A WAKE-UP CALL TO NIGERIANS IN THE DIASPORA

AN OPEN LETTER TO NIGERIANS IN THE DIASPORA: A WAKE-UP CALL TO NIGERIANS IN THE DIASPORA:

Dear Fellow Nigerians in the Diaspora,

Introduction

Please forgive my impetuosity and the audacity to think that you have the 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 us are residing as aliens in foreign shores across the world. Since our national problems and work ethics have followed us even beyond our motherland. It is well known that embassies of responsible countries always deem it necessary to establish a procedure of keeping registers of their nationals in foreign lands. This writer prays for the day when Nigerian High Commissions and Embassies would command the trust and the 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 the planning of any direct action. Every 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 the selling and buying business. Therefore, the interest shown on the number of Nigerians abroad is not for the purpose of making financial gains. Although, I think the figure is appreciably large enough for the planning and execution of a social and spiritual revolution that can make a difference to a nation in despair. Don’t allow 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 Journey To The Unknown Regions Of The World

The story of how most Nigerians got out of Nigeria in the late 80s, early 90s and now in the millennium is a story that is laden with woes, tribulations, lamentations and share desperation. Thanks be to heaven, your courage and your single-mindedness of purpose paid off brilliantly well.

Today, you are a proud owner of many wonderful material things of life – properties in leafy areas of town, gleaming limousines, and every other amenities that make living a good life possible.  But no sooner have you settled in to this cosy lifestyle than you forgot completely those unlucky Nigerians – family, friends, relatives, and acquaintances – that you left behind at home. Some of us have even tried to burn the boat and have decided to turn their backs on anything that carries a Nigerian label. Except of course, for akpu, okporoko, crayfish, lafun, pounded yam, tuo shinkafa and other such delicacies that our taste buds still crave.

This writer is not blaming you for blind siding yourself from the ugly events in Nigeria. It is a fact that most of the news from Nigeria are often off-putting. No sane person seeks to hear sad news about loved ones and to which the recipient cannot do anything to alleviate their immediate suffering and problems.

The adoption of the necessary psychological defence mechanism of avoidance can therefore be clearly understood. Sane human beings will try to block out uncomfortable news in order to give one’s mind some semblance of respite. It is a normal human reaction to avoid ugliness and sadness as much as possible. It is only the sadists and the psychopaths that derive pleasures from the suffering of others. These are the people that would obsessively desire, crave and rejoice to hear and to see such depressing events that are happening in the fatherland. This writer therefore understands why most of you in the diaspora who are blessed with human compassion and who able to feel the pains of the suffering of others but have no means to provide relief, have turned your backs on Nigeria.

The Special Grace

However, this writer believes that Nigerians in the Diaspora are a special group that had the grace of heaven to leave Nigeria when we did. It is important at this stage to remind ourselves of the need to spend some quiet moments of wondering and pondering about our blessings and good fortune. Why did Heaven spared us from the misery and tribulations that are being inflicted on Nigerians at home by the Dishonourable Leaders of Nigeria.

We need to ask our individual self: Was I spared and chosen by grace for this special opportunity to enable me to indulge in a lascivious and hedonistic life style abroad? Or, Is there a higher purpose why Heaven opened the gates of The High Commissions and Embassies for me when others were denied entry visas and travel permits?

Fellow Nigerians in the Diaspora, this writer believes that there is a divine plan for the geographical land space called Nigeria. And that, you, who are now called aliens because of your residence in foreign lands, have a role to play in this plan. Again, I tend to strongly think that the purpose of your sojourns 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 having a residence abroad had provided me unique opportunities to research and to reflect on the questions of life. I realised that this kind of intellectually-enriching environment was abysmally rare to come by in Nigeria.

It reminded me of Abraham Maslow’s theory on the Hierarchy of Needs on human motivation. It states that unless human beings had fulfilled the lowest physiological needs of food, a person cannot aspire to the next higher need.

This is illustrated under the expanded seven-level Hierarchy of Human Needs — physiological, safety, belongingness/love, esteem, cognitive, aesthetic, and self-actualisation. From personal experience, it is obvious that Nigerians who are at home have got stuck at the lowest level, that is, the physiological 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 a disparaging remark. People ask sarcastically from those who are promoting intellectual endeavours, “Na book we go chop?”

It is unfortunate that the spirit of curiosity and the scholarly habit of reading and studying have been deliberately killed in Nigeria. And unless the inspiration of seeking and the noble habit of searching for knowledge and truth are revived and brought back, there is no other place Nigeria can go but down into existential disorder.

A Call For Moral Reflection

Dear Nigerian in the Diaspora, this is where you come in. 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 your 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 Euro. The inordinate Hustler’s culture that has taken over the socioeconomic system 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 purported 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 human existence rather than as a utility means for attaining a noble existence, is a perversion of the Truth of Life.

The noble existence 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 based on 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.

Dear Nigerian, this brief moral observation is mentioned to help you towards waking up from the illusion of your present materialistic -obsessed existence. This popular reality based on pure materialism is an illusion that has an in-built risks and a time limit. This reality powered by illusion might come to an end sooner than you think.

The Coming Great Revolution

Dear Nigerian, our world is moving fast into a revolutionary mode, which seems designed to reorient the values, beliefs and the political and economic 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, you need to make alternative 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 call asking you to face and engage with reality squarely and purposefully. But this alarm bell has to be sounded in order to minimise the ensuing suffering that will accompany such momentous phenomenon without a forewarning. To those who are forewarned and who hearkened to the warning, it shall be a smooth-sailing transition.

A Sojourner Must Not Forget

Dear Nigerian in the Diaspora, Nigeria is the only country that you can call your own. As a sojourner, either poor or rich, you are merely tolerated but you are never fully accepted with respect or love in your host country. Do not be fooled that you are a legitimate citizen because of the legal law. But the natural law does not support this claim. Nature dispersed and distributed the human races across the world and Africa remains the planet designed and designated as home for the Africans.

It is true that presently Nigeria and most countries in Africa are in political, economic, social and physical turmoil, turbulence and in flames. But Nigeria and Africa must and can still be rescued. The explorers and exploiters that sowed the seeds of ruination into the countries cannot be expected to rehabilitate Nigeria/Africa. It does not matter the quantity of the Foreign Investment Initiatives thrown at the continent. Nation building is the work of the patriots of a country not the profiteers. The task for the rescue operation, as designed by heaven is on the shoulders of Nigerians in the Diaspora. Every Nigerian outside Nigeria at this moment in time is a messiah, who has been specifically sent out in order to prepare for the redemption of your people.

A Call For Personal Redemption

Dear Friends, this is the end time of your easy life. The work of national redemption of Nigeria and Africa has begun. We have no time anymore at our disposal to waste. Every minute from now on is critical. Nigeria/Africa must be saved for Nigerians/Africans. The balls are now in our courts.

Please start today to seek the eye of the Creator of Heaven and Earth on what your particular role shall be in this foreordained spiritual and physical exercises. Seek first to gain and to secure 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, and to open 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/Africa and the entire world. Just as the prophets of old times said it would do. But not as the religious fundamentalists profanely imagined that it would be. The mighty revelations are coming and every blessed heart that is ready shall be brought back to life. The glory of heaven is descending on Nigeria to heal each of us from all our self inflicted woes and tribulations. The Spirit of Truth is ready to settle down 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 and every life on it shall assist us to gain understanding in our preparation for the task ahead.

Yours truly,

In The Spirit of Truth

SAM ABBD ISRAEL.

A Concerned Fellow Nigerian

(Updated: 13th February 2026)