Sweet banana    Paradise,     January 28, 2015

Hallo Mr. Alexander, you began your essay with a litany of ills that plague Nigeria. I would like to direct your attention to a book by Mrs. Wangari Mathai titled THE CHALLENGE OF AFRICA. You also mentioned that by reversing the wind of change in Nigeria, the leaders have to be versed in their roles. I would disagree that it is not the leaders that is the root cause of Nigeria's illness.The people reflect their leaders and as such an honest, inside - out recognition of our contribution to our current Nigeria is the first acknowledgement of our collective evil.

Afterall, the apple doesn't fall far away from the apple tree. After this painful confession, the work of redemption can begin. I did not get any concrete solution to erecting a new Nigeria. All I could gather was rhetoric. You bear a Greek name. So tell me Mr. Alexander, how do we erect an authentic Nigeria with foreign identities that seam into our way of life? A total overhaul of everything disindigenous starting from our names and not some experimental lesson on civilization is the way. A people without an identity cannot OWN anything let alone their voices and a NIGERIA. That is truly THE CHALLENGE OF AFRICA - a lost sense of identity.

Today it is Hosanna. Tomorrow it is Crucify. Check the stats. We bear Jewish, Greek, Irish, Arabic, English, Roman, German, Dutch names. Any wonder why we are schizophrenic? These subtle, invisible foreign adoptions have profound, invincible effects on the astral environment of man. In fact it seizes generations yet on born to an order of unfathomable magnitude.

So dear Mr. Alexander, until we learn to become indigenous in the truest sense of the word, which means to be original in our principles and convictions, to be natural as our predestination willed, all we are doing is writing our requiems---- in German or may be Finnish.