Dears, While this well-known (I hope) story is from Nigeria, it could very well be relevant to Goa.
Have fun jc the reference url is at the foot of this post. == Swindlers, Church of Painted Breast and other stories Armed robbers have held and continued to hold the nation hostage. Some civil servants are sharing the common wealth in the name of Christmas bonus. Some politicians use human beings for rituals in order to get power and loot the treasury. Many contractors collect billions of naira to fix our poor infrastructure, but pocket the money and do nothing. The petrol attendant manipulates the pumping machine to short-change the unwary customer. The entire system is rotten. We have been oscillating between one scandal and the other: Ettehgate; Siemens scandal; Wilbros scam; national ID card swindle; power sector scam; Christmas bonus loot and so on. There seems to be no end in sight. No leader seems to believe in Nigeria. The mantra appears to be, grab as much loot as possible as there may not be any Nigeria tomorrow. We are undoing ourselves and nobody else. This is why almost every young Nigerian wants to run away from the country. I met a young man recently at Imo Concord Hotel, Owerri. He desperately wanted to leave Nigeria. He asked me how much it would cost him to travel to London to either work or do business. My advice that he should continue with his work at the hotel fell on deaf ears. He enthused that he had just got his passport (as if passport is all that is needed to travel abroad) and his parents really wanted him to leave Nigeria. In 2007 alone, the United States Department of Homeland Security reportedly deported about 50,000 Nigerians from that country. Nigerians face humiliating treatment from other Western nations. Some are serving various jail sentences abroad. And Foreign Affairs Minister, Ojo Maduekwe, thinks he is doing them a favour by asking them to serve their jail terms at home. The minister complained last week that Nigerian prisoners abroad had rejected his come-and-complete-your-sentences-at-home application. According to him, Nigeria will demand respect, fair and lawful treatment for her citizens even when they allegedly commit crimes. Maduekwe gladdened my heart when he was quoted to have said, ”To create the kind of loyalty that Nigeria deserves, we must go back and ensure effective and responsible governance that touches on the lives of the people.” Until leaders at all levels imbibe this exhortation, Nigerians will continue to troop out and commit crimes. And foreigners will always treat us as a people who can do such foolish things as painting their breasts to swindle a church. http://us.yhs.search.yahoo.com/avg/search?fr=yhs-avgb&type=yahoo_avg_hs2-tb-web_us&p=church%20painted%20breast%20bbc
