By Anthony Daniel, National Coordinator, BYO
It is quite strange seeing Nigerians talk how useless Nigeria is, comparing us to other countries. Yet when we sneeze, you see them running around with handkerchiefs. We shut down our borders and Benin republic is about going into a recession. We have been told so many times how Ghana is doing better than we are yet the Ghanaian are pleading we open our borders.
Far away Vietnam had to send their vice president to beg to export rice to us. All we did was close land borders insisting everything comes through ports. Benin republic has been taking billions that should have been entering our coffers as import duty. Someone will tell you how pleasant it is in Egypt but what no one mentions is how their foreign exchange reserves fell from $36 billion in 2010 to only $16.3 billion in 2012 and that they have only recently started picking up. Many of these countries have been watching how with almost ‘nothing’ Nigeria has been able to steer through stormy waters, I guess that is why the Egyptians want Nigeria to mediate their ‘dam crisis’ with Ethiopia. We were told a huge lie how Rwanda signed a 1 trillion dollar nuclear deal with Russia. I almost choked laughing. I doubt Rwanda is worth that amount if put on Ebay for sale (no disrespect). It turns out all they had were talks, nothing concrete agreed.
Everyday unpatriotic Nigerians tweet to tell you how Rwanda is better than Nigeria what they don’t tell you is that except for Kigali, Butare and maybe one or two more cities, the rest aren’t bigger or better than Ibadan. Many joining in the silly comparison do not know that. Rwandas population is less than 13 million people while Nigeria is over 200 million people. Many do not know that Lagos alone is larger than all of Rwanda with its 18 million people. Rwanda has just 3 ethnic groups of Hutus who are the majority making 85% of their population,Tutsis 14% and Twa with just 1%.
Meanwhile Nigeria has over 300 ethnic groups. Which of these countries do you then think will be easier to rule? Paul Kagame the president of Rwanda took over power in 2000 immediately coming up with strong economic reforms including taking aggressive stand on corruption. In Nigeria once you touch anyone, our people quickly come on social media with hashtags to defend the corrupt. Kagame started ruling in 2000, in that time we have had Obasanjo/Atiku, Yaradua/Jonathan, Jonathan/Sambo and now Buhari/Osinbajo.
If we add up funds looted from Obasanjo regime till Jonathan’s (15 years), it is enough to make Nigeria one of the best if not the best country in all Africa but some dubious fellows want to forget those years of locust invasions and expect Nigeria to become ‘Eldorado’ in just four years. While Kagame took 15 years to bring small Rwanda to where it is today, Obasanjo, Atiku, Jonathan and gang took that same time to drag Nigeria into a cesspit of corruption.
Next time they try to compare Rwanda with Nigeria, point out to them how Kagame came in 2000 with reforms and clamping down on corrupt individuals while their godfathers ran us down within same years. Meanwhile take a look at some stuff that took us to Russia.
