SIR: To curb the excesses of our rulers, the people must not keep silent. The people must be committed to instilling lessons of financial responsibility upon our rulers. Two stories suffice. First, the canary in the mine. It is a proverbial warning of bad things or decisions – accumulation of more debts, for example, will do the nation more harm than good. Here is the story. Because canary has the ability to detect small concentration of gas, miners would explore new coal seams with a caged canary.
As long as the bird sings, the air supply was safe. A dead canary signalled an immediate evacuation. Here, a word is enough for the wise.
Nigeria is so rich; we don’t need more loans now. We are not bereft of ideas to find where the gold is embedded in Nigeria. It is somewhat surprising that our accountants who have the diggers and the shovels are not living up to expectation as they continue to be passive on this all important matter.
The second story goes thus: A very successful young business man loved to buy his mother exotic gifts for Mother’s Day. One year, he ran out of ideas, and then he ran across these birds. The birds were cool. They cost $5000 apiece. They could sing, they could dance, and they could talk. He was so excited, he bought two of them. Sent them to his mother and couldn’t wait to call her up on Mother’s Day. Mother, Mother what do you think of these birds? And she said “They were good”. He said “No, No, No”! Mother you didn’t eat those birds? Those birds cost $5000 apiece! They could dance, they could sing, they could talk! And she said, “Well, they should have said something”. That is where we also will end up too, if we don’t speak up when our rulers go haywire with our commonwealth.
Nigeria is on the threshold of economic wilderness. If we continue to borrow and spend the way we are used to, a journey of four days may become a 40 years journey. The people must forget their differences of opinions and unite to reject any decision to sell our future and put out future generation into debt slavery. We must concentrate on what to do to make real progress. First, we must restructure. Second, because we are faced with an education crisis more than an economic crisis, an educational reform to make our dysfunctional education system become functional will make a big difference in the lives of the people. When you educate the people, you liberate them.
- John. R. Jimoh, Molipa, Ijebu – Ode.
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