WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2009-05-19 Time: 08:00:03 Posted By: Jan
By ‘Jibola Asolo
Lagos – The election of the United States of America’s 44th President was an inspirational moment for many people around the world for various reasons.
For Muslims in the Middle East, it was astounding that America, otherwise known as the ‘Great Satan’ in Iran, would elect a man whose middle name is Hussein. For Europe, where Obama enjoys approval ratings in the 80’s, the election of an ethnic minority with largely liberal inclinations was a strong signal of what could be, at some point, on their own soil.
For black people, it was simply a thing of pride: the election of a black man to the most powerful office on earth not only decisively shattered the malicious myth of black inferiority, it gave truth to the saying, “If you believe then you can achieve.”
African-Americans, in their millions, constituted the bedrock of Obama’s electoral coalition. Africans in Diaspora who were eligible to vote-Nigerians, Ghanaians, Somalis, etc-supported Obama’s candidacy too, chipping in small donations which formed a crucial component of the Obama juggernaut that defeated Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries and John McCain in the general election. Thus, it was only a matter of time before Obama touched base in Africa. He is after all, the son of a Kenyan.
Obama’s itinerary shows that on the 10th and 11th of July, he will be in Ghana; he is not scheduled to visit Nigeria. While this should alarm us, it should not surprise us. The reality is: on the world stage Nigeria is not ready to play ball. We, as a nation, are still stuck on stupid while other countries are buckling down and taking the issue of good governance seriously. This considered, the President of America would be hard-pressed to grace our land with his presence in light of the joke that is Project Nigeria.
For one, the Nigerian President, Umaru Yar’Adua, who himself ‘earned’ the office under questionable circumstances, recently declared the lingering fuel crisis in the country is the handiwork of a cartel operating in the nation’s oil sector. A simplistic analysis of the facts inevitably leads one to wonder how a nations blessed with crude oil can be afflicted with such a chronic inability to dispense the resource to her peoples.
A more sophisticated analysis of the circumstance will reveal that systemically, Nigeria is being squeezed at the middle by the evil grip of a treacherous cabal. There is a despicable collusion between government officials, fuel importers, distributors and marketers. The status quo is financially beneficial to these people, hence its existence and persistence.
Fundamentally, that we import the fuel we consume is a disgrace. That the country is practically brought to a state of paralysis because fuel importers have decided to sit on the sidelines unquestionably indicates that the present energy framework operative in Nigeria is a joke. And the joke is on us, we, the people.
To be taken seriously on the world stage, we have to take proactive steps to dramatically cut the poverty rate in the country and forcefully bring Nigeria into the 21st century. As the CIA World Factbook indicates, lack of infrastructure is the principal impediment to Nigeria’s development.
While political instability, corruption and poor macroeconomic management has taken its toll on the country, nothing perpetuates the notion that we are an unserious nation as much as the perennial ineffectiveness of government, the collapse of our educational system, the lack of usable roads and most of all, the lack of power.
At its basic examination, a people cannot drag themselves out of poverty by establishing small businesses (the foundation of Western economies which we emulate) if there is no electricity to power the most minute projects. It is a case of simple logic.
This logic remains either unseen or ignored by government officials for two reasons: one, the status quo is beneficial to them; two, across the spectrum of people that constitute the hierarchy of Nigeria’s government and political structure there is a caustic dearth of leadership. In part, this is what led the Nigerian President to point fingers at an invincible oil cabal while declaring that in addition to causing the Nigerian people great pain, it is responsible for “the greatest institutional corruption in the history of the nation”.
From another angle, in an age where political fortitude is tested at the sanctuary of the voting polls and the tools of war are ballot papers, Nigerian politicians view elections as do-or-die affairs. Conceptually, this is hardly peculiar to Nigeria.
One of the reasons Obama handily defeated McCain was because he was doggedly focused on winning the election. He beat McCain not by arming his foot-soldiers with machetes and cutlasses, but by arming them with the kits and tools to out-organise his opponents and knock on more doors. He calibrated his message to challenge peoples’ idealism and he laid out a clear agenda of what he wanted to do as President. Following such a well run campaign, it was hardly surprising that he won the election. By election night, his political superiority was beyond dispute.
Nigerian politicians, on the other hand, seek office simply to wet their tongues: it is a well established fact in Nigeria that political office is the quickest medium to untold wealth. Mr Maurice Iwu, as chairman of INEC, has not only presided over the most corrupt electoral monitoring operation in contemporary Nigerian politics, he has manifestly demonstrated the wisdom behind the idea of appointing only qualified people to sensitive jobs.
On the plains of Africa, after the poverty-riddled and war-torn regions like Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone respectively, no country is less prepared to transition into the 21st century than Nigeria.
Little things show we are still playing scrabble when other players have migrated to chess. For example, there is no discernable credit framework that can give people ownership of their financial destiny and our banking system remains one of the most primitive on earth. The regulatory regime upon which our financial system is built remains pitifully confusing and structurally inefficient while countries like South Africa, Egypt and Tunisia are sharpening their financial systems by incorporating concepts like e-commerce into the mechanics of their economies.
Statements like, “We are the giant of Africa” or “Nigeria is the greatest nation in Africa” not only serve as unwarranted and perplexing affirmations of national gratification, but they only underscore the myopic irony that afflicts us. How are we the giant of Africa when we cannot even conduct relatively free and fair elections? How are we the giant of Africa when corruption is the national pastime?
These sentiments beg justification in the light of how our leaders are hitting the gas harder as they drive the nation into perfidy. We should be a beacon of hope for poor Africans all over this continent; we should be a shinning city on the plateau of sub-Saharan Africa. We are a nation endowed with natural resources that Western nations will kill for-indeed, they have killed for, we are a nation of intellectuals: poets, lawyers, scientists and renowned economists.
That the first black American President is visiting Africa, and has no intention of making a stop-over in the world’s most populous black country should really serve as a moment of reflection for us as a nation. It should shame us as a people.
The visit to sub-Saharan Africa by President Obama and wife Michelle Obama will be symbolic in advancing the strategic role Ghana has grown to play on the world stage. It is a clear indication of strong democratic governance that thrives in the fibre of Ghanaian society. It is also a demonstration of the fundamental role that governments, non-governmental organisations and effective leadership has played in moulding Ghana as a success story on the African continent.
Nigeria, on the flip side, is still grappling with what the principles of good governance should mean in this time. It is not that we are, or should be, by some divine reason entitled to be recipients of Obama’s first official trip to Africa-it is difficult to see how this would benefit our project of nation-building, it is just that by virtue of the blessings that God has conferred on us, we should be at the forefront of these matters: it is as simple as that.
Indeed, as Emeka Chiakwelu, principal policy strategist at Afripol Organisation, points out while we are “endowed with natural and human capital that [if] intellectually and efficiently harassed [can] catapult [us] to stratospheric zeniths”, we are determined to “play a fool’s game with our destiny”.
So as Ghanaians bask in the Obama effect, it is of paramount importance that we, as Nigerians, learn the right lessons from this snub, and understand that “Yes, we can” should not be a slogan operational only on the plains of Iowa. We should incorporate it in Abuja as well.
‘Jibola Asolo, a Lawyer, lives in England.
Original Source: 
Original date published: 18 May 2009
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200905180085.html?viewall=1