Alibaba makes sense all the time with his thought provoking posts on the state of the country. Read what he wrote below about the formerly beautiful National Arts Theater which used to be a tourist attraction in Lagos, Nigeria:
I met one of the guys, Parkinson, who went to Dubai to work on sounds in the new #DubaiOperaHouse... Here in London. And he said he has been in Dubai for the past 14 months... Working with a consortium on the acoustics of the halls. He showed me some pictures and told me he would be relocating to Dubai, from the Royal School of Music... And I thought to my self, we had the National theatre before they even started developing Dubai.
Where is the national theater now? Soon, the Dubai Opera House will be drawing tourists, concerts, awards, and the likes to Dubai and we would still be depending on crude oil prices.
The Opera House will soon be making annually, enough money to pay 4 states in the north for 3 years, without shaking. While the governors of those states are cancelling film villages and running to abuja to collect allocations that they will embezzle and chop... Yet be wondering what gave them cancer! Old as our national theater is, it has a futuristic design that just needs touch up to meet standards of the modern day. But no. Why invest in the arts when there is oil money? Mscheeeeew. Then out of the blues now, we will hear that there is a government sourced grant coming to resuscitate it from an international organization.
The party Hawks and political vultures will swoop in and divert it, case closed. When we ask why and where the money is, cronies will say witch hunting. 3 years later we will hear that the #dubaioperahouse has contributed $450b to the Emirates funds. And our leaders will be driving pass our national theater. Last year when I said we did not need to sell the national theater some guys thought I was joking. There are cinema halls, banquet halls, offices, complete carpentry facilities, tailoring and costumery... Pus the main bowl of the National Theater. The place can even pay its own salaries and still contribute to the federal purse. But no.
We are cursed with watching everything we own go to waste. Because there is oil money to share. Cocoa built Cocoa House. Point at something cocoa has built again. Point at anything that is built, across the country that is not because of oil. Except LAGOS... Abeg make I no go get headache
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