Lagos Pipeline

Another pipeline explosion and scores dead. The pain of fathers, mothers, children, lost in such painful circumstances is heart wrenching. In a country so desperately poor, people choose to risk life and limb, some for about five thousand naira (about 20 pounds).

Just a few days before this explosion, a young friend I know gushed about a distant relative of theirs who had 'made it big' siphoning fuel from deliberately broken pipelines. She seemed quite pleased for him and added a comment alluding to the fact that, while Baba and his cohorts steal in Abuja, at least the said relative was getting his share of the national cake. I had to point out the irony of it all to her by letting her see there was nothing to celebrate from stealing. Putting it in such stark terms made her quite uncomfortable and I was glad. It's sad that the desperate poverty that surrounds us lead people to such activities. Celebrating illegal activities (419 inclusive) is so wrong and until we get back to who we were a few generations ago, abhorring stealing and esteeming not thieves, but those whose moral compass has remained steady, we contribute to a problem so ingrained, I despair for us as a country.