What native foreigners want
On this year’s political calendar, February remains the most essential month. The month in which the two septuagenarian contenders to the presidency get to know who runs our nation for the next four years. Of the 84.27 million registered voters that would determine the outcome of this year’s election, none of them lives outside the nation’s shores. Except of course, the curious provision for internally displaced persons by the powers that be. It is said that there are an estimated 17 million of us living outside the country according to a report quoting Saadiya Umar Farouq. Farouq heads the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, NCFRMI.
The Naija abroad were responsible for the remittance of $22 billion in a 2017 World Bank report. That report projected a four per cent increase for 2018. It is evident that while citizens enjoy the best of their new homes they hardly forget their fatherland or the rot that they left behind.
Mainstream media headlines have not changed the narrative of our continent as a jungle or our part in it. It is pretty concerning. However, the social media timelines of homebased political activists confuses one as to where the nation is heading. Overseas residents are not insulated from the daily realities of the families they left behind even as only the boldest dare the seasonal return.
So, why should those enjoying the ‘paradise’ of Euro-America bother about politics at home? There are several answers. For one, there is no place they feel totally at home like Naija. It is the only country where naturally you could let your guards down in your jalabiya without being asked why you’re roaming about in your nightgown. This is where you could eat with your fingers without bothering who is watching you with scorn or pity. This is where the bornto-rule have the same skin texture as yours, a factor that makes his crime a little bearable. Therefore, if Naija works half as well as the land of their sojourn, most would be packing their bags and heading home with a quarter of what they’re worth without looking back.
But how do you survive when your country of 200 million has only 12,000 megawatts of electricity capacity with only 4 to 5,000 mw available for distribution and use? The Canadian province of Ontario with its 15 million population generated over 160 TWh of electricity in 2017. It is difficult to explain to children born here that you could meet their electricity needs and secure them in a country where 70% have no access to electricity but yet has leaders and is going through elections.
Last year, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB generated a whopping N8.5 billion from the sale of forms. Less than ten applicants out of 100 gain admission even when they are qualified. Our citizens clap at this moneymaking venture unaware that no Canadian or American public institution charges a dime as admission fee! There is no admission form as all admissions are processed centrally and electronically thereby eliminating the so-called catchment area and the incredible corruption that dumps the qualified and qualifies the unmerited.
The distance between the Canadian capital, Ottawa and Mexico City, is over 4,000 kilometers. This road is accessible 24/7 with no further checkpoints except intranational border posts. Canada’s 9.985 million square kilometer land mass could swallow our 923,000 square kilometers several times yet there are no internal police check-points within this border with the exception of emergency services, road patrols for over speeding, sundry road violations and emergency road assistance. It is hard to travel the 188 kilometres between Kaduna and Abuja without fear of being kidnapped or killed in spite of the myriads of checkpoints manned by armed mendicants.
Early this year, China landed on the unexplored side of the moon, but in our country, young ritualists are either stealing their girlfriend’s underwear or raiding posh restaurants, female hostels and markets at gunpoint for underwear they believe would make them rich. At 16, most Euro-American kids have landed their first menial jobs and started the course that would see them retire with full benefits at 50. We live in a country where government prides itself on paying pensions and gratuities of its retirees as an achievement.
Stockholm Syndrome has made it difficult to explain that the rail cars being touted as achievements have been decommissioned from other countries like the tokunbo cars that are now the status symbol of the vanishing middle class. I am still waiting to see a G-wagon in any of the Canadian cities I’ve so far visited. Most silent millionaires here hardly own cars - they move about in public transport.
Dear citizens, we are all proud of our country. Most of us have only one in spite of our seemingly long sojourn, but it is shameful to see people fighting over the people responsible for their perennial plight and taking sides with those responsible for running our nation aground.
Next time you ask those native foreigners to shut up, just think that whatever passport they now hold makes them no better than you. They just need a good home they could be proud of, one that they could always joyfully pick a ticket and return to.