A
LETTER TO THE BRITISH HIGH COMMISSIONER, ABUJA
Dear
High Commissioner Gozney:
On behalf of a very few farsighted and
patriotic Nigerians, I want to express profound
gratitude to you over your recent policy banning
Nigerians between the ages of 18-30, especially first
time applicants, from applying for visas to the United
Kingdom. I appreciate the decision, which must have
been a product of years of unbearable agony.
The
agony of your staff to have to deal with 20,000
anxious Nigerians at your Consulate both in Lagos and
Abuja on daily basis is understood. Understandably,
these folks are looking for an escape outlet as a
result of profound ineptitude and suffocating policies
of uncaring rulers at all levels of governance in my
country. It is equally a pity that the overwhelming
number of applicants harassed and caused your staff at
the visa section to be overworked and stressed to the
hilt. There is also the issue of environmental
nuisance constituted by the long queues of dogged visa
seekers who most often sleep overnight on the queues
and defecate around the premises in the dark of the
night. I discern your throes and that of your staff.
After
your forefathers had gone through pains to make your
country what it is today, you and your fellow citizens
should not be put in a position of going through any
stress in the process of allowing the citizens of
other countries into your country. It is your country,
and you have every right to ban all Nigerians,
including the globe-trotting president, who are
fleeing from their problems into the settled
environment that your ancestors struggled and died
for. Further, you do not deserve to be harassed by
kleptomanias and dim-witted chattels that occupy
various ruling positions in Nigeria. No, you don't
deserve it.
The
opponents of your decision, the rigged-in members of
Nigerian National Assembly and the colonial mentality
Nigerians appointed as Ministers in various
ministries, threatened to retaliate by banning Britons
of the same age from coming to Nigeria. They are
making a caricature of themselves because you and I
know the perception of your people of that age about
the entire black Africa. They do not sleep at the
Nigerian Embassy and many of them don't even know
about the existence of the country. They have been
orientated to love their country that gives them
virtually everything they need, even if their leaders
ill-took some of those things from the slaves they
imposed as rulers of African countries.
You
and I also know that many of your people who visit
Nigeria don't even go to the Nigerian Embassy for
visas. They are multinationals who fly directly
without passport and visas to where our oil flows in
pursuit of the interest of their nation and with the
collusion of the vagabonds in power in my country. So,
what the heck are these "representa-thieves"
talking about? It is pertinent to mention that their
reaction is not on or in behalf of the children of the
poor. They spoke because of their children. If not,
your policy should have presented a challenge for them
to improve the welfare of their own people. But no,
that is not their purpose in government. Many of them
are in power not to cater for the masses of Nigeria,
but to have opportunities to send and settle their
families abroad. This explains why they would always
be your thralls at all cost regardless of treatments
meted out to them. If not, how could a sensible person
explain why the members of the Nigerian National
Assembly had to wear badges in their own house when
former President Bill Clinton was begged to address
them when he visited Nigeria? Their own president, who
is always the happiest each time he stands with his
Masters in Europe and America, is never considered fit
to address Congress of the United States or House of
Commons in your country. I am so sorry High
Commissioner, but you and your staff are reaping what
your forefathers sowed in Nigeria. See, when they were
turning the brains of the darker people of the world
upside down, they lost sight of the indirect impact it
would have on their citizens in the future. This is
now the future, and you must brace up for it. I
believe, you should be reminded of some of the deeds
of those before you, which brought about the
harassment and agony of your staff.
What
you are harvesting today is the fruit of the
conspiracy sown inside the Church by the colonial
masters who dressed the best of us, enticed them with
money and sold to them the milk-toast Jesus that
tolerates nonsense. Your progenitors brainwashed their
servants and named them Reverends with the mentality
such as, "thou shall obey authority", no
matter how devilish such an authority is, and "if
you are slapped on the right cheek, you turn your left
cheek". Your ancestors watched their servants,
who they want us to revere, preach in Churches to see
how political half-wits are being multiplied. Now your
staff has to deal with the fruits of the seeds your
forefathers sowed. They even told our Reverends not to
get involved in politics, and that Church is not a
place to discuss political affairs. Those of us who
have been opportune to live in your country have
determined that they were taught what you do not
practice. The real Jesus took care of business in
Israel. He fought against governments and just like
your agents in the continent of Africa arrest and
murder oppositions today, the government that was in
Israel then, immolated Jesus the Christ. That is not
the Jesus you sold to our Reverends who served and
continue to serve as the tools of the colonial masters
in destroying our faculty of thinking. Anyone who
walks in the shoes of the real Jesus would never be
afraid to challenge oppressors.
Your
patriarchs taught us to hate ourselves, and the hatred
is now being extended to your staff. Further, the
rulers, who hate us most and pour pepper into our eyes
the most, rule for a long period because of the
support of your people and government. Mobutu Sese
Seko of Zaire, Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo, Kamuzu
Banda of Malawi, Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha of
Nigeria just to mention a few. Those who had the
quality of leadership to take us out of your bondage
to prevent our sleeping at your Embassy were quickly
assassinated, overthrown or prevented from leading us.
Patrice Lumumba of the then Zaire and Murtala Muhammed
of Nigeria (assassinated), Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and
Chief Obafemi Awolowo of Nigeria, all of blessed
memory, readily come to mind. I know that Pope John
Paul II apologized for the role of the Church in
bringing about the comatose state of the darker people
of the world, but that does not erase the fact that we
are suffering today from what your ancestors did in
the past.
When
your progenitors terrorized the entire African
continent, destroyed values, and without elections,
imposed Governors Macpherson, Richards etc. on us,
little did they know that their servants were learning
the same tricks used against us. They came without
passports and visas, and without work permits, they
worked and earned "expatriate" income. They
ruled us and exacted taxes in the name of a Queen that
is not useful to us in Nigeria, and thus violated our
territorial laws and fundamental human rights. Two
such illegal aliens, Lord Lugard and his girlfriend
Flora Shaw, pleased their fancies in Nigeria in the
manner Nigerians could not fathom of doing in Britain.
If Nigerians had done all these to your own people,
you would never allow them in your country, and I
would have commended you. Can you imagine what your
forefathers did in Cameroon? Can you imagine Mr.
Gozney? Families who used to speak the same dialect
can no longer communicate with themselves. You changed
their names, culture, and dialects - one is now
Francophone and the other Anglophone. You remember
Berlin conference of 1889 where all the Europeans
vandals sat together and shared their African loots.
Yet, those in servitude positions in African countries
still trust you. It is these turncoats that you
imposed on us as rulers that inflicted these
youngsters with pain that make them want to escape to
be delivered from pain.
Pain
is the mother of creativity. Without pain one cannot
create, but those you supported to rule these
youngsters in Nigeria are clueless as to how they can
create with pain. Thus, these youngsters cannot use
their pains to create because of the rulers you gave
them. Young Nigerians see your agent in Aso Rock going
to London to dash his daughter to one of you in
contravention of the Yoruba culture, perhaps because
Olusegun Obasanjo has banned British of the age of his
in-law from being given visiting visas to Nigeria. It
is monkeys see, monkeys do. The youngsters don't have
true leaders that can reprogram them from the default
servitude mode of thinking that your agents have
placed them.
This
reminds me of the scheme of the British government in
1969, as the Biafran war was about to end. To the
chagrin of the British government, Nigeria prosecuted
the war without borrowing a penny, deficit and with
strong currency. A rumor that later gained currency
that the British government was going to devalue her
currency and then instruct her former colony to follow
suit began to circulate. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, a
genuine leader who was the Minister of Finance,
instructed the officials of the Ministry of Finance
and Central Bank to conduct a research on the impact
of the scheme. Based on their research, a decision was
made that nothing in law and economic theory would
cause Nigeria to devalue her currency because Britain
devalued her own. Chief Awolowo called the British
High Commissioner in Nigeria to confirm the rumor. In
pursuit of the naked interest of his country, the High
Commissioner denied it. Weeks later, the colonial
master ordered her former colony to devalue. In a
letter to the British government, Chief Awolowo
retorted that it is an affront on our sovereignty for
a foreign government to dictate to us to devalue our
currency. He demanded from your government to
corroborate its instruction with economic theories,
failure of which it must issue a guaranty letter that
if in the future the British government devalues,
Nigeria would not be required to devalue. To the
credit of the British government, it gave the letter
and issued an apology. Ghana and other West African
countries, which acted like zombies, have not
recovered from the mess. The British government,
however, could not stand a strong free black man like
Chief Awolowo. Instead, it clandestinely ensured he
never assumed the leadership of the country. Your
government prefers the Yale Graduate Chief that would
be instructed to "SAP" us, and the Chief
would say "yes sir, how dry", because he
needs visa for his children. So, their Excellency sir,
the youngsters, queuing up in your Embassy, are
running away from being sapped dry through the IMF
program you imposed on us.
You
also need to know that when your ancestors brought a
ship labeled "JESUS" to transport slaves
from various countries in Africa to Jamestown,
Virginia, U.S.A, some of our forefathers with pain
jumped the ship into the open mouth of sharks rather
than come to America to be made slaves. Nowadays, if
you bring similar ship, my people would "praise
worship" to London thanking God and you, for
delivering them from the brutal hands of Obasanjo and
his crews. What a transformation!
To
ameliorate these pains, I request that you extend your
ban to all serving and ex-public office holders at all
levels that apply for visas for the following reasons:
"
Student visas for their children,
"
Annual general meetings,
"
Medical check up or urgent medical attention,
vacation and asylum.
On
a regular basis, your government should release to the
Nigerian media all Nigerians whose source of money in
your banks is not employment related and have accounts
in your country with balances of more than ten
thousand pounds for public consumption.
As
a leach, I know these requests may be hard for you
because a leach cannot survive without blood. If you
could do this for yourself and us, perhaps these
rulers would be interested in the educational and
health welfare of the masses. These are some of the
basic needs for which those young and old Nigerians
flee from Nigeria. Please join us in the effort to rid
Nigeria of heartless rulers and looters. If we are
successful, you would have less harassment and stress
at your Embassy.
Thank
you for taking the time to read what I have to say out
of excruciating pain.
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