WAITING FOR OUR ROSA PARKS

Civil rights icon Rosa Parks, the black seamstress who refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery , bus to a Whiteman sparked a revolution in American race relations. She died recently at the age of 92 years .Her refusal to succumb to segregation and discrimination because of her skin color sparked up the movement that put an end to segregation against blacks in America.

She is now a symbol of resistance against white segregation , her boldness and resistance against inequality by her fellow country men led to a resistance by her fellow blacks to resist inhuman treatment ,injustice ,domination ,exploitation ,inequality and segregation which made blacks to become second class citizens in their own country.

Nigeria , which is a country of the same race "blacks" with a population of about 120 million people , is presently in the same condition that Rosa Parks found herself in the 1960"s in the United States .But how is Nigeria related to Rosa Parks condition in the 1960"s when we are all of the same black race ? Is segregation to be found in the present day Nigeria in the 21st century ? These are the questions with which this write-up will make an attempt to link that period in United States of America’s history to Nigerians conditions in the present time.

Nigeria is a nation blessed with abundant human and natural resources , and is the sixth country in producing crude oil in the whole world . Unfortunately , abject poverty can be seen with naked eyes in this country .The is inequality and segregation between the ruling class and the masses.

The segregated masses in Nigeria have hospitals that are more or less consulting clinics, while the ruling elites and their families travel abroad just for medical check-ups. Children of the Masses attend schools that are ruined buildings or under the tree without tables , chairs and necessary teaching materials with teachers that are not paid their meagre salaries for months , while the children of the elites attend private owned schools that their classes are fully air conditioned!!! The masses lives in ghetto’s where there is no water and epileptic power supply and totally unhygienic for human beings to live decently and while the elites live in polished reserved areas.

The masses have been chased out of the Federal capital (Abuja) as the master demolisher in the name of town planning had destroyed all what the masses managed as their homes and sources of living hood. Abuja , the federal capital of Nigeria is only for the elites. What kind of segregation! Masses in Nigeria are even segregated in places of worships. The front seats and first rows of churches and mosques are reserved for the powerful ruling elites who come to places of worship with their stern armed looking security personnel. The masses means of transportation still remains donkeys, bicycles ,lorries, rickety buses and Okada while the ruling elites and their cronies ride in polished ,dark exotic cars that the price of one single car can purchase the whole of the cars owned by a transport company.

When masses in Nigeria managed to obtain western education there is no employment as even the ones presently employed in government institutions are being retrenched in mass, the elites children are C.E.O’s , M.D’s , G.M’s e.t.c of multi-billions companies that were established with ill-gotten money that had been looted from our national treasury by their parents .These are few areas mentioned that masses in Nigeria have been segregated which if the wealth of the country will be evenly distributed at least there will be no abject poverty in the country.

When will Nigerians rise up to resist this sort of inequality and segregation in their motherland? When will an incident such as that of Rosa Parks occur and the whole Nigerian masses rise to obtain their freedom, dignity and honor to be regarded and accepted as fellow equal human beings in our collective country? When will our Martin Luther King (Jr) emerge with a dream of liberating his fellow countrymen from clutches of suppression, oppression, exploitation, domination and inflation ?

How long will be our waiting for our Rosa Parks? Though we had so many that had led the part of Martin Luther King (Jr)but due to the Nigerian "factor" their movements are either terminated by military incursion or by crushing such movements with force, imprisonment, Naira and political appointments.

The Nigerian masses and history of freedom and liberation will never forget those Nigerians that rose to defend the common man ,prominent among them are Mallam Aminu Kano, who fought against the feudal lords in the North whose styles of oppression and injustice will be mistaken for fairy tale, Chief Gani Fawehinmi who for decades had been in the fore-front of fighting against injustice which made prison to be his second home during the military era .History will also not forget those prominent sons of Nigeria that stood for the masses rights, Mallam Sa"adu Zungur ,Dr.Tai Solarin, Prof.Wole Soyinka,Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, Col.Abubakar Dangiwa Umar,Comrade Adams Oshimole,Alhaji Balarabe Musa, Rev.Olubunmi O kogie and Dr.Yusuf Bala Usman.

Really for sure things will change some day and Nigerian masses will not be segregated and turned to second class citizens in their own country where there will be enough food for all ,good roads and transport network, comfortable shelter, constant water and power supply ,employment and job security and conducting free and fair elections.

Yours truly

Shehu Mustapha chaji