By Chris Ekpenyong

THERE may be a few miscreants whom either the society have failed to imprint the right character traits in their formative years, or a downright deviant involved in such crimes. Where such exist, they can be identified, isolated and put somewhere before

They constitute a nuisance to the larger population. In other words,  crime is an undesirable ingredient of the society, but not so insipid as to become epidemic as we observe today. It is therefore a fact we have to swallow with pains that what we see today in our country are products of prolonged injustice and acute economic deprivation.

A few years ago, United Arab Emirates (UAE) was one desert land that was hardly attractive to  any investor. Today, its commercial capital, Dubai, is a Mecca for tourists, a real estate delight and a super market for importers. Its sky is filled with impressive high rise buildings that may soon be today’s towers of Babel.

They completed the longest, and most modern, automatic driverless rail system in the world in year 2012; one that will be carrying an average of 1.2 million passengers daily. It is underground and fully air-conditioned. The Chinese rail system, another modern wonder, travels at almost 700 km per hour. That means it could get to Abuja from Uyo in less than 2 hours, and at a far cheaper rate than aero plane. President Goodluck Jonathan has just been able to revive our rail system after many years in the limbo.

It is travelling at about 50  km per hour, manned – and I am sure – without air conditioners. Ethiopia, an arid land, and without a drop of oil, way back 10 to 15 years ago, had their universities IT compliant, where each office occupied by a lecturer is served with a networked computer system.

Its air line is acquiring the 787 booing aircrafts for cross continental operations. Well, public universities in Nigeria are still busy struggling for convenient office space to bother about IT. Nigeria Airways is a cognomen for failure. We still have the British Telecom, whereas NITEL has become a putrefying carcass.