Former Education/Petroleum Minister, Professor Jubril Aminu
Professor Jubril Aminu, Nigeria’s former Education/Petroleum Minister, on loving and being patriotic about Nigeria:
Love for this country is just not there. People love their religion more than their country. I am from the North; people from the North are mad about the North but our leaders did not advise us to be as mad about our country. It is the same thing with the West and the East; their leaders did not advise them to be mad about Nigeria too. The people from the West love the West, but they were not thought to love their country, Nigeria. They were told to antagonise the federal government, because of the opposition stance. In my view, everything necessary should be done to get the people to love their country, Nigeria. Not in the fashion of what we see on the television every day, ‘We are Nigeria, we are one’….etc. Even children laugh at it. Invent real ways of making the people love Nigeria.
I remember this quote on patriotism from Mark Twain: “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” Continue reading…
Source: Vanguard newspapers
Splattered on the several mainstream media outlets are the reports on bombing attacks on electoral office and polling station in central and northwestern Nigeria. From the Oyinbo-land I live in Upper Midwestern U.S, one could easily be made to believe that the election in Nigeria on Saturday April 9 may not be any different from previous ones marred with widespread violence and electoral fraud. This may not be the case this year. It does appear the violence is limited to just few areas, and the election has been relatively free and fair. Continue reading…
Can any good come out from the information contained in the United States secret cables on Nigeria released and published by Wikileaks? Beyond ‘filling-in-the-gaps’ on some topical issues and confirming what many have suspected all along, does the Wikileaks revelation offer any thing more than the fact that Nigeria is hopelessly trapped in the quagmire of corruption? Continue reading…
Looking through the pictures below, I wonder what governance (the activity of governing) is if indicators such as simple and vital infrastructure like motorable roads are not available. Continue reading…
Let’s hope out of the Abuja tragedy, agony and mangled wrecks comes a renewed vigor to turn around the worsening conditions in Nigeria. Continue reading…
In the event of a failed elections in 2011, would Nigeria capitulate? This is the question analyzed on Foreign Affairs Magazine by John Campbell, the former U.S Ambassador to Nigeria.
While America has every reason to be concerned about 2011 elections, Nigerians need to be too. The last decade has brought some stability—even though shaky at best; the general prognosis looks better for the country overall. Advances made in states like Lagos, Ondo, Edo, Delta, Rivers, and Cross River has created a pacifying buffer of hope for democracy in the land. All this may be wiped away if the election goes bad in 2011. Continue reading…
Nigeria is a sick nation needing disruptive turnaround!
Kara meat markey in Lagos, Nigeria. Photo: Reuters
There are three clear-cut prognoses to any medical malady: It can either resolve; turn chronic, lingers and cripple the victim, figuratively; or the victim may just caput, and succumb to the illness.
That Nigeria is sick is stating the obvious, but as apparent as this may be, Nigerians keep getting smacked in the face, incessantly, by actions and developments that continue to buttress this fact. Here are some reference points in 2009: Continue reading…