Travelogue: Israel's Monumental Ahievements Vis A Vis A Nigerian Fiasco/Embarrassment

Praying in a synagogue at Tiberias

Having been keeping you abreast with my pilgrimage which I dwell largely on its spiritual significance, it think is appropriate at this juncture to look at the human angle of the pilgrimage for the purpose of highlighting the feat achieved by this small nation inhabited by only 8.5m people in comparison to our bizarre failures.

While touring, we were briefed on how the sea of Galilee, which covers a distance of only 200km is the life wire of the country as it provides drinking water for the entire nation and it is the water that the country uses to produce its food needs and has become one of the food baskets of the world. Currently Israel is the world's largest producer of fruits.

If you now compare this monumental achievements of Israel using only this small source of with our abundant water sources in the light of our abysmal performances in agriculture and domestic consumption of water, you will definitely conclude that either we are mentally and physically sick or we are a cursed people.

The length of river of Niger which originates from Futa Jalon in Guinea is 4200km with about 2000km of river flowing inside Nigeria. River Benue which originates from Ngundare region of Cameroon is about 1600km, with about 1000km running inside of Nigeria. River Gongola which originates from Shere hills in plateau state is about 600km. In fact there are few states in Nigeria that cannot boast of a River of either the same size of the Sea of Galilee or bigger. But what is the story today in utilization of these abundant water resources. Most of our cities are not without potable water and where available is largely provided through private efforts as bores holes are sank by either individuals, community efforts or through the efforts of private companies. The agricultural sectors is most pathetic. Despite being blessed with abundant rainfall and water from rivers, lakes and sea, our agriculture is at the most primitive stage which can't even feed the nation not to talk of exporting to generate enough resources to our beleaguered nation. Because the Israelis due to climate change which David Trump described as a hoax is loosing water from the Sea of Galilee (The depth of the sea has been reduced from 40 metres to 38 metres),it has been making concerted efforts to mitigate this short fall. The Israelis have resorted to desalination i.e. removing the salt from Mediterranean sea water for human consumption. Similarly it has been purifying sewage water used in the farm lands. One of the agricultural experts who came to help Adamawa state during the regime of Nyako in boosting the agriculture of state was quoted as saying that if the Israelis had a river the size like Benue, they could feed the whole world. 

When some of my Christians brethren say we can't compare ourselves with Israel because God has blessed through Abraham( Ibrahim), they failed to read the last line of verse 3 of Genesis chapter 12 which states that.. " And in you ( Abraham) all the families of the earth shall be blessed." So we are part of the earth and therefore we are enjoying Abrahamic blessing, In fact we are more blessed than Israel and these are empirical evidences.

We have more than 1000% of water resources compared to Israel. We have oil, they don't have. We have solid minerals ie gold, diamond, Uranium. Iron ore etc, they Israelis don't have. If you average our rainfall nation wide, we have more than 100% than that of Israel ( average annual rainfall for Lagos is 1693mm compared to Jerusalem 590mm). What they have probably more than us in the mental resources and that is not because we are not brainy but because of sheer mental laziness and dishonesty.

Folks having given you the comparison is now not left for you to judge whether our case is a fiasco or embarrassment or both. Or for want of what to add is it a case of a cursed or pathological mental and physical laziness. Over to you the Facebook family.

By Fenny J Fwas