For updates check https://twitter.com/#!/jongambrellAP
The protests resume after people had a chance to restock on fuel and groceries over the weekend. Today is now Day 6 of the strike and our virtual school thru Edline. While some parents appreciate the teachers’ efforts to post lessons and assignments online, a few expressed concern about the students work load. I can imagine how stressful it can be for some to be stuck at home with all their kids and without nannies and helpers for an extended period. I am thankful to the parents who e-mail me, even to complain, because it shows they are supervising and helping their kids with the assignments. Some families have 3-5 kids in school, and more burden rests on parents with students in the elementary.
Some key comments from a recent article
But tackling the deeply and widely embedded corruption that lubricates all levels of Nigeria’s political system is a much tougher challenge in the long term.
“A really determined effort to stamp out corruption would itself be massively destabilising. It can only be done gradually,” Ellis said.
But until this happens, outbreaks of angry protests and violence are likely to recur in an energy-rich country that pumps 2 million barrels of oil a day with the help of oil majors like Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil, while its citizens face crumbling roads, abysmal public hospitals, chronic power shortages and an economy rigged in favour of powerful import oligarchs.
“Nigeria … has been ruled by the same cult of mediocrity – a deeply corrupt cabal – for at least forty years, recycling themselves in different guises and incarnations,” said famed Nigerian author Chinua Achebe in a recent interview with the Christian Science Monitor.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/01/15/uk-nigeria-fractures-idUKTRE80E0FP20120115
Hiraeth 