Nigeria ranks as one of the world’s richest countries in terms of mineral resources. That perhaps, explains why we can as a nation and people afford to spend billions of Naira on champagnes and wines. Billions of Naira is being spent annually on medical tourism and parties to the detriment of an ailing economy.
To the detriment of the poor masses, billions of Naira is spent on unnecessary foreign trips by our public officials. Only in a country like Nigeria would an elected senator brand a champagne bottle in his name while his people are eating from the waste bin—yuck…
Ask a government official in the ministry of sports the actual state of the Abuja Stadium, and he would paint a sad picture of how that gigantic edifice built with billions of Naira of tax payers’ money has gone down the drain. That stadium in its glory days was one of the best the world had ever seen. It seems to have gone the same way others have gone; which emphasises just how careless we are as a nation when it comes to keeping things new fresh.
The masses too are not left out of this problem that has eaten deep into the society. Every weekend, you see Nigerians trooping in into mega stores, buying stuffs they probably wouldn’t need. Millions of Naira is being spent daily on smartphones, jewelleries, clothes, and shoes that most of us can really do without. Priorities are being misplaced; all in the name of show-off. We want our next door neighbour to have a feeling that we are living large.
People die every day in our hospitals because doctors are either on strike or there are no drugs to treat them, while the rich and our so-called leaders are flying to Germany, Britain, India, and Spain for medical treatment. It beats my imagination why a politician would travel to a developed country just to treat headache or common cold. When are we going to learn how to plough our resources into other profitable ventures? When are we going to have functional and highly equipped hospitals?
Celebrities too are not left out; they troop out in droves to Dubai and London for their so-called weddings and birthday parties. Billions are spent on contracts that should otherwise have cost millions.
It’s a long walk to sanity…
