Our Priorities as a developing nation

As a student of international development, When I talk about my country, Nigeria, I speak as if it is a developing country. After all developing means it has potential. But if I want to be truthful to myself, I would say from actual events in the country that it is truly underdeveloped. On arriving in the country, from the air, you can see the difference. Everywhere is so dark (just as it has been dubbed..the dark continent). The roads are so bad, there is no constant electricity, no water and the people are just going along with whatever is being offered to them. There is poverty in the country, serious suffering by the masses and sometimes I do wonder what the future holds for the millions there.

I was just going through the papers and saw an article that made me laugh. Honestly I was quite emotional. I didn't know weather to laugh or cry for our nation. The headline in Nigerian Vanguard read: Aso Rock budgets N2.3million daily for refreshment....N1.5m for eye glasses. OH! I weep for the black race. I weep for the ordinary Nigerian, I weep for the so called "leaders" who are shameless to come out with such an idea. This is a country of about 160 million, low quality of life, no effective working machinery in place, people are dying of malnutrition, heart ache etc and the so called "leaders" have the audacity to spend 2.3 million naira daily on refreshment. How can they eat and then sleep properly when millions are dying? I bet the international world are watching and laughing at us. What of investing in education, health, good roads, science and technology, innovation, SMEs, research and development? How did these people come to power in the first place? Look at Niger Delta...

The most annoying thing is we only have one country, if we destroy it, where do we go to? Why can we not all come together and build a beautiful nation? I am so disappointed that all these money that should be invested properly is going into the bellies of fat corrupt, insatiable politicians who should know better. No body says that they cannot eat, after all, we need healthy leaders, but to take the p... out of 160 million people who are struggling is totally unacceptable. Good luck Nigeria.