by Adewale Sobowale
To begin with, I wanted to state that I don’t share some of Kemi Badenoch’s views. Kemi happens to be the leader of the UK’s Conservative Party, and she is effectively in line to be Prime Minister.
I find it ridiculous for any informed person to say that slavery didn’t fuel the rise of British capitalism. I also find it challenging to come to terms with her belief that Britain and other colonizers shouldn’t pay reparations nor apologize for their roles in slavery.
In any case, regarding reparations, I’m somewhat at a loss on who to pay to… the thieving governments?
However, I fully agree with her on most of her present travails concerning the Nigeria of her youth.
Kemi was born in 1980 in the UK, grew up in Nigeria, and left for the UK at the age of 16. That means she left Nigeria in 1996 when the infamous goggled Abacha was in power.
A lot of horrific things happened before then, and Abacha’s reign witnessed more dastardly killings than ever before. Meanwhile, a president whose election was annulled was in the Gulag.
Before Abacha, the self-styled evil genius had devalued the local currency, which in effect rendered the middle-class Kemi’s parents sink into relative poverty.
In her own words, “Being middle class in Nigeria still meant having no running water or electricity, sometimes taking your own chair to school.” She also claimed her family went through periods of “poverty” due to inflation. Hardly was any public service working, including the police.
You had to know someone who had some influence somewhere to get things to work in your favour.
Some weeks ago, the famous Afrobeats musician also castigated the Nigerian system in an interview.
So, what was Fela Kuti singing and preaching about?
Now, for those Nigerians who are not potential PTSD patients after being starved of what is expected in the developed world, | say kudos.
By the way, PTSD is an acronym for post-traumatic stress disorder, which develops in some people who have experienced a shocking, scary, or dangerous event.
The fact is that most of us Nigerians are living in denial. We are struggling to accept overwhelming or stressful things, like malfunctioning basic things, non-performance of the police, and the military beating some of us, which thankfully has reduced considerably. We have this “never-say-die” attitude to life.
Those in the corridors of power are not doing us (the people) any good. That’s because as soon as they get into the corridors of power, rather than pointing out what we lack, they tell their masters what they want to hear.
Some states even pay more than the 70-thousand-naira minimum wage, which shows that the governors know the amount is nothing to write home about.
I think the vice president made a mistake in trading words with Mrs Badenoch. Who is he to ask her to change her name from Kemi? Did he give her that name? I believe he would be better off looking for solutions to improve Nigeria.
According to Mr VP, Nigeria is the greatest nation on earth. I beg to disagree, sir. How can a nation that can not feed its populace be the greatest? How can a nation that can not defend its citizens be described as the greatest? One can go on and on!
One of the ways is the building of institutions and not personalities.
Another idea always comes to mind is feeding the people by setting up agricultural estates, fixing the roads
from the farms to the cities and setting up systems of preservation for farm produce.
This article does not mean life in Britain is an El Dorado, nor is it in every other country. However, given Nigeria’s potential, I believe the nation can become a heaven on earth if we develop our potential!
