New year Message to Nigerians (and others under kleptocracies)

by Eze Eluchie

As we approach the end of yet another calendar year, (in Nigeria) we are at that period when the religious organizations encourage their adherents to purchase all manners of stickers, which have been 'sanctified' and 'prayed over'. It is common to see cars and doors adorned with multicolored stickers announcing any or all of the following: '2013 - My year to achieve all achievables', 'My year to dominate all demons', ''I Claim It, 2013 is mine', '2013 - My year to .....'

The damning reality, proved by decades of misrule by our kleptocrats is: unless you join the thievery gang, 2013 will be far worse than 2012, just as 2012 was far worse than 2011, and 2011 was even far worse than 2010 and so on...

The economies of countries do not improve by miracles or mere wish or merely by pasting stickers on vehicles or door posts. It takes careful planning to achieve even the least progress. From all the plans and actions of the kleptocrats manning our political offices for now, 2013 will be a disaster of unmitigatable proportions.
From the clownish celebration of ‘inaugural’ trips of snail-speed antiquated rail tracks (whilst the rest of the world is moving on high speed rails), to Governors declaring month-long public holidays; From a President who whilst gleefully parading in uniforms of Field Marshall of the Army shamelessly confesses that it is not his duty to protect the population to Governors who spend upwards of 3 months away from the country without any reason being advanced; From Ministers who attribute power failure to 'evil forces' to Central bank Governors who advocate for a sack of 70% of Federal Civil Servants; From a president's wife who is an international embarrassment to the country and at the same time collecting salary as the highest paid civil servant in her home State to national Legislators whose individual salaries and emoluments are amounts the leaders of nuclear power/UN-veto wielding democracies can only fantasize about; From private jet owning men-of-satan parading as men-of-god who whilst fleecing their confused congregations with prophesies of prosperity that never materializes to millions of unemployed youths who are increasingly willing to do the unthinkable to get bye; It is crystal clear that our contraption has been kidnapped by the worst form of terrorists and that we should braze ourselves for a very turbulent 2013.

It will be in the hands of Nigerians to decide what and how 2013 will be. And we do have a choice.

We either continue to bear the brunt of the sufferings, digging more space into the walls as we get pushed deeper and deeper into the wall OR we loosen the chains and claim freedom.

Let’s make 2013 the year we will, in the immortal words of Todd Morgan Beamer, say to one another, "Are you guys ready? Okay, let's roll!"