Thieves protest vehemently against Central Bank Gov. Sanusi, Finance Minister Aganga, Prof. Ise Sagay and Baba Iyabo himself (alias Ali Baba) that called their allowances and salaries legalized daylight robbery! While still protesting like saints; they slipped in N6.1 billion for SIM card registration into budget surreptitiously. A service that is being provided by telecom companies already. Yoruba say, “won npe e lole, o gbe omo eran jo” Looting everyday, I don tire o o O!

All administrators from locals to Federal level legalized payment of about 70 percent to themselves to mismanage the Country; with the 30 percent left for workers’ salary and building infrastructures. We all have basic needs that must be satisfied. So our drive for food, sex and shelter is a natural pursuit of this animal called man. When drive goes from passion to obsession seeking more than what will satisfy us, it becomes a disease. Too much food leads to obesity, too much sex drive leads to all types of abuses and we can drink ourselves to stupor. No matter the size of our shelter, we can only sleep in one room at a time. There is nothing wrong with the pursuit of happiness or hedonism as long as it is not at the expense of your fellow being.

The 25 percent on the jumbo pay and allowances of politicians pointed out by Gov. of Central Bank Sanusi is only at the Federal level. The denials of the House Speaker Bankole with the Senate spokesman Senator Eze raved up the anger of most people on the main street. Finally, the lopsided distribution of income is taken seriously. This Speaker would like to transfer the blame of waste and corruption to permanent civil servants that usually get promoted to politicians. Oh no, not the temporary politicians that make sure they loot far more than a lifetime before leaving.

Our politicians’ ways of creating jobs for the masses are through estacode travel overseas and telling us it is a worthy investment compared to the number of businesses brought into the Country. As they parrot one another from the military to civilian reigns, one would think Nigeria must be flowing with foreign investments and businesses when in fact we are losing long term businesses that find it hard to sustain operations for lack of infrastructure taken for granted in other countries. Yet these Agaracha must come back with the same excuses to the same land they have depleted of income and preach.

These politicians turned employers and oppressors are bloodsuckers dancing on the hungry bellies of their victims. The global world of workers has not benefited poor workers in the developing countries because their lower wages have only resulted in higher profit for their employers which they refuse to invest in jobs or salary increase. Indeed, they always demand from government higher concessions like free land, tax exceptions or so called “tax free” locations, free labor of Youth Corps interns to the detriment of infrastructure, education and higher cost of food and shelter.

Nigerians are not lazy. We work from our adolescents to the time of waiting on lines for pensions until in our graves. Before Ghanaians came to Nigeria in droves looking for jobs, we were in every country working, including those in East Africa and Ghana. We were businessmen, lawyers, doctors and accountants in those days compared to what a few of us do these days to embarrass others in and out of the Continent. Easy oil money dried our fortitude to sweat. Yet Africans, majority of whom are Nigerians do anything to get a job including crossing the deserts to feed our families at home.

The explosion of coal mines in China and miracle survival of coal miners in Chile remind us of our coal mine in Enugu wondering when it is going to be made profitable and safe again in spite of all the risks involved. It has sustained us for many years but managers’ lack of planning, local technology with the right investment have turned us into idle workers looking for anything we can to sustain body and soul. We have the resources that can employ us if exploited to our benefit. Unfortunately our planners have turned us into perpetual raw materials diggers for the benefit of their overseas partners.

With all our universities, politicians could only get farmers from Zimbabwe to grow our own food in Kwara; and like others using local workers for less paying jobs. That is the reason we are willing to dig for gold and other minerals in Zamfara and scavenge dumps in big cities while workers and their families get lead poisoned by hundreds. There is no more we can do to sustain body and soul. Environmental disaster in the Gulf coast of US reminds us at home of the plight of fishermen in the Delta that have lost their means of livelihood. Their children have become idle and taken to the street doing even more damage to their environment by breaking and spilling oil from pipelines.

If the filthy rich keep on demanding and getting a bigger share of the national cake with protest when exposed: like asking El Rufai for bribe to confirm, no restrain, no salary cut or no bite of conscience; there is little left for the middle and the working classes. When workers increase their productivity and make more money for their employers, those in pursuit of greed wait to see how much more they can squeeze out of their workers. Sometimes without pay, workers still go to work to maintain the dignity of labor and pride of having a place to go. In the same vein, workers are laid off when there is no need to, as long as they can get away with higher profit.

In order to justify their recklessness, our politician/businessmen point to America where Obama bailed out the big businesses and banks. They never learned that our businesses and banks are sinkholes that have never recovered but got sicker after government intervention, and then lay off workers. Indeed, we kill local plants with bribes on smuggled luxuries. The main reasons are returns from foreign car contracts and products.

They also point to Ireland where their European Union bailed out banks with tax payers’ money while taxing the middle class and cutting benefit for the poor. As the rich people gambled with these banks and lost their bets asking governments to bail them out, poor people are now paying with austerity measures imposed on them so that the rich can recover, promising to create jobs. We have seen the greed not only in Nigeria but in western world as if we have infrastructure to attract their promised jobs.

Create jobs at home by encouraging local ingenuity not that “monkey see monkey do”.