Nigeria is a big tall tree without roots----University administrator

University administrator and a traditional ruler of Ogwashi-Uku kingdom has tasked Nigerian Political leaders to be focus and determined in building a strong and virile lasting nation that the citizens would be proud to call theirs.

Speaking at a special convocation and conferment of a doctorate degree ceremony of two worthy staff and two Nigerian students of Green Hills University, Greenland, Denmark, on 23 of October 2013, at the Wheat Baker Hotel on Lawrence Road, Ikoyi Lagos State, the Regional President of the institution in Africa, Prof. Nwajei Chuks Nwajei said Nigerian leaders should use the national diversity and its attendant problems to develop a better agenda in building a solid and prosperous Nigeria.

Nwajei accused Nigerian political leaders as the most corrupt  on earth, adding that it has reached to the extent that Nigerian International passport is just like cocaine drugs to the international immigration officers. He disclosed that even those Nigerians who fly with their private jets are not exempted from the humiliations at the foreign airports. You need to travel out and see the humiliations.

“Our girls are the most prostitutes outside the shores of this country, yet we have more than enough for all of us and for our future generations,” he stated, “our leaders or rulers get everything free including the water they drink while 99 percent cannot afford one basic food a day. What a tragedy, we hear of trillions of dollars, yet we have no basic amenities, no road, not water, not security and there is no light. It’s a shame”!

The professor cum traditional ruler described Nigeria as a joke. “a country where even ordinary local government Chairmen now go with bullet-proof cars, kidnapping becoming a way of life to the extent that people are now afraid to go to their towns and villages”.

The Prof. frowned at the huge stealing of the nation’s common-wealth, the oil by those on the corridors of power and said it’s inhuman. According to him, the stealing of the crude oil has gone wild that the nation’s citizens don’t even know how much and quantity of barrels the country export each day. “Nigeria is a big tall tree without roots and any small push we go tumbling”. The Don further described the condition of South-South zone, where the oil wealth is deposited as a crying site.

On the constitutional conference called by the present government, Nwajei urged members of the committee to be weary adding that they should be avoid to be used for political suicide as their names would forever be associated with failure should they know that the so-called conference was a fluke and still goes ahead to convocate. “I still believe and rightly too, that the moments a man or woman is elected with our votes, he should not be the master, the masses or the electorate should be; when they come calling for our votes, they become meek but as soon as they rigged themselves into power, they become lions of the manor while we become sheep, a prey for wealth and power”. Nwajei criticised leaders who go with army of police and soldiers in their chains of convoy and wondered when they felt the impact of those they lead.

Nwajei further said that the government’s inability to monitor projects that money had been appropriated for; is a failure of leadership. He stated that each year more money is appropriated on the same project and that the money is shared with the legislators who go on over sight functions while such projects suffer abandonment. “I want the governments both state and federal to look into the growing unemployment of our vast majority of youths, some are unemployable due to our deficiencies in the education sector”, he stated. “I need the government to look into low investment rate, and lift ban on distance learning programms, open the closed down extended study centres, open the Satellite campuses of the universities because according to him, on-line and satellite study centres are now the norms all over the Western nations as people could not afford to leave their jobs to campuses”. Speaking on pension issue in Nigeria, the Don urged the federal and state government to look into the plights of the older citizens whom he said were dying after serving their father land without being paid their pensions and entitlements. “It is a sin that few people have cornered the sweat of the older men and women and uses such money to live in luxury”. The traditional ruler in Ogwashi -Uku kingdom lambasted the royal fathers who have become appendages to the President, Governors, and Ministers, Senators and even local government Chairmen and their aides adding that the office of traditional rulers and institutions of royalty in Nigeria has lost its enviable values. He said traditional rulers are now mere contractors. “It is disheartening that the office and institutions of royalty has therefore lost its enviable values as when children manipulate a leader, they abuse and debase them. Most are now mere stationary contractors”, he added. Let me warn our royal fathers who have reduced themselves to beggars that the institution of royalty was created to be obeyed and revered as it is in the Holy books”.

On the strike action embarked by Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the university administrator said both warring factions should embrace genuine dialogue to open all closed universities for the interest of the Nigerian youths who are rotting away at home. “I urge the federal government and other arms of government to fashion an acceptable strategy for finding peace in the polity”. Delivering his convocation speech, Nwajei also tasked the federal government to try and eradicate poverty and illiteracy in Nigeria stating that two virus are the greatest enemy of the nation’s development. He warned the aggrieved ethnic nationalities to mend faces with one another because unity doesn’t thrive in disunity. On the cost of running Nigerian democracy, the Prof. opted for a unicameral legislature because according to him, the two chamber legislatures are drain to the nation’s economy. The members of the Senate and House of Representatives should be merged into one body; they are a drain into our national purse”. He further called for the reduction of the number of Ministers and personal staff and aides to ministers and presidency saying that such army of staffs are great parasites to the ailing economy. He said. Nigeria Federal Government should check the excesses of the police, Army, Navy and other Para-military agencies on the use of force on the citizenry. He also tasked the governments to try and improve their general welfare so that they would not be a tool in the hands of criminals and politicians that employ them for evil duties. “I urge the federal and state governments and their respective representatives to respect human rights and give more value to the lives of Nigerians that voted them into power; if indeed they were voted for at all.” Nwajei cautioned politicians, especially those in the outlawed-newPDP and the members of the Peoples Democratic Party to sheath their sword and embrace dialogue. He said the dangers of what they are doing now would in no distance time explode to affect the nation. “The current issues of the new-PDP and the old PDP will be handled with care as the explosion and the implosion that these may cause in the future will be better imagined than experienced”, he added, “Nigerians must be allowed to enjoy the freedom democracy affords. There was a country before a party, no party is bigger than the citizens or the country and Independent Electoral Commission must be allowed to do their jobs without interference from any other arms of government”.

According to Nwajei, Nigeria was the only country that any election loser goes to court because they have no fear of God not to talk of the electorates”. Speaking further he said. “I wonder why someone who wins in five local government areas out of thirty local government areas will have the shame to challenge the electoral empire; it’s because most politicians go in for what they can steal rather than what they could do for the masses”. He wondered why election is Nigeria is a ‘do-or die affairs’. He reasoned that it was out of sheer love to be quick rich through the power of politics that makes people to want to kill in order to be in power. “Nigerian elections have become a do or die issues because of the money people put into political campaigns and bribes given out to win election. Also, the first tabulate their gains when they win and these are the reasons”. He warned those using ethnicity and religion to win elections to keep such plots off Nigeria because according to him, natural leaders that ignored such warnings in the past are today blaming themselves for turning their countries into pieces or non-existence. Nwajei further lampooned the third tier of government, the judiciary on the miscarriages of justice and said justice in Nigeria is cash and carry. I am calling on the President, governors, legislators and the judiciary to take note, in the courts today, justice is cash and carry. Some cases have been in courts for 40 years while some might be dispensed off within four weeks, if the litigants’/mentors have money and power. The country’s justice is for sale”, he further stated. “The classification of the lawyers are worrisome, the senior lawyers are corrupting our judiciary thus far. A poor man cannot get justice as he has no millions to hire the so-called senior lawyers”.

According to him, “I beseech all Nigerians who believe in this country to pray and support the success of Nigeria. I urge Nigerians to demonstrate deep sense of nationalism and patriotism as we look forward by the grace of God to better understanding amongst all brotherly ethnic nationalities in the polity for better and prosperous united Nigeria”. 

The traditional ruler didn’t hide his sadness over the insult on Christendom by those who profess the religion and said that Christianity has been commercialized. He took swipe on the miracle selling ministers that have diverted attentions of their flocks to fantasies. He disclosed that those who follow signs and wonders were more dangerous than the unbelievers who were yet to know Christ. He said. Jesus Christ himself said that signs and wonders shall follow true believers and not the other way round. Pastors and Bishops now teaches only about prosperity, they now buy private planes, have bodyguards yet their wonderful suffering flocks are left hungry, naked, homeless and poorer”.

“Yet they call themselves the preachers of God’s gospel. The judgement will surely start from the church and from the pulpits, too. God’s judgement has started as most of these men of God’s children have become a great curse onto their parents and larger society”, Nwajei stated.