19 Jul 2006 |
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Getting back to the World Cup and Murphy’s Law, everything that could go wrong did apparently go wrong. Perhaps we should forget about our fellow Africans—either crassly inexperienced or still can’t get over stage fright. However, do recall how over-hopeful but certainly experienced England turned to jelly in front of perennial rival Portugal. And the great football nation Brazil? They went, saw and well, got conquered! Still don’t get it? Okay, how about host Germany who looked confident to power on to the very last ending up in third place while France, despite playing masterfully by all accounts in the final, losing to fortunate Italy who nonetheless needed pluck to land their luck? The top-line—not the bottom-line—of all of these is that expectations in all areas of life always have to contend with the reality aptly put forward by Murphy’s Law. It would seem that about the only way to tackle the seeming inevitability of disappointment is to embrace the very source of that disappointment and take necessary steps to deal with the matter before crying time comes. Not that this in itself is a failsafe guarantee of success but there’s really something to take away from the idea that failure to prepare is in itself a preparation for failure. It is with this understanding that Nigerians who mean well for our long-suffering country and her peoples should approach the ethno-regional posturing over who gets to become the nation’s president in 2007. It is bad enough that at this juncture we’re still politicking more or less on what garb we wear but it would become infinitely worse if we do not insist that every pretender to President Obasanjo’s seat, regardless of where they’re from, demonstrate that they have workable ideas on how to fix the myriad troubles of this disparate and desperate nation. And that’s the point that needs to be made abundantly clear: A South-south or North-north or suchlike contrived designation president who has no workable ideas on redirecting this country towards sustainable development will land us all in thick okro soup and then it won’t matter whatever politically convenient region he is from because then we would all be in the quagmire together. Lest this be carelessly waved away, think of the very real possibility of state failure. Needing no doomsday predictions from anyone, this could be brought on by the high degree of insecurity and national stagnancy nurtured through poor power supply and an unbelievable craze for a service-led economy (how many GSM phone operators are on your street?) at the expense of the capacity to manufacture competitively exportable goods. Of course, these are just a few of the many problems of this country. And, though he has his role in the matter, it is simply unfair to blame it all on President Obasanjo because he, like many others around him in government, is just a part of the same relatively small clique that has held this country in thrall for many years. These same chaps, some of them doddering old men who should be at home bouncing their great grandchildren on their wobbly knees, have been kicking Nigeria around between themselves for mad decades as if the country is a football. Now, whether the presidency gets zoned in some harebrained manner or not, this is one major concern. As at this time, a good number of those who have indicated an interest in taking up residency at Aso Rock Villa are part of that never-leaving, rarely-changing clique that has not demonstrated any clear-cut capacity or even willingness to take this country out of the woods as it is. Your correspondent has said it before: “This perpetual dominance of a small group—in relation to the total population—in almost every sphere of life in a country such as ours, is a transgression against our collective patrimony.” Lest the matter be muddied by inconsequential criteria, as has happened in the area of football administration in this country (would we qualify for FIFA 2010?) it is worth reiterating that “Nigerians owe it to themselves to recapture their nation from this milito-political/business class that continues postponing the country’s progress, preferring to plunder her wealth with unrepentant conceit.” Furthermore, what need not be forgotten is what one shared in this space at the beginning of the year, namely that “the current posturing, counter-posturing and sour sabre-rattling between elements in both the southern and northern parts of the country is a preamble to the next round of what they hope will be the usual ‘come and chop’ orgy of public treasury-looting, while their selected team perform a comic script of governance in an incompetent and criminally-negligent form come 2007.” Having recognised this gimmick for what it is, “there is no greater patriotic duty than to resist the re-enactment of this tragicomedy that Nigerians have seen in the past, especially as the usual suspects are now prepping for a rerun.” In moving away from this reminisce, it is worth restating that “a radical idealism pursued with ruthless vigour is needed to pull this country up the hill of progress.” This is where we need the dissenter. The dissenter is an outsider. Getting into high office would be a toughie for the dissenter but it’s not impossible if Nigerians truly want change that would result in an improved nation. That means saying “No!” mightily to the usual suspects now lining up on the platform of ethno-regional loot-sharing. As such, the dissenter is by necessity a bridge-builder sapping the divisive energies being dissipated in the South-south, North-north, East-east and West-west twaddle. Though an outsider, the dissenter is not necessarily a newcomer. We’ve probably seen this person around bursting myths and stepping on toes--an iconoclast. The dissenter knows well enough that those who have benefited so much from hanging around the corridors of power will be out to destroy, so consensus-building with the peoples of the Nigerian nation is a given for the dissenter. The dissenter is The Dissenter not just for refusing to go along with the usual ne’er-do-well attitude of the prevailing destroyer clique. It is also for recognising that alongside coming up with practical ideas on mending this nation, there’s the need for regular self-examination, a commitment towards smart hard work and the creative strategic vision to identify the nation’s topmost priorities. That, to put the matter succinctly, is the bottom-line. Should we fail to find ourselves a dissenter, know we then that not only would we watch the 2010 FIFA World Cup billed for South Africa from home, we’ll be in great peril because, allowing the usual clique to keep kicking this country around would simply prove for the umpteenth time that anything that can go wrong will go wrong—Murphy’s Law.
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This year’s FIFA World Cup proved Murphy’s Law right in more ways than one. How? Well, for one we Nigerians merely watched from home, didn’t we? Our team couldn’t even make it to Germany. And while we’re on the subject, is the asinine way football administration is run in this country (which cannot escape being part of the blame for our not being in Germany) not indicative of how the country itself has been run for most of her post-independence life?
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