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When will the stakeholders take control of this country christened
Nigeria? Can it be when all
has fallen apart without any way for any amends? Is it when gun-men or
are they military take over and abuse us again? Is it when all the
infrastructures, rule of law, and our morality completely
disintegrate? Or is it when we realize that inspite of our current
earning capacity,
Nigeria is in ruins and the country is burning? Nigerians are their own worst enemy.
The fact is that, even if Jesus comes to
Nigeria today, he may just be murdered as he was during Nazarene days. Jesus came to perform miracles in
Nazareth when all sinners were to be saved, but impediments within the city dwellers blocked the making of
Nazareth heaven on earth. Because the almighty loved
Nigeria so much, He provided resources: arable soil that produced groundnuts, cotton, Palm Oil and
Cocoa; Coal that was a proud source of her electricity; and now crude oil sold to the world and to be used to build
Nigeria infrastructurally. But then, the dead spirit of the citizens blocks the nation’s call to greatness.
We
started our sojourn to nationhood with bloody coups for whose history
many have been trying to re-write. We disenfranchise the North because
of the lopsided killing of their leaders and as a payback, the North
revenged with a pogrom visited on the Easterners living in the North. Unfortunately, this resulted in a full scale civil war that was sold to
Nigerians as a war that must be fought to keep
Nigeria one.
We
have been suffering from the war syndrome ever since. We came up with
Federal character because we were incapable of seeking genuine
solutions. We camouflaged our pains in Federal character mantra. We
sub-divided ourselves into states. The States have morphed into a
resource sharing and tribal conclaves. We sell the resources without
adding values and improving ourselves but rather, we exacerbated our
differences. With the states, we have not reduced the friction that
results in the management of ourselves and our resources. We mortgaged
our morality and our spirituality for temporal power, influence and authority
and we mismanaged the only resource left – crude oil. Those that did
less work became the landlords and the most influential in our nation. We began the establishment of godfathers and we were set into the abyss
of hell through massive corruption. Even at it, the leaders with
stolen mandates are unable to bring the nation together because doing
so would mean cutting off the lifeline of corruption which seem to be
the only industry that is constantly recruiting and hiring the able
bodies.
Forty-two
after the pogroms, young Nigerians who never took part nor felt the
effect of the civil war are still discussing the war in graphic terms
and still creating hate that their parents planted in their minds just
simply due to the distorted stories passed down from one generation to
another. Instead of learning from the mistakes of the past, we are
fueling the discord of tomorrow to the detriment of the nation.
Nigerians became masters in group-think.
Unfortunately
for the nation, various constituents told their stories of the Biafran
war. Some of the stories are very touchy and compelling but without
but without leaving rooms for learning the effect of war by the younger
generation in order to improve a shared experience. Some told the
story to keep perpetuating hatred and fostering ignorance on the nation
for their political expediencies. History which is a narrative of past
events is, by and large, supposed to have within it a lesson or two for
the next generation. The Biafrans war story has no such magical
opening but rather, we established convoluted stories with each side
telling the old wives’ tales. The issue here is how do we regroup as
brothers and sisters and move our nation forward before the wicked
amongst us beckon to
China or
America to start the next
phase of slavery? The storm of discord is brewing, the enemies of our
nation are celebrating the day when they can use our disunity to
encroach on our nation. After all, the developed nation may not need
our crude oil again in the very near future because of their need for
renewable energy which they are capable of developing. Even after
forty seven years we have no clue on how to unite ourselves to form a
nation where no citizens will ever be oppressed.
Earlier on in our nation’s destiny,
Nigeria was a nation
of ideas, of brilliant management, of active and completed projects,
and of lofty goals. Today, except for snippets of our past glory, we
are just nations of sharing without adding values, of carting away
loots to other nations, and of neglecting of our infrastructures to our
peril. We have become a nation that believes that life
is simple, brute-force works, instant-gratification is the answer to
every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about
anyone who suggests otherwise.
Our perception is that Yar ‘Adua has Northernized every ministry. Is this new in the history of
Nigeria? It is in fact not
new but what has Nigerians of great minds done to change the political
equation for the benefit of the majority. Was it not OBJ who stood
Nigerian history on its head by his attempt to re-write the political
equation in his own image at the detriment of the whole nation but also
to maintain the status quo? The house that OBJ built is crumbling and
fast too.
NO
condition is permanent, we are told but it seems, for awhile, Nigeria’s
conditions was permanently hopeless as set forth by the nation’s past
leaders who made sure that the few govern the many to such a hopeless
end. There are no jobs for the healthy and strong youth. There are no
good hospitals to mend the sick. There are no good roads to transport
human and agricultural products. There is energy to light the cities
and hamlets and to light the mind and soul of citizens in order to
think of a better tomorrow. There is no hope that our moral scar will
be healed but there have been ample opportunities to rape the treasury,
to cause insecurity of lives and properties. The multi-national
companies use our created insecurities to call for more security votes
and hence transfer our resources out. How can a nation with vast human
and material resources be the joke of the world?
Why blame Yar ‘Adua? If truth must be told, Baba Iyabo must be called to explain his strategy for minimizing the potential of
Nigeria. It is time for the
South – Westerners to rein in OBJ to explain why he imposed Yar ‘Adua
on the nation but still have the temerity to insist that neither he,
Iyabo or his surrogates to be protected from any probe as the new
untouchables. Even the untouchables in the
US were probed by the FBI and
made to account for their sins. If the nation allows the untouchables
to permeate, such a nation must accept the unsavory activities of the
untouchables.
The
sad thing about our leaders is that they are not helping us to move
forward from our reference datum of 1966 coup. They are so afraid of
their shadows and of their yesterdays. Instead of making sure that
their tomorrow is planned for, they loot beyond any sense of normal
decorum. They spend billions of our Naira on fetishes, on staying put
in office and on believing in the gods rather than on Jesus and
Mohammed which most profess to follow. In retrospect, it is time for
Nigerians to seek in their leaders non-pretenders who can fight for
citizens. Can Yar ‘Adua, inspite of his imperfections, help raise the
nation’s moral consciousness, reduce corruption, rebuild our
infrastructures and hold all public servants accountable especially the
Governors that often made to believe that they are gods and
untouchables. These Governors are just mortal men and women, hence, we
must see them in that light and nothing else. Moreover, Yar ‘Adua men
must never fail to remember lessons learnt in the plight of Bode George
of the OBJ regime, them men who thought they were invincible.
The measure of greatness of a plural nation like ours is not in never falling but in standing up each time she falls. Nigeria has been knocked down
through the Biafran war, the coups and counter-coups which many have
used to divide us but if we fail to stand up for ourselves and our
children posterity will never forgive us. We are all Nigerians, we all
contributed to the hopelessness of this nation and we all need to stand
up and be counted to fix this nation of ours that is filled with milk
and honey.
Is
Nigeria capable of putting a
man on the moon? You bet if we change our nasty attitude. Surely, our
story of hopelessness as a nation started with the 1966 coup but it
must not end with a sour narration. Let our redemption having passed
through the inner sanctuary of coups and counter coups not be defined
and allowed to determine our place in the global market place of ideas.
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Authors 
Posted by Robot| 09.08.2008 22:48