Nigeria Does Not Have The Resources She Says She Has – Ishola Ninuola

Ignore all these ‘blada-dash’ about how huge they say Nigeria’s resources are. We have written to Gov severally that Nigeria does not have the resources she says she has. When I see some of the papers I’ll send them to you.

I’ll give you an example you know. When they say Nigeria’s bitumen is the ‘2nd largest in the World’, ignore them. We have asked ‘who said so’? No one has owned up!! And also ignore all these anglicised voice-over of Nigerian social media. Its all designed to exploit the fact that Nigerians believe things when they think its a foreigner saying it. Also ignore the insinuations on Nigerian Colonial Masters. It is Nigerian leadership selling their country cheaply. The Chinese are also the new colonialists in Africa, and TikTok is their major mouth-piece. Ignore TikTok also.

Let African elites go and build-up their continent, with determination, standards and internationally accepted rule of law. The rest of the world will not wait for Africa. Africa should learn from what is happening to Gaza, if their children are not to be future slaves. How can a whole country give blank cheque to a foreign concern to do as it likes, you rightly asked. Well that is what routinely happens here! The national experts are first fenced off, and excluded from the negotiation table. That is how.

I didn’t know any of my friends saw my name in the newspapers during the bitumen saga of early 2000. Well, they tried to ‘fence me’ off as usual, by first harassing me. And hope you might still remember whom you had, I resisted them. They got mad, and I got mad, reminding them that was how they ruined the Steel Project 20 years earlier, (a project I had the privilege to play a leading role in); and that I wouldn’t allow them ruin bitumen also. They threatened to jail me and put my name in all news channels. I asked them to go ahead. We eventually fought ourselves to a standstill. I just realised one day that I couldn’t find any of them any more. God scattered them; but they already ruined the project, because when our foreign partners heard that they removed me, they cancelled all interest in the bitumen project. Today, they shared the bitumen acreage among themselves; and of course because of climate change effects, its more difficult to develop now.

My former colleagues have tried to seek some official clarification on the German effort, and some denial has been got. (I’m sending it below). Well, we shall just keep on shouting on them, abi?  Here, I’m trying to translate my own language directly into English, as one would do a recalcitrant young person – ‘a o sha ma pariwo le won l’ori’, ‘abi’? ( ‘Ki nwon o ma wo ile le awon omo wa ni ori; awon apa; awon a ko tile ta’. !! )