I felt pity for Nigerians as I read Dele Momodu's latest article. Below is a brief excerpt:
ABUJA ON MY MIND:
Fellow Nigerians, I made my first trip to Abuja in nearly two years yesterday morning. Let me confess that Abuja is not one of my favourite cities. The reasons are legion. I find the city too disorganised for a federal capital territory that was built from scratch less than four decades ago.
For me, Abuja is a poor imitation and a tragic mimicry of Canberra in Australia, where I’m told the original idea, concept and inspiration came from. It lacks the superlative infrastructure of Brasilia in Brazil, another purpose built capital city...
...My depression was further compounded on returning to the hotel and reading how the great country of Saudi Arabia has finally decided to challenge the effrontery of Dubai in the Middle East by erecting the new world’s tallest building in Jeddah. By the time it is ready, it would have pushed Dubai’s Burj Khalifa to a pitiable second place. The builders of The Shard Skyscraper of London, according to a Reuters’ report on Yahoo news, have been appointed Project Managers for a beautiful sum of $1.2billion (about N192billion). The Kingdom Tower Skyscraper is expected to stand at over one kilometre tall in the skyline of Jeddah.
Saudi Arabia is generally on a spending spree to improve infrastructure as well as meet its housing commitments. Now wait for this, the skyscraper will take just five years to accomplish complete with boutique hotel, luxury condominiums and serviced apartments. I was left with no choice than to wonder where our own leaders descended from that they can’t have such tall ambitions.
Saudi Arabia is generally on a spending spree to improve infrastructure as well as meet its housing commitments. Now wait for this, the skyscraper will take just five years to accomplish complete with boutique hotel, luxury condominiums and serviced apartments. I was left with no choice than to wonder where our own leaders descended from that they can’t have such tall ambitions.
Why have they limited us to commissioning boreholes?
How can we think of rehabilitating Abuja prostitutes with billions of Naira when we can use the same money to tackle the root causes? How can a new Abuja Gate become our priority when our children are crying for mercy and compassion? What about the laughable edifice that we now learn is meant to be the pied-à-terre of visiting African First Ladies long after our indefatigable First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, has gone into glorious oblivion?
We build our skyscrapers in the tummies of some politicians and their acolytes. We have not been able to construct a stretch of road between Lagos and Benin City in the last 14 years. We have failed to fully rehabilitate the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway within the same period. I doubt if any road in Nigeria can ever pass a rigorous test against international standards. We keep spending billions on our airports with no substantial results. What we wasted on fuel subsidy alone last year would have built six tallest buildings or more in the most famous capitals of the world. But we chose to fritter ours away.
My submission is that we can do better. And it won’t take much to achieve.
We build our skyscrapers in the tummies of some politicians and their acolytes. We have not been able to construct a stretch of road between Lagos and Benin City in the last 14 years. We have failed to fully rehabilitate the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway within the same period. I doubt if any road in Nigeria can ever pass a rigorous test against international standards. We keep spending billions on our airports with no substantial results. What we wasted on fuel subsidy alone last year would have built six tallest buildings or more in the most famous capitals of the world. But we chose to fritter ours away.
My submission is that we can do better. And it won’t take much to achieve.
Our leaders at the very top only need to make up their minds if they are in power to improve the fortunes of their people or to scavenge and embark on outrageous self aggrandisement at the expense of those luckless citizens of this great country called Nigeria. Our leaders must choose between creating sustainable, worthwhile structures that will lead to the greater emancipation of our people rather than embarking on white elephant projects which eventually become our albatross. Ultimately our leaders have to decide whether they want Nigeria to grow or whether they simply want to wreck it like many others before them. That decision is very crucial to the citizenry no matter how difficult it may seem for our present crop of titular leaders.
Their choice is the thin line between success and failure of the Nigerian nation.
Their choice is the thin line between success and failure of the Nigerian nation.
