September 30, 2000
Ironically while Nigeria celebrates her 40 years of independence, the majority of her citizens seems to be celebrating abject poverty.
As the various national administrators pretend to elevate the agony of poverty and hungers, it has little to show to the world as an area of success in this regards, in the space of 40 years of self rule, Nigerians have witnessed various negative trends;
- The middle class in the social echelon has been successfully eroded
- All the social infrastructural facilities have been subjected to absolute ruin
- The multicultural economy that was once the source of the nation's source of foreign exchange with the then significant place of agriculture has been efficiently eradicated to give way to mono-cultural economy that depends solely on crude oil.
Ironically again, while crude deposits abound in millions of barrels of production weekly, the local filling stations are ravaged by incessant empty tanks, no thanks to the dilapidated state of the refineries from a lack of proper management, fraud, sabotage and outright embezzlement.
As the rest of the world is basking in the sun of sophisticated telecommunication networks and information super-technologies, many Nigerians still view telephones, televisions and computers as objects of affluence and solely for the wealthiest.
The government seems to lack focus and ideas as to how to bring it's people out of stone-age era and continuous hunger.
While the smaller and less wealthy African and other third world countries are struggling to stamp their marks on the sand of global technological and telecommunications developments, Nigeria is still enmeshed in the entangling webs of bureaucratic bottlenecks, religious and ethnic bigotries.
OFS (Official Frauds Syndrome) remains the most acceptable fashionable trend in the public daily life and seems to be defying all sorts of treatment just like AIDS. And the government is still clueless as how to tackle this ugly monster.
On Friday the 29th of September, more than 50 Nigerian students on the Nigerian-Russian scholarship gathered in front of the gate of the embassy here in Moscow as they were refused entry into the embassy despite the peaceful attitude apparently displayed by these hungry students.
This day, the 29th of September is the day the embassy slated to celebrate the 40th anniversary of our independence with the expected various colleagues from other African embassies as the 1st of October which is Sunday is not feasible being weekend.
Based on the continuous cold attitude of the embassy towards the students who constitute the majority in the entire Nigerian community in this country and whose interests the embassy supposedly is protecting with the army of it's diplomats, the relationship is far from being cordial.
It is understandable that the responsibility of payments of students stipends does not lie with the embassy as it is primarily under the Ministry of External Affairs, but it serves as the medium between the students and the Federal Scholarship Board, Abuja which is being headed by Hajia Bello.
I have been always of the opinion that women naturally are more honest when it comes to management of funds and are more sympathetic toward the welfare of their subjects than men, but Hajia Bello has left us here in Moscow to think otherwise.
The attitude of the woman towards the students is something that calls for attention.
Money is being said to be released but for the students to continue to cope with hunger and frostbites in the harsh winter cold of Russia when there is nothing to feed let alone buy winter clothing.
Anytime you call the Students Affairs Officer at the embassy to inquire of the allowance, you are always told the students stipends which is widely known to be under recurrent expenditure of the Ministry of Education will have to go to the lower house of the national assembly for debate, then to the senate and later to the executive council before it is finally signed by the president as if this is a national constitution that is being considered.
In June, the Minister of state for Education, Malam Batagarawa was sent on a fact finding mission to Moscow in the company of five other delegates.
The naked arrogance and carefree attitude of this Minister remains the major topic of discussions among students here and we are still wondering if our leaders will ever change.
On this Minister's mission and uncalled-for attitude, I will be writing at a later date.
Here is the brief coverage of the students protest yesterday in the front of the Nigerian embassy as carried by the Moscow Times
I urge you to please help us publish this and the above rejoinder so that the necessary authority will help look unto this with the aim of finding a lasting solution to the plights of the students here who daily have to cope with racial abuse, psychological trauma, academic loads, and financial problems.
Thank you in advance on behalf of all Nigerian students in Moscow.
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