With the recent mind-boggling revelations in the oil and gas sector, its evident that western countries deliberately colluded with Nigerian leaders and elites to truncate the development in Nigeria over the last 6 decades.

While most of the Oil-rich nations made the most use of their Oil proceeds, Nigeria kept wallowing in poverty. I've been to most of the oil-rich nations and have seen the amazing infrastructure and development in place. My first visit to UAE in 2013 made me change my perspectives about the western countries in terms of development. The so-called western countries would be hasty to call Nigerians unprintable names whereas, they caused us a lot of harm, developmentally. I read of Gencore's illegal and criminal activities for decades in Nigeria over their interests in our Oil, flying billions of dollars to Nigeria to bribe government officials. These secret but heinous deals had been going on steadily but only the so-called leaders who were complicit knew about it. They'd say Nigeria is the country with the largest out of school children in the world, a country with fantastically corruption people, a country with the highest number of terrible diseases like HIV, TB, etc in the world pretending not to know the fact that they played a pivotal role in all these mess. The proceeds needed to develop Nigeria went into the pockets of a few individuals.

See our education sector, our leaders have practically destroyed it. They're saying come and study in the UK and earn a good degree to secure a good job. Even mushroom universities over there are so proud of their standard...standard built on falsehood and exploiting Nigeria's fortune. You spend a lot of money to attend their school and still be jobless after graduation. Many Nigerians who graduated from those unis are now working part-time as agents to those universities cos no jobs. While Gencore criminal activities lasted, the British Government looked the other way. No money of that value and volume could have left the shores of the UK without the government knowing about it. I remember a day I travelled to America. On getting to NY JFK, I had to declare the 15k USD cash I had on me cos it was above the 10K passengers were allowed to carry. In 2015 I travelled with my colleague to Germany. I had to split the money and gave him a part so we'd not forfeit it. It was just 21k euro. I wanted to use it to buy some accessories and work tools. I wanted to pay in cash over there and the salesman said sir, we can't take this amount of cash. I had to pay into their account at a DHL Deutch Post with charges cos their bank also rejected it cos to them, it was much. If I could face such hitches, then moving such a huge sum by Gencore must have received a nod of the British government.

Dubai made the impossible, possible. They built all their infrastructure with Oil proceeds...airport, seaport, tourism, infrastructure, etc. In fact, they dredged the ocean to the desert and built their seaport there...amazing. Has anyone been to Qarar before? Niger-Delta should have been a replica of these countries today, no thanks to bad leadership. Brunei nko? Amazing! I learnt Saudi Arabia is ike that too. With their tourist visa introduced to all, I can now visit and see things there in near future.

Nigeria hasn't done meaningful things with the oil proceeds rather, it has only benefited individuals who were mostly our leaders. The masses keep wallowing in poverty. They could hand you 10 years imprisonment or cut your limb as they do up north, over stealing one ram or 20k, but we've been seeing them steal billions and still be walking freely despite proofs. Sometime ago, I was reading about the Nigerian infrastructure. I was shocked when I realised that the Nigeria Port Authority in Lagos was built by the colonialists for transporting agric proceeds to their countries. 3rd Mainland Bridge was built with loan. We still couldn't pay back so, they had to write it off. Second Niger bridge is being built with a substantial sum recovered from abacha loots...had abacha been alive till today, that money is a gonner cos nobody would've traced it. Nigerians can now wonder how much our leaders still living must have stolen from the Oil wealth that could have benefited you and I. On retirement, they'd go and build Castle in their hometown and turn it into a small tourist site where politicians wouid go and seek endorsement...those who are supposed to be in life jail for impoverishment of Nigerians. What have we done with our proceeds from oil?

Westerners would come and drill our oil in complicity of our leaders and spill it on the ocean, causing environmental hazards. They promise cleaning up but once they bribe the government, they look the other way. What of gas flaring? No wonder there's so much people with respiratory issues in those oil-rich regions today. Asthma is so prevalent in a town I wouldn't mention its name due to the environmental pollution caused by oil activities in the area. Our leaders don't care.

Nigerians, it's in your hands. 2023 is around the corner. Think deeply, I mean very deeply, before you cast that vote. The decision we make will either make or mar us. God bless Nigeria.