Hajj subsidy is more evidence that Nigeria may never rise again

This morning I am tempted to place a curse on Nigerian senators; especially those ones that have the blatant effrontery to sit around negotiating the Hajj subsidy for the religious pilgrimage.

I don’t know why it is so hard for Africans to understand that religion is nothing but a tourist venture all over the world! God is not on this earth, locked up in any location,  waiting for you to come and mark register! Wake up!!! You are killing your people; killing your generations with this endless stupidity!!

When I was leaving Nigeria for South Africa recently, I had to withdraw the last N100,000 in my account and convert it to South African Rands. I had approximately 3,000 Rands despite the sleepless nights I’d worked to save up. No government official is negotiating for students like myself to have subsidised exchange rates.

There are no government officials lining up to ease the tremendous strain on small business and entrepreneurs either. Only recently was the limits lifted on foreign transactions. There is no subsidy on learning, research or experimentation.

I will forever appreciate those who gave me loans and those who chipped in their bit to make my dream of foreign study possible, but there is still a thousand of me in Nigeria. An uncountable number who will never get a chance to pursue a better education, research,  invention or anything worthwhile!

I paid the flight ticket, a connecting flight through Rwanda, and no government official is in the Senate arguing that Nigerian Airways should subsidise and carry students to their destinations for half the price.

Sen. Danbaba is there complaining about the exchange rate for pilgrims to be subsidised to N200. Who pays the remaining N150? My father’s taxes, your father and your mother’s taxes will be used to subsidise this exchange rates. The U.S. will not reduce their exchange value because some wasteful Nigerians want to go and pay homage to the cross of Jesus or the Birth Place of Mohammed. No, they will not!

It is your government, my government, our Commonwealth that is being pumped into these religious tourist trips.

Saudi Arabia is demanding that Nigerians hire their caterers. They are demanding that 50% of the airlift is done by their airline. The cost of a single bed space is about $3600 for 35 days and each pilgrim will be spending nothing less than $1,599 for the trip and fees. In these times when most African nations are struggling with recession, why won’t Saudi Arabia continue to thrive?  During the oil glut, how do you think they managed not to be affected when even Russia was bleeding?!! Wake up, people!

These nasty old men are even trying to negotiate for pilgrims to pay the fees in instalments! Do you know who pays the charges in the interim?  Your government, our commonwealth will be spent on tourism to Holy Lands. I swear to you, my father’s land is holier than any land anywhere in the world.

The sweat and pain that it takes a Nigerian father to own land and build a three bedroom apartment is enough for him to be deified!! Go back home and worship the ground under your feet! Maybe when you see this dirt and filth everyday, you will repent and put your wealth in the right places.

Nobody is fighting for the Nigerian graduate to have housing loans that can be paid in instalments. Why can’t I pay my Masters fees using a student loan? Why can’t the government make it compulsory that every year the same amount spent on these “holy” pilgrimages is diverted to the accounts of youths and graduates?  Let’s see whether Nigeria will continue to be as rotten and wasted as it is.

And you think Saudi Arabia would be sympathetic to your pleas and negotiations? You think they care that you are ruining your country to build theirs? This is the reason why African nations will forever be subservient to European and Arab powers. Because they have given us a god whose home address is always missing on the African map.

The few times God chooses to visit us, he is either in a synagogue or on a crusade or in some building waiting for our weekly and monthly contribution. God is a tourist in Africa! And Africans are sheep without a father, looking for God in places where he has never showed up for our deliverance.