Memo to Nigerian Masses

With the amalgamation of Northern and Southern protectorates as one entity named Nigeria in 1914, the Nigerian masses have been giving the highest contribution to the growth and development of Nigeria. Masses contributed their quota in terms of monies they paid as taxes, cheap labour for production and even their lives when Nigeria was at the brink of disintegration.

During the colonial period the Nigerian masses were exploited by the British imperialist colonial masters through large scale production of agricultural products such as the pyramids of groundnuts in Kano, mass production of cotton, cocoa, palm oil, cassava e.t.c which the British determine their prices instead of them to determine the price of their own products for shipment to Britain. Masses provided the almost free labour that railway was constructed to facilitate transport of goods and services to the sea for export. They paid taxes on everything from paying taxes on themselves, members of their families and on almost everything they owned such as cattle, livestock, farmland and household property. This exploitation was perfected through the collaboration of traditional rulers and middlemen in the name of indirect rule.

When Nigeria obtained independence in 1960, the Nigerian masses had the hope that their condition of living would improve as their fellow blacks were to be at the helm of affairs. But what did the masses have in return for their sufferings and exploitation during the colonial period? The new ruling class instead of bringing the nation together to harness the abundant human and natural resources that the nation was blessed with, they were only concerned with how they could garner more influence and power though laying the foundation of tribalism, nepotism, regionalism and religious differences.

Ethnicity and regionalism reached zenith in 1966 when Igbo military officers toppled the first republic and paving the way to Nigerian civil war that consumed the lives of more than one million Nigerian masses on both sides of the conflict . The principal actors of the Nigerian civil war fled when they saw outright defeat leaving the used masses to face the wrath of the advancing victors to safe haven abroad and are today living and enjoying.

The Nigerian Masses have no friends, comforters, sympathizers and helpers .The ruling elites, either military or civilians, have always collaborated with traditional rulers, the clergy and business community to inflict more hardship on the masses through implementation of policies such as SAP, increase in prices of petroleum products and deregulation of the economy. Masses are left to suffer alone as whenever they tried to rise to resist such policies the traditional rulers and clergy men will be at work preaching peace and Almighty wrath on whoever tries to cause violence. They never speak on behalf of the masses to the ruling class that the masses are suffering and the government should scrap those inhuman policies.

Masses in Nigeria are used to turn against each other through preaching of intolerance and hate by politicians and clergymen in the name of religion. Thousands of innocent masses have been murdered in various religious conflicts over the years in various parts of the country .The elites that engineer such religious conflicts never send their children to participate actively in any spate of violence.

Ethnicity have been used also to make masses kill one another when some political elites lose in power game , they use the ethnic card to seek relevance and recognition .Such ethnic conflicts have also led to thousands of Nigerian masses to lose their lives and turn refugees in their own country .

The political class and their cronies have mutual understandings in their companies board meetings where you will find them together irrespective of tribes, regions or religions .They all have the common interest of exploitating and stealing the nations wealth and only complain when they were edged out or can’t fulfill personal agenda of control and distribution of national or state resources .
In political thuggery, rigging and manipulation of elections results, the masses are used by giving them peanuts amount of money being which hardly reaches beyond swearing those benefactors of stolen and rigged mandate into office.

When will Nigerian masses be aware that they have a common enemy? When will they realize that they are being used by some cabals to achieve their personal interests and ambitions in the name of ethnicity, regionalism and religion? When will they realize that when such cabals are in corridors of power they never complain of being marginalized, only when they are outside the corridor of power they start the struggle on the pretext that their tribes, regions and religion have been marginalized?

When Northerners were at the helm of affairs what special privileges did the common Northerner benefit from the government? Presently with a Southerner and a Yoruba at the helm of affairs, what special benefits and privileges are the common Southerners and the Yoruba in particular enjoying from the government? Which parts of the country before and presently are there that do not have traces of abject poverty, bad roads, in equipped hospitals, unemployment, insecurity, lack of portable water, constant electricity, affordable shelter and looting of their treasuries?

The ruling elites and their collaborators in traditional institutions and men of religion have the same trademark as they live in reserved quarters with red roofs , move in convoy of exotic cars with hefty bodyguards behind them. Some of them have become so fat and large that they hardly move except like anti-natal mothers.

Nigerian masses have to collectively come together, irrespective of tribe, region and religion, to fight for their common good and future. If they continue to allow themselves to be brainwashed in such issues of tribe, region and religion, the cancerous elites will continue to inflict continuous hardships and cycle stealing of our national wealth.

Mutual understanding, tolerance and respect of each other’s way of life and beliefs is what the Nigerian masses need to move this nation forward. Destiny has joined us together as Nigerians. Nigeria has to remain as a common entity as no tribe , region or religion can live on it’s own .

Unity brings power and if Nigerian masses continue to be used not to attain unity , the sufferings of today as that of yesterday will be inherited by the unborn children of the masses .The earlier they realize the importance and value of unity the better .



Shehu Mustapha Chaji