Nigeria is not yet a failed state. We have a government in control of  its borders that has put Boko Haram on the run and put looters on notice  that their days of impunity are numbered. However, the same cassava  basket and major agricultural zone that fed West African countries is  lately included among UNICEF 20 million people of Yemen, South Sudan,  Somalia and Nigeria facing starvation and famine. How low can Nigeria  go?
When the British, the French and the Portuguese were forced to leave  African countries after independence, they were asked who would replace  their teachers, doctors, nurses and lawyers since they were not ready or  had enough. They proudly answered that Nigerians would take their  places. The same Nigerians that other Africans were proud of, have  become the butt of their jokes, figure of hatred, desperadoes and  hustlers that have overstayed their welcome.
Most Africans old enough in the sixties and early seventies have a  special memories of Nigeria, as a big brother. Nigeria’s failure is  the story of that big brother that is looking for favors based on its  past glories; hoping to reap rewards from struggling children of other  African countries that benefited from its goodwill, the same African  countries Nigeria failed to lead. We cannot preach past goodwill to  those children as a privilege to camp our tents and live there forever.
In terms of proportional wealth and champion of African causes, Kwame  Nkrumah is second to none. It does not give Ghanaians an open invitation  or credit to other African countries. Indeed, the children of Nkrumah  were kicked out of Nigeria in the early eighties. Not even the fact that  Prime Minister Kofi Busia had done the same to Nigeria could have  justified what Nigeria did. This was why Nnamdi Azikiwe cried out loud.
If Nigerians cannot not rescue Nigeria; Africans around the world cannot  feel sorry for Nigeria, and will continue to humiliate Nigerians. Nobody  owes Nigeria or Nigerians anything. We have an obsession for forex  beyond need. Eager to sell dear local goods, expensive at home, at  dictated price, half or nothing just to get foreign cash: cement, garri,  beans, tomato. There are more brains in our Government than in the  richest countries on earth, not only our natural resources but in skills  and technical know-how that are being wasted by greed and selfishness.
A lecture by Vice Admiral Michael Franken, Deputy Commander of  Operations for US Africa Command (AFRICOM) at Fletcher Maritime Studies  Program in the School of Government at Harvard wondered why a country  with more brainpower in cabinet than any country including United States  could not put its acts together. We can, if our administrators are  accountable.
This history is important in order to realize how Nigeria called the  Giant of Africa, lost its status. Unfortunately not only in other  African countries but more pertinent here, at home. It was a country  flowing with milk and honey. General Gowon actually claimed, wrongly or  rightly, that Nigeria’s problem was not money but how to spend it.
Despite the devastating effect of the war to unity of the country, the  economic was so well managed we did not borrow a penny for war!
However, it all came with a warning when Chief Obafemi Awolowo resigned  as the Finance Commissioner and Vice to Gowon. He warned that if Nigeria  continued to waste its resources outrageously through unprecedented  corruption, Nigeria would fall.
Today, not even Awolowo could have predicted how far Nigeria has fallen  at home and among its African brothers. Our children have become  economic migrants running from the poorest to richest Africa countries!  Awo, the man who built industrial, agricultural and housing estate in  the West, was called the prophet of doom by Richard Akinjide, Umaru  Dikko & Co. But the Economic sustainability and continuity that failed  us then, are still problems for successive governments. Neglect of  projects became our cross of arrested development because new foreign  contracts benefit politicians.
Nigeria was the great black hope in the sixties, even in early seventies  the world hoped would be a regional power to save the rest of Africa. It  has been called the curse of oil. Unfortunately, we have become burden  from one of the smallest country like Cape Verde to one of the biggest  like South Africa. If it is not oil, Africans have killed one another  over gold, diamond and every stimulus and blessing that other countries  have used as a lift-off for economic development.
Nigerians are crying that they are being humiliated and turned back to  their country when at exorbitant cost try to give birth in rich  countries or killed on the streets without provocation for trying to  make a living. After relegating our own country, they can’t allow us  to destroy theirs. If the problem is xenophobia, jealousy and  discrimination in every country; inside and outside of Africa: which  part do we assign a country that has betrayed its responsibility and  trust at home?
Would Nigerians be crying about being denied access to smuggle the birth  of their children into another country or the effect of xenophobia, if  their country is capable enough? Nobody wants to be disrespected, maimed  and killed because they are out of their comfort zone. Humiliating,  disgusting, brutal pictures rob us of dignity. This is what we get when  the best and the richest among us, no matter how they come about their  glories exchange them for vanities in shadows.
The same Nigeria we cannot wait to get back to after educational  pursuits and sojourns abroad has become the place we run away from just  to get into any country, no matter how small, no matter how many deserts  and seas to cross. It used to be that if you do not go back home on  time, that would kill your mother. Now your mother says there is nothing  to come back to. Yet, this is the same country that exports U.S dollars,  British pounds and Euro as if it prints them!
Africans that used to look up to you would disrespect you and call you  vagabond like a husband without respect at home that failed to shoulder  the responsibilities of the family. Yes, Africans are members of the  same family and Nigerians are the husbands that shed its responsibility.  How dare you demand respect from the same family you left uncared for  and failed to lead?
There is nothing wrong with Nigerians and there is nothing wrong with  Africans, we just refused to carry our mantle. What many Nigerians do is  pray to God, who to dispossess or swindle while celebrating selfishness  of looters. We welcome them from prison if they are ever caught, with  prayers in Mosque and Church glowing in palm trees like the resurrection  of Jesus of Nazareth.
Written by Farouko Martins
