President Goodluck Jonathan has by the reception and honour he bestowed on the victorious Paralympic athletes who did Nigeria proud at the just concluded London Paralympic Games, empowered these athletes.

How many of us have really thought deeply about the words of the old anthem:“Nigeria, We hail thee, our own dear native land, though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand.

Hate us, love us, one thing is for sure; you can’t ignore us! Even if all you do is to stop and marvel at some of the more bizarre and absolutely mind boggling things we get up to as Nigerians.

It is true that there is no country in the world without its peculiar problems. Even among the politically stable states like USA and Great Britain, there are problems of how to maintain a high standard of living and to remain prosperous. In the United States for example, unemployment rate at 8% has surpassed a tolerable rate of 3%, while in Britain, the cost of living has risen with the introduction of harsh economic measures.

([email protected]) is the most vociferous reader of this column. Highly opinionated, unrepentantly blunt and almost gleefully unsychophantic, he takes his democratic and human rights very seriously indeed and flatly refuses to be as bovinely philosophical as most of us are about the multiple disappointments that the average Nigerian faces.