As I went through asking the almighty to show me the purpose of my existence in life, my performance so far and to determine where I’ll be in the next 5 years, it was my time of joy, my birthday of June 7.  Something I try to do for my physical, spiritual, and moral continuous assessment.  It donned on me that I should revisit what exactly the Nigeria's national anthem meant to me, a citizens of Nigeria and conversely, what it means to our nation.  Many citizens (including the leaders who ought to know better) just simply regurgitate the anthem without understanding the meaning and the implication of the lyrics and what the words portend.

Citizens don’t know, Politicians do not care to understand the implications and the responsibilities that are inherent in the lyrics of the national anthem.  Many nations who believe in their nationhood will go to war for anyone destroying their national anthem and many politicians have lost elections because they do not believe in and respect the national anthem and the well crafted words which are meant to invigorate patriotism and bring the nation towards a common destiny.

The lyrics of the beautiful symphony of Nigerian national anthem came to existence through the amalgamated works of the best five entrants to a national contest: John A. Ilechukwu, Eme Etim Akpan, B. A. Ogunnaike, Sotu Omoigui and P. O. Aderibigbe.  The music was by the Director of Music of the Nigerian Police Band lead by Benedict Elide Odiase.

Words can sometimes be divinely inspired or flowery stated.  Words in a nation’s anthem are often spiritual, situational and inspirational in most cases.  Those that came up with the words in the Nigerian National Anthem did so out of a need to win a spirited contest but more to exhibit their patriotism and express a dream for a better tomorrow for our nation.  Little did those who gave birth to the words of our national anthem know that, the words of our national anthem would be taken as mere words and not words meant to inspire generations to greater national calling.  If words can make a country great, Nigeria ought to have been the envy of the world through the words of her national anthem but this is not to be the case, at least not yet.  For the purpose of this write up, I reproduce the national anthem below:

Arise, O compatriots,

Nigeria's call obey

To serve our fatherland

With love and strength and faith

The labor of our heroes past

Shall never be in vain

To serve with heart and might

One nation bound in freedom,

Peace and unity.

Oh God of creation,

Direct our noble cause

Guide our leaders right

Help our youth the truth to know

In love and honesty to grow

And living just and true

Great lofty heights attain

To build a nation where

Peace and justice shall reign.

The first stanza of the anthem calls for Nigerians to rise not in arms but in unenviable vision and to make Nigeria, a land filled with milk and honey and where intelligent people reside for which, recently, Barack Obama says, YES, “we too Can” inspite of our rocky past.  This is the only way, I believe, that able Nigerians can rise to obey a call of a nation that need them.

Nigerians were not called to obey as in “Apes Obey,” but as in healthy men and women of high integrity to obey in order to serve their fatherland with love, strength and faith.  The labor of our heroes past (Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Dr. Nanmdi Azikwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief Anthony Enahoro (living), our great professors: Awojobi, Chike Obi, Agbalajobi; our musicians: Fela Ransom Kuti, etc.) is looking as if it will be in vain.  But it will only be in vain if we refuse to accept the challenges with confidence, with boldness and with vision in order to rekindle the vision of our founding fathers and with the resurgence of our shared experience.  It is left for you and I to pry our nation from the jaws of the unpatriotic elements of our society who see Nigeria as theirs and who continue to transfer what does not belong to them to evil men and women.

In the past, unpatriotic Nigerians arose and obeyed their own calls to take over government by force.  This is what has brought the nation to the precipice we are experiencing and the type of leadership the nation has unluckily enjoyed so far.  Can we do better, yes, I believe so.   ? Are we ready to do better?  I am afraid, presently not.  But to do better, we must be willing to tolerate a paradigm shift and to do things differently from that of past 47 years.  It will be tough but it is doable.

Lets recall the recent vituperations and ranting of the “Three unwise men or the three blind men,” Abdulsalam, Babangida, and Buhari.  These are a few of the men that obeyed their own calling and brutally raped our nation.  They disenfranchised the nation and now, they are also trying to provide us with revisionist history.  If these men want to present a unified front with Mrs. Abacha, it was not wise for them, at this moment in our history, to do so by insulting our collective sensibilities.  Where did the Abachas get the money they transferred to foreign banks?  Why was it necessary for the Abachas to negotiate with Chief Obasanjo’s administration on the percentage of their loot they were wiling to give up?  Perception, my dear unwise men is said to be more important than reality.  Nigerians knew, felt, and smelt corruption during and after Abacha.  Abacha made Nigeria morally deprived.  He destroyed the spirit de Corps in the military and exhibited corruption at the highest level.  Telling us that Abacha was trying to move Nigeria in the right direction is like telling a pregnant woman she is not pregnant even after the ultra-sound shows a growing fetus.  So, which direction was he trying to lead Nigeria -  hell?

In the sixties, Nigeria’s techno-political level was at par with those of China, Korea, and Indonesia.  Today, however, Nigeria is far lagging behind in technology, renewable energy and in energy stability when the world is getting away from use of fossil fuel, in geosynchronous orbital mapping of our energy and politics, in service to the nation, and in defense of issues that are of vital interest to Nigeria.  Nigeria leaders have not served the nation with heart and mind but have triggered self-imposed slavery, chaos, and disunity because one person wants to control the budget of a whole state or nation, or one section of the country believing it owns the nation that your parents and mine put together through sweat, blood and guts.  Ask the citizens of Odi about the massacre, and the Niger Deltans’ plights.  It is during times like this that patriotic citizens must come together to fight the ills, clueless and uninspiring leadership in order to form a perfect union.  If we fail to act, even our deadened conscience may just be awaken just one more time to see the evil we perpetrated on the Nigerian people and the world.

O God of creation, direct our noble cause, but in Nigeria, what exactly is our identifiable noble cause?  Is it this God of creation who created Adedibu, the terror of Oyo state politics and the supporter of Abacha for president; and Mr. Tim Russert, the moderator of meet the press, servant of the people and a terrific patriotic citizen of America or are we a people that self destruct?  Nigerians since independence have neither known nor made aware of our nation’s noble cause.  For now, most Nigerians, young and old, understand noble cause to mean just looting, stealing, and no hard work to make daily wage.  Because the so called “BIGMEN” are getting away with it, in the citizens' views, it must be noble.

In an attempt to force God to answer us, we have established churches and mosques all over our cities, yet, our morality is no better than when we had few mosques and churches.  We have prayed for God to guide our leaders right and help our youth the truth to know but to know just what?  What truth?  Nigerians cannot continue to pray for a breakthrough for our leaders and ability for the youth the truth to know when our politics is to look for the lowest common denominator and vote for those that are incapable of running their family and are irrelevant even within their compounds.  Our universities are the shell of their 1960s state and most our university students are no better than the high school students of the sixties.  Our intelligentsias have never helped our student but are paying lip service in obeisance to the virtues of stability and continuity of academic excellence.  A prayer without action is a wasted prayer.

We are all quick to blame the leaders without understanding that we are indeed the leaders.  What we call ourselves is what people will call us by.  In love and honesty to grow and living just and truth, great lofty heights attain to build a nation where peace and justice shall reign but which nation are we talking about after 47 years, I don’t think it is Nigeria except we are telling ourselves lies.  The future is ours not to predict but to change.  Our past and present leaders have failed us woefully but we cannot allow future to fail us again.  Let all arise, O compatriots and truly obey Nigeria’s call to action in a revolutionary sense not in violence.  Let us have a ground zero strategy for Nigeria’s future to correct the mistakes of the leaders that knew no better and a nation that accepted every rot as sacrosanct needing no questioning.  As leaders, you and I must continue to ask about our performance so that we can change in areas we are underperforming.  For this my special day, I need no present but I give you a gift of “tomorrow can be better if we are ready to take the bull by the horn” so that together we can say, we fought a good fight, we finished the race and we kept the faith according to the tenets of our national anthem to which we behold as citizen of a sovereign nation.  Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Robot  # 1 | 16.06.2008 23:16

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