Let us do some simple arithmetical computation here. Again we have a little problem, since the census figures of Nigeria are all suspect it will be difficult to share this debt per head accurately. Nevertheless, let us assume that the population of Nigeria is 100million. If the figure of N2,512,560million is shared among the 100million Nigerians regardless of age or sex, then each Nigerian is owing N25,125.60. In other words each household of four people has a debt burden of about N100,502.40 hanging on their neck as at January 1998. To stretch the analysis further, each community or village with a population of 5,000 is facing a whopping debt of One hundred and twenty-five million, six hundred and twenty-eight thousand Naira (N125,628,000.00). This is the reality of the national economic situation that Nigerians are being shielded from knowing by their kleptomaniac leaders. Nigeria as a country is under the bondage of the super-powers of the world. Your life, my life, the lives of our children and the lives of our posterity yet to be born have since been bonded to the sharks and wolves in the financial and banking industry of London, New York, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Rome and Tokyo.

Have you forgotten what happened to a debtor, even in the local history of our ancestors? A debtor is a slave. A debtor has nothing except what the creditor allows him. His home, wife, children, farmland etc. are no longer his. Everything a debtor owned before falling in to debt belongs to the creditor unless he pays what he owes as at the date due. This is how a good proportion of the ancestors of Africans in Diaspora became slaves. Nigeria has lost everything. It is high time Nigerians woke up to this reality. The message of this book is aimed at helping Nigerians to face reality in order for them to stop living in fools’ paradise. It is time Nigerians saw the so-called leaders for what they really are. They are incorrigible robbers and charlatans - nothing more nothing less.

It is unfortunate that history has been allowed to repeat itself again. It is common for revisionist and reparation crusaders to cast aspersions at the white slave traders while cleverly forgetting that the black man was the counterpart trader. If there is no seller there will never be a buyer. In those days, all the Africans taken away as slaves were led into the net of the foreign traders by the ‘enlightened and forward-looking’ men of their societies. These were the men who had earlier travelled away from their villages to the shores of their country where they met and were befriended by white slave traders. The white traders showed them a quicker method of striking it rich. They were the ones who went back to their villages to lure their old friends, relations and other acquaintances into slavery. These men became wealthy businessmen of their generation and the mover and shaker of their societies.

Now at the end of the twentieth century, it is obvious that for the international commercial banks, the investment banks, the financial markets of derivatives - futures, swaps and options - in New York and London to make their annual profits from the Third World, they would need local counterparts who understand the social, economic and political terrain. In Nigeria, these local counterparts are found among lawyers, bankers and accountants who are supported by the civil servants under the grand patron of the prodigal sons and political gangsters. These are the ‘professionals’ who sold the Nigeria-state to the dogs. These are the professionals led astray by their white counterparts who used old boys’ ties and college fraternities to pave the way for unprecedented lucrative business partnerships. They lured the local counterparts by capitalising on the weakness in human nature and by ‘raising their esteem for things of no value.’ Looking at the outcome of these business partnerships after 38 years, it is obvious that the Nigerian professionals were bereft of true wisdom. Although, they possessed academic laurels but since they lacked true knowledge, they fell like pack of cards to the clever machinations of their white partners.

To illustrate the above assertion, it was rumoured that during the Yakubu Gowon Administration a German construction firm was introduced to Nigeria and that the Nigerian lawyer who handled the legal papers became an instant millionaire. This example is not unique. This is the pattern of all international businesses in Africa. The operational philosophy was and still is, set one of the fools up for life and he will deliver his country on a platter of gold. This ideology is foolproof. It has never failed since the white man ventured into the ‘dark continent’.

In other words, these leaders, either political or professional, have never had the interest of Nigeria at heart. All their inglorious services to the fatherland have been devoted to satisfying their white masters for the price of pottage - Mercedes Benz cars, foreign accounts in Europe, holidays and shopping in Europe and a host of other mundane privileges. For this selfish interest the so-called leaders of the people have sold the whole lot of their countries. Nigeria is now under enhanced surveillance of IMF. This means that IMF must approve our going out and our coming in. IMF must covertly or overtly approve the prices of our commodities, the exchange rate of our currencies, the markets for our trades, and all international financial transactions.

The increase of pump price of oil in Nigeria in 1993 from 70kobo to N5.00 revealed the insanity of Nigerian experts who act as the megaphones of the international creditors. I am not an economist but I always try to stay on the side of common sense. I have since discovered that common sense can never fail regardless of the new theories in vogue. I was in the Nigerian Civil Service with responsibility for research and planning of a government department in 1993. When the oil price was increased in November, two months to the end of a fiscal year, my department that had a budget of N100,000 for the fuelling of vehicles and had already spent almost 80 percent of the budget discovered that it needed another N100,000 to see us through the year. The question any sane person must ask was, what kind of expert would decide to destabilise the whole government plans and budget with a single fling of a ‘Davidian’ economic stone?

By that reckless policy decision, the last two months of 1993 turned into a national chaos. Every activity of government came to a stand still. Staff could not afford transport cost and so lateness and absenteeism was the order of the day. The clerical and secretariat staff unilaterally and ingeniously designed a shift duty roster among themselves whereby they swap alternate days when to appear in the office. The senior staffs were not left out. The few that still had personal cars were forced to abandon them. As the story was in the public sector it was repeated in the private sector also. Every owner of tradable commodities embarked on price reviews - transport, food items, house rents, clothing, drugs, school fees, medical fees, accountant and auditor’s fees, and even bride prices. I have never seen any government in the world that could be as irresponsible to the extent of instituting such a policy of chaos except the government is under coercion

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It is quite clear that since 1984, the Nigerian so-called Federal Government has had guns pointed at its head. It is obvious there is a measure of force and ‘whitemail’ being applied by the creditors. The government was definitely being forced to adopt policies, which everyone with common sense knows will be injurious to the social health of a nation. Quite frankly, the prodigal sons with soiled hands and fat foreign accounts had no option but to comply or else their ‘kleptocracy’ would be exposed. This is the reality of the fundamentals on which the Nigeria’s economic woes were crafted. This is the truth Nigerians as individuals must learn about and grapple with. This is the truth that should command the greatest attention from every living Nigeria and every black man in the world.

Hear what Ibrahim Babangida said in an interview he gave to The Guardian of UK and reported on 17 July 1998. He told his interviewer that the ideal president of Nigeria would "have an excellent understanding of our political history and be able to speak for all Nigerians…. He would be commander-in-chief of the army, so would have to have an understanding of the military - so we could do business with him."¹⁷ You better believe it, this is the voice of the western powers in Nigeria. The accursed members of the military institution have become so conceited in their stolen power and privileges that they now believe they are special Nigerians who must be treated with kid gloves or else…. What kind of business must the President of Nigeria be doing with the renegade military that could not be done with other Nigerians? What is so special about the military that they now require and even demand as a matter of right special privileges or ‘businesses’ in all state affairs?

The winner of this deadly game are the western powers who are determined not to give an inch of economic freedom to Africans because by their ruthless calculation, their kind of world needs the services of the poor to be a meaningful world. This is the word of Bernard de Mandeville in The Fable of the Bees, "From what has been said, it is manifest, that, in a free nation, where slaves are not allowed of, the surest wealth consisted in multitude of laborious poor … without them there could be no enjoyment, and no product of any country could be valuable."¹⁸ It is true that after the Second World War the Europeans either willingly or under duress were required to abandon their attempt to dominate the rest of the world politically. But as it is so far, they have no plan to forgo the economic domination.

From the list of creditors quoted above, Britain that took the lion share of the Nigerian cake, as the official banker and financier of the Federal Government of Nigeria through Shell, also top the list of Nigeria’s creditors. Germany, the official and undisputed Works Manager of Nigeria because of its total control of all the major road construction and of course the whole root, stem and branches of the Abuja Federal Capital Territory’s civil and construction works came second. Japan, the supplier of telecommunication equipment and luxury motorcars came third. While France, which was commissioned personally and privately by Babangida as Chief of Army Staff in 1985, to manage and to do with as it pleases, the budget of the Ministry of Defence, came fourth. USA the biggest purchaser of Nigerian oil that should owe Nigeria is also on the list of creditors. Italy and The Netherlands are not left out of the Nigeria’s gravy train.

Can anyone blame them? Even the Christian Bible said something about, out of the hands of those that have none shall be taken to give to those who have. This is simply saying that if you have a gift or a talent and you refused to make use of it, those that know what to do with it cannot be blamed if they take it out of your hands. Nigeria has a rich abundant gift of natural wealth bestowed on her for a divine purpose. Due to ignorance and the fact that a few foolish so-called leaders have dominated and fouled the civic and political space of Nigeria, the majority God-loving people of Nigeria have been frightened off the political stage. The true leaders have therefore refused to come out of their shells to perform the task of genuine national development. It is obvious that Nigerians are not the winners of this international game. It is a game, a real casino outfit. Nigeria is just one of the chips on the betting table of London and New York Stock Markets, the celebrated Global Cathedrals of the god of Mammon.

This hideous racially motivated system needs servants if not slaves. It needs feudal or monarchical kings and barons and therefore labourers or serfs to service them. It is a rich-poor divide. The rich jealously guide the gulf between themselves and the poor to the extent that the ladders used for climbing to the top are quickly removed and destroyed by all those who escape to the rich quarters. The rich quarters have limited provisions; it is therefore impossible or share suicidal folly to allow all the poor to cross the line.

Talking about intelligence reports, Nigerians should understand that the business of owning an empire by subjugating other peoples and of being materially and politically great is not a casual business. It is a serious business and anything goes in order to achieve the aim and objective of this business of greatness. For instance, the secret service agents belonging to the western powers infiltrated all the important institutions in Nigeria that were established by the colonial powers for the grooming of Nigerian so-called leaders. For example, the Nigerian Defence Academy is heavily manned by the British intelligence services. This enables Britain to develop and manage assiduously dossiers on every promising Nigerian soldier as a matter of grave importance. There is no soldier that passes through the NDA who escapes a psychological overview and study. Are we talking fables here? Think again fellow Nigerians. If almost all the members of the present Labour cabinet were on the surveillance file of MI5 because the officers of the Crown suspected they have leftist tendencies, what about the slaves in the Crown’s vineyard. Can they be left alone to run riot?

However, we have cause to be hopeful and should not be unnecessarily despondent. If Jack Straw, the Secretary of State for Home Affairs in Britain along with his comrades can escape the net of the Crown’s secret police and hard-men, then Nigeria and indeed Africa shall also escape sooner than later. It is not that the Crown’s secret service hirelings are becoming less efficient in the performances of their patriotic duties it is just the simple matter of a divine reality that this is the end of an era of another god-forsaken human empire. It is not uncommon for godless men to dream big dreams of vanity, one of which is, to establish an empire bigger than any that had ever been created on earth through a ruthless bloodletting expedition on their fellow human beings. From the empires of the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Greek of Macedonia, the Romans, the Ottomans, and the Mongols and down to the British, the methods adopted by these godless empire builders have always being the same. It is couched under a deliberate physical and psychological torture, murder and intimidation of their neighbours both near and far.

The idea of an empire often develops maliciously through the evil seed of envy and avarice of the wealth and industry of one’s neighbours. The dreamer comes for help from his kind and hardworking neighbour, which is often given. Since the dreamer is full of the seeds of greed, he would not be contented with little but would desire to take everything his neighbour owns. In no time his neighbour is killed and his possessions are taken over. The aroma and the taste of this first acquisition would spur the empire builder on and would reason thus: why work if one can compel others to work or if one can seize the product of other people’s labour forcefully during the harvest seasons.

The games of empire building from time memorial have entailed the robbing of others of both the physical material property and the spiritual property - freedom. In every case headhunting (the killing and maiming of the innocents), pillaging, looting, robbing, raping, highhanded cruelty and vicious wickedness preceded the empire-building project. This procedure even continues after the empire has been built as it is the only rational means for holding the empire together by the succeeding generations of heinous murderers and dishonourable mercenaries who now go by the honourable title of His/Her Royal Majesty or Highnesses surrounded by a courtier of ‘Honourable Nobles’.

Nigerians should not think for a moment that the end of the British Empire means the end of all empires. As a matter of fact, there are new empires under formation as we write. These new empires are no longer the type that lay emphasis on the physical ownership of land territories but rather on the economic domination of peoples regardless of where they are based on planet earth. The new name of the modern empire is Trading Multinationals or Globalisation. These new empires are more ruthless but they are very discreet and almost invisible as they go about their lucrative businesses offering bribes, inducements and kickbacks, or laundering illegal money, or murdering officials of government or their own staffs that tried to blow the whistle, and using ‘whitemail’ and industrial espionages as applicable.

The modern empire owners, who have no particular fixed address and possess multiple nationalities, adopt a remote control or the modernised Indirect Rule strategy as the operational tools for the despoliation of nations and for illicit wealth acquisitions. We have mentioned this bit about empires in order to warn Nigerians that just because the British empire and its American-dream offshoot are on the rubbish heap of history, it does not mean that they should be complacent with the task of freeing themselves in truth, in spirit and in deeds for ever from even the new pretenders that are juggling for the artefacts of the dead empire.

For those who are still taking the issues of empire and the atrocities of secret agents slightly, how can they explain the complete fencing around of a country for intelligence report gathering on innocent people living on their ancestral lands and who meant no harm to no one except the natural desire to live their lives in peace? Can we ask, what are the intentions of those who engaged in such shady business of the night? Are they the types of people who meant peace or war? For over two hundred years these "friends’ of Nigeria have trained firearms and other dangerous weapons on Nigeria in the name of international peace and trade, free market, economic development, democratisation, empowerment etc. Is that really true? Haven’t they stretched this racial superiority and the domination of other ‘lesser races’ too far?

This writer thinks they have gone rather too far and hereby calls on like-minded Nigerians to rise up in one accord to tell the British Crown and her allies to please ‘get their tanks off our lawn’. We must be prepared to declare in no small terms that Nigeria is no longer available for rape and pillage. Enough is enough.