Okay, I've got a few minutes in between workshop sessions, so I better drop a few lines. By the time I arrived in Venice last night, under a full moon, I had travelled by all the major means of transportation available to man, bar space travel. From a meeting outside London at noon, I'd taken a taxi to the train station, caught a train to London, got the tube to the airport, flown to Venice and taken the Alilaguna (waterbus) to a stop 5 minutes from the hotel where we're staying- we walked the last 5 minutes....
The first workshop sessions this morning have been interesting and there have been lots of opportunities for "networking", so it's all good. Apparently I got in too late last night to join in the semi-drunken revelry around the poolside that passed for the culmination of the welcome party...no great loss it seems, especially as I look at some of my bleary eyed colleagues struggling to stay awake this morning....
On CNN this morning, news of a pipeline explosion in which over 150 people were supposed to have died. The reporter had on a Mr Fagbemi (I think) from Amensty International, who spoke about the corruption that pervaded all levels of government. She tried to restrict it to the state and local government levels,quoting some unsourced statistic that 30 out of 36 state governors were corrupt but he insisted, rightly that all levels of government were involved-including the federal. Why the international press and community are taken in by Obasanjo's spurious anti-corruption war is still a mystery....Some questions I would like answered are- "Which companies are responsible for importing refined petroleum into Nigeria? Who are their shareholders? How do they get the authority to import? Is it through a transparent process?" I challenge CNN to provide us with this information...
In spite of attempts to lay the blame on criminals and conniving villagers for the explosion, the guy from Amnesty went on to lay part of the blame on the oil companies who have over the years refused to adopt what is standard practice for them in other parts of the world-burying their pipelines underground........ a practice clearly outlined and condemned in The Next Gulf:London Washington and the Oil Conflict in Nigeria....... I suppose Nigerian lives are cheap, and the Nigerian environment not worth protecting. So in collusion with their partners in the Nigerian government, they continue their rape of Nigeria's resources, while ordinary Nigerians pay the ultimate price....
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Hallo! Just coming across your blogspot. I was in Venice in January and it was my first time in the water taxis! I stayed on the Lido.
And you are very right:
"Obasanjo's spurious anti-corruption war is still a mystery."
whatever misgivings, disappointment and disillusionment we may have against the Nigerian nation and its past history, we need to temper emotions wt level-headedness. while it is easy to get carried away in our collective anger and angst, we still have to maintain our sanity no matter how hard that may seem, and in doing that we have to realise that blanket blame sharing will not advance us any further than general apathy . It is in this light that i feel we should learn not to turn away the baby wt the dirty water, no matter how strong the urge is for us to do just that. President Obasanjo for all credit has really done a lot for us in this nation in the past 7 yrs and deserves nothing but our immense gratitude and appreciation.The risk we take in not accepting this obvious fact is that it becomes hard for subsequent public office holders to take the path of honor and self-less service seeing how much appreciation those who earlier took the path (in a country where crass indiscipline and corruption knows no shame)got for their troubles. We really need to start honouring our REAL heroes.
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