Have You Noticed?

This yeye British government...they are such two-faced cowards. Haven't you noticed that when they want to do something bad they start with something good first. Anyway let me break it down for you. First it was global warming. Do you remember how they started? They started by encouraging people to go green cos it's ethical to be kind to the environment. They tried to convince people that they are doing it to safe-guard the environment for the future generation and bladibla...Then the rhetoric changed to green tax? Green tax? What da heck does that mean? They added £10 to short haul flights and £20 to long hauls. They increased road tax on gaz guzzlers and home information pack was introduced for 4-bedroom homes, then now to 3 bedrooms and its gonna spread to all homes before the end of the year. People are now penalised for not being 'mindful' of the environment. All of these measures generating millions if not billions of pounds in revenue for the government. And what do they use it for? To house single mothers who deliberately fall out of school to get pregnant (issue for another day).

What is the object of my rants today...immigration. You guys will be like I've come again but yes I will talk...the headlines on British newspapers today is IMMIGRATION DOES NOT BRING ANY BENEFIT TO BRITAIN. I am sure I dont need to start dissecting how wrong that headline is. My issue is not whether immigration has been beneficial to Britain or not, my issue is that the British government is the most spineless, lip-service govt that I know. What will be so wrong in them admitting that immigration has been beneficial to our country but we were too stupid to know when to stop. I am in immigrant in Britain but even I look around me and see how immigration is crippling the same economy it helped build because the British government were either too stupid or too greedy to do something about it. Now that they're ready to do something about it they feel smearing the hardworking immigrants who have worked to put this country on the financial power map is the right way to go about it. For the shallow minded people that make up a third of the indigenous British people, what they'll do now is regard immigrants with a scornful and contemptuous look on their faces without knowing the full facts. People who don't live in this country don't have a good idea how unenlightened indigenous British people are. A large chunk of the them dont have minds of their own and its the Sun newspaper who makes up their mind for them (chei...have you seen those page 3 girls?).

Anyways back to business. I guess the only good things about this recent development is that the Nigerians who felt this was home before can now start to return home to do something better. Hopefully we can fix Nija's problems together and live a better life out there cos trust me this place is turning very wack! And those who are outside the gate peeking in, spending all their hard earned money all in the name of coming to the UK may have a re-think. British economy is sinking and they want to blame it on the immigrants who built their country for them...I siddon look.

When Shall It All End?

I look forward when my trepidation about being at the airport will end. Its funny how I should tremble at the prospect of being in a airport after all trepidation is what innocent Iraqis feel when their beloved country is bombed every minute by both friend and foe and my situation is nothing compared to theirs. Well dont they say different strokes for different folk? I cling to it. 

There is a long queue of people; short, white, black, fat, thin, tall and there's me with that sullen face and heavy bag and a heart pounding so loud it jolts the person next to me. Gosh, its only a queue to passport control so what's my problem? My problem is my green passport. The fact that it makes me suffer some sort of discrimination that is not often meted out to holders of other coloured passports unless of course of you are of Pakistani origin or your name has something to do with Islam. In a world ruled by the likes of the powerful Americans, terrorism is only the senior brother to fraud and document falsification. 

I say am proud to be Nigerian only when the likes of Tuface wins MTV award or Samuel Peter wins the WBC heavy weight but most times I am ashamed to be Nigerian and dont find it particularly flattering when I have to flash my green passport at immigration control. In fact in the long queue I have to hide my passport until I get to the desk. Call it paranoia but I actually could save myself a lot of scornful looks by that single act. On getting to the desk, am asked all sorts of stupid questions they already have answers to as if they were waiting for you to just tell one lie and they send you packing. When they've been unsuccessful at ruffling your feathers they deliberately keep you waiting for God knows what. On one occasion they told me that they kept me waiting cos some idiots had falsified the Nigerian passport through the Nigerian Immigration Service and issued it to unknowing Nigerians. So they got a directive to check every passport to make sure its not one of the fake ones. I've had my passport 6 years prior to this time and one glance at how battered it is, you don't need some mind numbing experiment to tell that this passport is not one of the forged ones. Yet they made me wait 45 minutes after a long flight of 6 hours. You sit there shuffling your toes, biting the corner of your lips and people stare at you with that she's-a-criminal look plastered all over their faces.

And what's the cause of all this acrimony? I bet as Nigerians we all know so I dont need to go down that route. However my fifty cent is that before you falsify that document or embark upon fleecing people off their hard earned money, think of the millions of Nigerians whom you are criminalising in the process. There are Nigerians all over the world especially in the West who are doing great things but have minute media coverage but every so often the under hand antics of a few Nigerians get ample coverage. As we all know, bad news travel faster. I carry my cross as a Nigerian but indeed its a big burden upon my feeble back...