True
341;
Tari Ogbowei Content Writer and cont... @ TwoCents
city Yenagoa, Nigeria
794
10149
131
27
In Politics 3 min read
MAY NIGERIA NEVER HAPPEN TO YOU.

May Nigeria never happen to you is such an underestimated prayer point. But somehow, Nigeria will definitely happen to you whether you like it or not, so long as you're a Nigerian living in Nigeria. Even for those who manage to escape the Nigerian borders, Nigeria still finds a way to happen to them thousands of kilometres away. Even with your money, it's difficult to escape Nigeria happening to you. The bad roads, traffic jams, lack of basic social amenities, disorderliness, insecurity will affect you irrespective. Imagine having the money to afford a Ferrari, but not having good enough roads to drive it on. Imagine being stupendously rich but loosing your life because there's no ambulance service or because the ambulance couldn't reach you in time. Nigeria happens to every one of us, one way or the other and shows us that we're equals, irrespective of social standing, religion or tribe. The recent flooding of majorly Southern states is a situation of Nigeria happening to us. The failure of the Nigerian government at all levels is pervasive and glaring. The flood is leaving death in its wake. A death toll of over 600 and rising has been recorded in just over 3 weeks. 2.5 million Nigerians have been displaced. Properties and livelihoods worth billions have been lost. An avoidable situation is claiming the lives of promising Nigerians and guess what. The governmment is supervising the murders of its people. How? You may ask. There was an agreement between the Cameroon government and it's Nigerian counterpart in 1977 when the Cameroon government began the building of its Lagdo dam in Northern Cameroon which was completed in 1982. The agreement was to build two (2) dams, one in Cameroon which is the Lagdo dam and the other in Nigeria. The Nigerian dam was supposed to be two and a half times the size of the Lagdo dam, such that when water is released from the Lagdo dam, the Nigerian dam would contain the release and gradually let it out to forestall the occurrence of the floods. To this end the Nigerian government agreed to build a dam named Dasin Hausa Dam to serve as a shock absorber. It's been forty (40) long years since the completion of the Lagdo dam, yet the Dasin Hausa Dam is yet to be completed. The inept Nigerian APC-led government through its Minister of Water resources, Suleiman Adamu has even come out to deny the existence of any such agreement. The Minister claims that the flooding is caused by incessant rainfall in some parts of the country. If the claims of the incessant rainfall being the cause, how come states like Yobe, Borno, Zamfara, Sokoto, etc with very low amounts of rainfall were affected? The same man who says there was no agreement still goes ahead to say that the Dasin Hausa Dam is at 90% completion. This should leave a big question mark. The government really believes it has dafts as citizens. Cameroon built a dam in 5 years, yet it has taken Nigeria who bears the brunt of the Lagdo dam release 40 years to get its counter dam to 90% completion. The same 40 years it took the Isrealites to get to the promised land is the same time it's taking us to get just one (1) dam to completion and it isn't even complete yet. This shows that for the past 40 years at least, successive Nigerian governments have not really cared and looked out for it's people the way a government is supposed to. They have rather played politics with issues germane to matters of humanitarian crisis. MAY NIGERIA NEVER HAPPEN TO YOU.


More insights from Tari Ogbowei


Insights for you.
What is TwoCents? ×