By Kayode Emola
With each passing generation, material wealth is transferred to the next, and on like that for many millennia. However, with all the material wealth handed down from many generations, this present generation has not fared better as the majority of us still live in abject poverty. Someone may not be wrong to suggest that what was truly passed down to the majority of us is debt.
We have heard stories of how our ancestors bequeathed to their heirs and successors large parcels of land in order to farm, grow crops and keep their families growing. It was a simple life they lived, yet happy with their humble upbringing even till their old age. In our modern sophisticated world today, we cannot boast of the quality of life they enjoyed, where nature dictates the events of the day and not politicians.
Whilst there are still very wealthy people in our present generation, the sad reality is that the vast majority of this generation lives in abject poverty. The type of poverty that cannot be cured by merely dishing out information without real means of achieving success.
For many people around the globe, despite the huge debt burden on their national budget, vast sums of money end up in the hands of government officials. The officials do not care that someone’s child may not be able to feed because of failure to provide an adequate road network to transport food and live stocks from the farms. They are equally not bothered if a child drops out of school because their parents can’t afford their school fees.
As much as this phenomenon happens in every country and with each individual country striving so hard to bridge the gap that exists between the wealthy and those trapped in poverty. Nigeria feels like the exception. It feels as if Nigerian politicians are a breed one could liken to the progeny of vipers. They give beautiful speeches on how they will bring heaven to earth during an election campaign, only to unleash hell on the little heaven the poor people are managing.
Despite the high poverty level in the country, one can only imagine the amount of funds the government officials allocate to themselves on a monthly basis from wardrobe allowance to hardship funds etc. No wonder politics is a do-or-die affair in Nigeria with many of the politicians soliciting the services of jobless youths in the society to do their bidding in order to win elections.
If Nigeria would be great, it has to be a deliberate attempt by everyone to be fully committed to the project as no divided nation can ever prosper. However, as the major nationalities in Nigeria cannot agree to work together, it is better for the country to be dissolved and for each of the nationalities to go their separate ways.
This is the reason why we encourage our people to make up their minds to disengage from Nigeria. With a Yoruba population of nearly or over 70 million people, I believe that Yoruba would be one of the most powerful nations in the world if we get our act together. We would be able to bring innovations that will benefit the whole of mankind and not just our people alone.
Indeed, we must realise that the reason why many parents can no longer afford to give their children inheritance these days is not that they don’t want to. It is because many people have been made to believe in a system where the odds are stacked against them. Nigeria was never built to succeed, therefore any Yoruba person still waiting for the greatness of Nigeria, may as well be waiting for eternity.
The world as we know it now is definitely heading in the wrong direction but trying to locate the right road and follow it might be near impossible. Few nations could try and build material prosperity for their people just like China did in the last 30 years and a few other countries like Rwanda are trying to do for the foreseeable future.
It is evident that we Yoruba are not thinking of the future of this present generation let alone the future generations. We’ve been conditioned by the world’s negative instruments of suppression perfected by the wicked Nigerian leaders to keep the vast majority of our people impoverished. We need to rise up today to break that invisible bondage placed in our minds and in our hearts.
A lot of us see America as that great country capable of doing the impossible but even America has the world’s greatest debt burden with no plans of paying it off. America is offloading that debt burden onto the world in terms of inflation and we all just need to suck it up except something tragic happens.
Obviously, any shake-up of the world’s system as we know it today will cause a great catastrophe for everyone greater than the worst depression mankind has ever known. However, to believe that this will not happen at some point will mean that we are definitely not prepared for what is about to come in the near future. With America’s debt becoming unsustainable and global trade shifting away from America to China, it is only a matter of time before this seismic shift happens.
For my Yoruba brothers and sisters, there is only one way out of all this mess, and that is to get our own independent Yoruba country where we can control our destiny. Singapore was thrown out of Malaysia and they went out to make a success of it. We have several mineral resources and above all a good human resource capital that we can rely on to build a great country, greater than any of the top ten richest countries of the world.
It is only when we are able to build a good environment that we can be able to get the majority of our people to pass something down to the next generations. My hope and prayer are that our people will see the need for change in the Nigerian structure and quickly do all we can to save our Yoruba nation and people from an impending world catastrophe. No one knows when it will be, but will surely happen and the best thing to do is to build the house whilst there is still sunshine.
