End-of-Ramadan Wishes

By Farooq Kperogi Twitter: @farooqkperogi The Ramadan fast whose end we’re celebrating today symbolizes self-denial in the service of a high...

By Farooq Kperogi

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

The Ramadan fast whose end we’re celebrating today symbolizes self-denial in the service of a higher ideal. 

Incidentally, it comes a day after the International Workers’ Day, which celebrates the sacrifices of workers. 

I hope Nigerian rulers will use the opportunity of this solemn day to reflect on how their incapacity for self-denial is almost singularly responsible for the want and deprivation that workers suffer.

To echo Mahatma Ghandi, Nigeria has enough for everyone’s need but not enough for the political elites’ greed. 

It’s the walloping subsidies that pay for the hedonism of Nigeria’s notoriously self-indulgent elite that are responsible for the country’s arrested development.

I wish the Nigerian (Muslim) elite will internalize the self-sacrifice that the Ramadan fast teaches and understand that everyday people matter, too.

Eid Mubarak. Bese ka won. Barka da sallah. Aku odun; Aku iyedun.