The humour merchant categorically stated in the letter that there’s nothing to celebrate, pointing out that, as long as corruption reigns supreme in every facet of our lives as a nation and as a people, there would never be any cause to celebrate.
I Go Dye paints a sordid picture of a country in distress and bemoans the plight of its people who have been deprived of a decent standard of living, while decrying the inability of government to come to their aid by allowing corruption to hold sway.
Read his letter in full
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I cannot disagree with the fact that corruption is the fundamental problem mitigating against the progress of my beloved country.
First, let me take us back to how the youths have been denied a means of livelihood because of corruption. Millions of graduates have been roaming our streets, some let go of their pride and started to ride Okada just for survival, while others forsake their professional expertise to go into other vocational ventures, yet they were provisions for employment but some group of persons have been using non existing names to defraud the nation, collecting salaries which is estimated to be over 2trillion Naira within this period, as ghost workers.
What have they done to us by this action? They have increased unemployment, made it almost impossible for the youths to get married at an early age, because we have millions of unemployed youths who should have been more productive but whose destiny to early progress have been short changed.
Today, we send our children to private schools because corruption has made it impossible to invest the funds approved for our public educational institutions. We find ourselves in long queues in the hospital without enough doctors, resulting in strikes occasioned by corruption and lack of administrative standard.
Today, we privatize our power sector, yet billions of dollars was paid to support them and they keep rationing the light, because the distribution companies have refused to expand their capacity to supply light to the end users because of corruption, apportioning the bulk of the light to the those that can pay for it while the rest of us keep hoping for a better day.
Corruption has made people to sell their birth right, support and sponsor violence against this country all in a bid to be awarded security contracts and continue their exploitative endeavours of milking the country. How would one imagine the voluntary negligence of the ex service chiefs’ facing corruption charges today. We cannot feel the pain of the families who have died in the cause of protecting this nation as soldiers or military officers. Corruption is the cause of IDP camps in Nigeria today.
I stand to be corrected but I am of the firm believe that a man expecting money from the state, who is provided with the basic social amenities of food, housing, clothing and health care support cannot rise up against the state, or become available to be used as militia herdsmen, Boko Haram, militant or other related anti social vices. Corruption created violence in Nigeria today.
As a people, most especially the youths, we should realise that national pride comes first, we should not wait to be reminded, before we use our greatness to rebuild this nation, otherwise what kind of country do we want to pass over to our children’children?
The time has come for us to ask what has been happening to our collective wealth, who, how and what did they do with the money? Obviously, today we cannot sleep with our eyes closed without nursing the fear of being kidnapped or robbed by someone, who the corrupt leaders have placed in a position of low self esteem and the fear of survival has created in him the notion that crime is the only available option to compete favourably in the midst of little or no opportunity .
Corruption is killing our mothers and young children on a daily basis, because the funds meant for healthcare and proper management of our hospitals have often been diverted by someone in authority.
Today, we still have the highest mortality rate of mother and child casualties because of corruption. It’s beyond religious and ethnic boundaries, it’s an epidemic that lives with us like our shadows. It affects you, that now pay for security protection, you, that travel abroad for check up, you, that send your children abroad for education, you that sleep every day in church praying that God should provide food for your household, you, that is in the university and your script will be missing just because you refuse to settle or ball with your lecturer, the list is endless. So why should we all not fight against corruption?
Millions of Nigerians have lost hope in our educational institutions for obvious reasons of corruption, where school fees are paid and privileges are later denied that the courses or university is not accredited to offer such certificate programs. My question is, at what point will all this stop, if we continue like this?
Let’s examine the current case of law graduates from the National Open University of Nigeria who have been denied access to Law School after spending millions to acquire the legal knowledge. The money spent is not returned, privileges are denied and their hopes have been destroyed.
Corruption has made it impossible for our pensioners not to receive their life time savings after serving their father land for 35years? This issue is beyond religious beliefs, it is the major problem against our spiritual lives in this country today,
We have to speak and build our national pride, we must take patriotism as a virtue that must come first, it is so important , without it no nation can be built.
The glories of the western countries where we send our children to school and have quality living for ourselves was built by the citizens of that nation, how long shall we continue to live like third class citizens in a foreign land?
Regardless of what we enjoy today as elites and successful people, our prosperity cannot be easily transferred to all our children, let’s work to build a country devoid of corruption, a place where children, youths and our mothers will not wallow in pain of starvation and poverty.
I employ and beg all Nigerians, irrespective of where you find yourself to join anyone fighting corruption, because it’s not a personal fight, it’s a just fight to build the future for the next generation and make the world better than how we met it.
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