Below are the reflections of Dr Tunji Braithwaite, 82, lawyer, Second Republic Presidential candidate and founder of the Nigerian Advance Party

They tell us we are now the biggest country in
Africa but that is only on paper. It does not reflect in the lives of the masses of this country. We have made about 10 to 15 billionaires in dollars and 300 millionaires in dollars but look at the state of infrastructure in this country. There are no infrastructures. Food is expensive to get to the table of an average man. I am not talking about the illiterates. The average young man who is educated up to graduate level is struggling.
In Lagos, they should have done mono rail, potable water, etc. Your car, which you struggled to buy second hand will soon be destroyed by the road. You have two to three children and you pay their fees through your nose. You leave your home at 5.30 am and you don’t get home until 10 pm. These do not reflect the so called biggest economy in Africa. And yet the money is there but it has been siphoned abroad. They become governors with N500,000 but within two years they are counting their millions in dollars.

So at 55, what are we celebrating? That is why people like us say there should be some form of revolution to recover the money and wealth and use it to build infrastructure and basic necessities of life that will be accessible to every Nigerian.

Nigerians are the most resourceful people in Africa. Our people go abroad and endow other places – USA, European Union, Arab world, etc. Our doctors and engineers are the best. They try to come home but the atmosphere is not there. One has to admire some of you our children, who with your high education still stick out here.

Dr. Tunji Braithwaite

There has to be a revolution. If President Muhammadu Buhari fails to carry out a revolution and there is not much time left, a revolution will sweep him ou.

Where Nigeria went wrong
When I graduated from London and came home in 1961 as a young graduate, things were looking very promising but within two years, it was like dashed expectations. We had British passports. We could have become British citizens but we threw away the British passports, proud that we have our own nation.

Where we went wrong is the fact that the British were not interested in granting proper and full independence. They were only interested in granting nominal independence. So they looked out and encouraged some western appetite and made sure that Nigerian citizens with zeal for nationalisation did not get positions of power. They wanted morons and sycophants fed with Western appetite to be in control and they played one region against the other.

So, Nigerian leaders, even the so called founding fathers, were busy fighting among themselves, which the British fuelled. Meanwhile oil was discovered and that became the bane of the country.

The British felt they made a mistake in yielding power. Again, they played the people against themselves. Look at the way Saro-Wiwa was killed. And they made sure that all the wealth are brought to their vault, which they used to develop their country.

Again, the mindset of the average of masses, the subservience trickled down to them. They would worship anybody in government. Even if they see that the man was a pauper before he came to government they still worship him. Even when he tramples on their rights, they still worship him. So nobody is going to set them free, that is why things are going worse.

They used the military as well. The military was moulded in the robotic way that was why Fela called them robots, zombie. They moulded their minds to lord it over their people.

Look at the way Ironsi sabotaged the revolutionary trend of those first boys that carried out the first coup – Nzeogwu, Ifeajuna, etc. their coup was very nationalistic. Ironsi, who was trained by the British was the one who was used by the British to sabotage it, that led to the second coup, the civil war, etc.

Couldn’t Nigerians have found a way out of this 55 years after?
How, when their leaders are suffering from neo-colonialism and their appetite have been fuelled by the British to make money at all cost? When their leaders take their money abroad and buy properties, how? And then the so called elites are irresponsible. They don’t care. That was why the motto of NAP is take your destiny in your hands and eliminate these rats, mosquitoes and cockroaches.

I am getting on in life. I am now 82. sometimes I felt what we stand for have not been realised but other times I feel fulfilled when I see and hear what some of our young people even those in The Diaspora are doing and saying, I am sure that soon they will deal with the irresponsible elites.

Recently, I read and also saw on television, secondary school children marching to the Government House in one of the South-West states to protest the non-payment of the salaries and pensions of their parents. That is beautiful. For long, fear has held certain people down. Now, they are suffering. Can you imagine a government not paying civil servants for seven months? Can you imagine anything more cruel?

Way forward for Nigeria
Let us encourage President Buhari to undertake a revolution. Let us encourage him to seriously go after corruption. Security should be on the priority list. Because of the failure of security that was why a man like Chief Olu Falae could be kidnapped. But then, you have to trace it again to corruption. If we give President Buhari some time and he is serious about dealing with corruption no matter whose ox is gored or highly placed, Nigerians will support him. If he failed in that, there will be revolution, and he has not got much time; the revolution that brought him to power will take him out.