A Wake-Up Call

OPEN LETTER TO NIGERIANS IN DIASPORA

A Wake-Up Call 

Dear Fellow Nigerian in Diaspora,

Please forgive my impetuosity for the audacity to think that you have time to spare to read an unsolicited letter from an unknown source. I sincerely crave your indulgence to give me a few minutes of your time because the message I wish to deliver is critically important to all of us residing outside Nigeria.

It is difficult to know how many of you are residing as alien in foreign shores across the world since our national problems and work ethics have followed us even beyond our native land. It is well known that embassies of responsible countries always deem it necessary to establish a procedure of keeping a register of their nationals in foreign lands. This writer prays for the day when Nigerian High Commission and Embassy would command the trust and respect of its nationals to the extent that Nigerians would make its offices their first port of call on arrival in foreign countries. Notwithstanding the lack of statistics as to the number of Nigerians in Diaspora, an estimated guess will definitely put this number above a quarter or even half a million mark. This is an appreciably large figure that is statistically significant as a cohort for planning any direct action. Any marketing strategist will agree that this number is commercially viable and will be worth cultivating for profit in the sale of commodities.

However, this writer is not into selling and buying business and therefore the interest shown on the number of Nigerians abroad is not for the purpose of making financial gains. Although, I believe the figure is appreciably large enough for the planning and execution of a social revolution that could make a difference to any nation in despair. Don’t let the word revolution scare you off. Please be patient as we explain the motives and the objectives we wish to achieve in this letter.

The story of how most Nigerians got out of Nigeria in the late 80s and early 90s is a story that is laden with woes, tribulations, lamentations and share desperation. Thanks be to heaven, your courage and single-mindedness paid off brilliantly well. Today, you are a proud owner of many wonderful things of life – properties in leafy areas of town, gleaming limousines, and every other amenity that make a good life possible.  But no sooner have you settled in to this cosy life than you forgot completely those unlucky Nigerians – family, friends, relatives, and acquaintances – you left behind at home. Some have even tried to burn the boat and have decided to turn their backs on anything with a Nigerian label, except of course, apu, okporoko, crayfish, lafun, pounded yam, tuo and other such delicacies that your taste buds still crave.

This writer is not blaming you since most of the news from Nigeria is often off-putting. No sane person seeks to hear sad news about loved ones but to which the recipient cannot do anything to alleviate their problems. The adoption of the necessary psychological defence mechanism of avoidance can therefore be understood – block out the uncomfortable news and the mind will have some kind of respite. It is a normal human reaction to avoid ugliness and sadness, only sadists derive pleasures from the suffering of others and therefore desire and crave to hear and see more of such phenomena. This writer therefore understands why most of you have turned your backs on Nigeria.

However, this writer believes that Nigerians in Diaspora are a special group that had the grace of heaven to leave Nigeria when they did. It is important at this stage to remind this group of Nigerians on the need to spend some quiet moment to wonder why heaven spared them from the misery and tribulations inflicted on other Nigerians by the Dishonourable Leaders of Nigeria. Ask yourself, whether you were spared just to enable you to indulge in a lascivious and hedonistic life style abroad. Or whether there is a higher purpose why heaven opened the gate of High Commissions and Embassies for you when others were denied entry visas and travel permits.

Fellow Nigerians, this writer believes that there is a divine plan for the land space called Nigeria and that, you, the Nigerian aliens in foreign lands have a role to play in this plan. Again, I tend to believe that the purpose of your sojourn in foreign lands is closely linked with this divine plan for Nigeria.  This writer came into this awareness in 1998 while writing a book titled, Nigeria on Fire. It dawned on me that my presence abroad at that time had provided the unique opportunities to research and to reflect. I realised that this kind of intellectually enriching environment was a luxury in Nigeria.

It was Abraham Maslow that stated in his theory on human motivation that unless a person fulfils the physiological lower needs of food he/she cannot move to the next higher needs in a seven-level hierarchy of human needs. From personal experience, it is obvious that Nigerians at home have got stuck at the base level of human needs. The social environment of Nigeria, then and now, is counter-productive to other higher level of needs particularly those that pertain to intellectual development or cognitive needs. The prevailing popular mood is to demand derogatorily from anyone who spends too much time with intellectual endeavour or who tries to promote intellectual engagements with the question, Na book we go chop? It is unfortunate that the spirit and the habit of seeking and searching for knowledge have been killed in Nigeria. And unless the spirit and habit of seeking and searching for truth and knowledge are revived there is no other place Nigeria can go but down.

This is where you come in, dear Nigerian in the Diaspora. We salute your courage because with all the insults that go with being a black person in the western world, you are still trudging on with an act that seems to say I don’t care. But we do know you care. We know you stomach boils every time you were slighted and ridiculed because of the colour of your skin. We know, given a descent chance in the place of your birth, you will not spend an extra day in the land of the snooty snobs. Considering the impact of these unpalatable experiences on your mental and psychological health, are you making use of the opportunities around you to seek and search for knowledge on the truth of existence?

Of course, we know most of you are searching and seeking for something but it seems it is only for Dollars, Pounds, Dutch mark and now Euro. The culture of Nigeria has followed you abroad and the conventional wisdom of the inalienable faith in the salvation and power of mammon is still the most dominant value in your life. No one, even this writer that seems to be sounding like a holier-than-thou, can deny the central role of money in the civilisation crafted for the world by the Caucasian race. But to make the search for money the centre piece or the beginning and the end of existence rather than as a utility means for attaining noble life is a perversion of the truth of existence.

The noble life this writer has in mind is not the kind of nobility that is often bestowed by the monarchs and governments of this world. It is the nobility of the soul, which is only attainable by the cultivation of a life of truth, knowledge, compassion and love. It is not the nobility that can be attained by the possessions of millions or billions of pounds or dollars, which were most likely acquired through crooked and soul-poisoning business deals. This brief moral observation is mentioned to help you, dear Nigerian to wake up from the illusion of your present reality. This reality is an illusion that has an in-built risks and a time limit. This reality might come to an end sooner than you think.

Dear Nigerian, our world is moving fast into a revolutionary mode that is designed to reorient the values, beliefs and systems of the world. It is a spiritual revolution from which no one on planet earth can escape its touch. It is a kind of rigorous shaking up of the world to its spiritual foundation and when the debris thrown up by this unusual spinning settles, it shall cause the dispersal of likes and same kinds to go together. The physical demonstration of this can be found when sand particles are shaking up and result in the separation of the materials according to their weights. Sands of equal sizes and weights move together and the separation of the gravel from the fine sand become effortless. Our world is to be shaking up and this might lead to a global exodus of the people of the world back to their original settlements as designed by nature.

If this is true, Dear Nigerians you need to make provisions for your eventual homecoming. Or are you still very cocksure that you have a permanent home in the alien shores? This is indeed an alarm. But the alarm bell has to be sounded in order to minimise the ensuing suffering that will accompany such momentous phenomenon without a warning. To those who are forewarned and who hearkened to the warning, it shall be a smooth-sailing transition.

Dear Nigerian in Diaspora, Nigeria is the only country that you can call your own. As a sojourner, you are either a slave or a guest of your host country. Do not fool yourself that you are a legit because of the legal law but the natural law does not support your claims. It is true Nigeria is in ruin, is in ache and is burning but it has to be rescued. The explorers and exploiters cannot rehabilitate Nigeria no matter the quantity of the Foreign Investment Initiatives thrown at Nigeria. Nation building is the work of patriots not of profiteers. The task for the rescue operation, as designed by heaven is on the shoulders of Nigerians in Diaspora. Every Nigerian outside Nigeria at this moment is a messiah and you have been specifically sent out to prepare for the redemption of your people.

Dear Friends, this is the end time of your easy life. The work of national redemption of Nigeria has begun. We have no time anymore at our disposal to waste. Every minute from now on is critical. Nigeria must be saved for Nigerians. The ball is now in your court. Please start today to seek the eye of the Creator of Heaven and Earth on what your particular role shall be in this foreordained exercise. Seek first your personal redemption through knowledge. The desire to know the meaning of the truth of life is the only invitation the spirit of truth is waiting for to dine with you as it opens your eyes, ears and mind to the true reality of existence.

This writer shall continue to write letters of warning and appeal, as the spirit of truth shall direct. Further messages on this issue shall be more forthright on actions that need to be undertaken by you. The spirit of truth is moving today in Nigeria just as the prophets of old said it would do but not as the fundamentalists thought it would be. The mighty revelations are coming and every blessed heart shall be brought back to life. The glory of heaven is descending on Nigeria to heal us from all our tribulations and to settle in the temples designed for it, which is the heart of mankind.

Please reflect on the above and the spirit of the force, energy and power that governs our planet shall assist your understanding and preparation for the task ahead.

Yours truly,

In The Spirit of Truth

SAM ABBD ISRAEL.

A Concerned Nigerian