A MUST READ:When will the poor Nigerian matter? by Japheth Omojuwa

The Nigerian conversation never runs out of options. There is always something attracting our attention as it should be. The unfortunate thing about the Nigerian conversation is that it has and may always suffer from the shackles of ethnicity and religion. Irrespective of what the issues are, everything around the date changes as soon as someone introduces religion into the conversation. Trust politicians, they understand this and have never failed to use it where logic and reason fail. Who then becomes the loser in this whole game? I know it'd not be the average politician because politicians don't lose, they just look for other ways to win.

The Nigerian people will always be limited by two fundamental things; our limited education across board and our common poverty. It is hard enough to move forward while being held behind by a largely illiterate society. When you combine the shackles of illiteracy with poverty what you get is a national disaster. This disaster unfortunately then continues to become the norm and eventually as it is in Nigeria today, what should be a disaster has become normal.

How do we rise above the dangers of being used with religious and ethnic based arguments? Who will speak to the mind of the majority who suddenly relegate their ability to think once someone mentions God's name? How do you let them know God created the mind and the heart so that men and women would engage same for thoughts? How do we think if we don't ask questions? There are many questions but we are not allowed to discuss any that has God's name or our ethnicity thrown into it. We have a long way to go. It is understandable for those who do not know to speak out of their ignorance, what is understandable about those who know who use their knowledge to suppress the freedom of others to know?

We need to take a look at societies that have evolved their civilization into one where religion and ethnicity though important are never allowed to get in the way of reason and logic. How can we move forward if most of us prefer to use age-long limiting agendas to hold us to the past? At what point do we begin to understand that an average politician is only interested in winning elections and not whether we as a people are better of. The biggest ethnic group in Nigeria is the Poverty group. The group defies religion and ethnicity. This group cuts across every region and language in Nigeria. How come we hardly consider the views and desires of Nigeria's people when we consider the much smaller divides of our conventional ethnicities and religions? When will the poor Nigerian matter?

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