One cannot but reflect on the past with disbelief and perhaps bestow the future with nostalgia, fear and uncertainty if one must not allow the vista of the present happenstances becloud one’s sense of faith, hope, vision and affirmation in the Nigeria project as not a failed project.
Were Allan Patten a Nigerian, he would have just been right on point viewing from a prophetic vantage of a bleeding, deluded and haunted mind that is forced to cry out for a sinking country once beloved but now treading the path of oblivious glory.
It cannot but beat all imagination that Nigeria can gradually but swiftly degenerate, disintegrate and disorientate to the current abyss she has helplessly found herself. A bride once the pride of willing and unwilling suitors now rejected, ignored, denounced, forsaken and derided by all – including her very own. What a shame!
Looking back in retrospect, Nigeria has but become a shadow of herself, a harbinger of lost glory, a country living in the past, moving and wallowing in abject degradation; not for want of endowment but effects of greed, misplaced priority, lack of vision, fear of God and respect for human dignity – on the part of both the leader and the led. A leader consumed by power in relativity and the led subsumed in self-delusion. Like a ship without a rudder we are all washed adrift in a boat set for catastrophic capsize but for the unmerited mercies of God. It is a big shame that while we are so blessed we still wanton in abject poverty; suffering in the midst of plenty, hoping hopelessly when the messiah would come.
If history is anything to go by, Nigeria was a nation anyone would have wished to live for; work for and if need be, die for. I still remember with nostalgia like a moonlight story when Mummy and Daddy used to picture in our minds what the Nigeria of their own time was and was not.
A country of the groundnut pyramids, with baskets full of yam tubers, where electricity glowed without interruption, where the Naira was almost at par with the Pound Sterling and twice the Dollar; where foreign visitors crawled to come and nations wanted to do business; where you could keep gates, doors and windows open all night long without fear of night marauding or burglary.
A country with first in all areas in the African albeit black continent – the first to own television station, the first female to drive a car, the first in most professional climes and the most revered black nation in the world. Nigeria was renowned as the vanguard of the struggle for the independence of many African countries; a potential force in most peace keeping assignments; a leading voice in the comity of nations. It is, however, a sad commentary that same Nigeria at the instance of insurgency was, heads, hands and kneels down begging neighbouring countries including Chad and Niger to assist combat an internal invasion.
I still remember Dad sharing with me the ecstasy of his school days when as a Higher School Certificate (HSC) student at the Federal Government College, Ilorin they were forced to eat egg, drink yoghurt, milk, ice cream as food supplements every morning before or at breakfast; they were transported or offered transport fare back to their respective country homes on completion of every academic term based on calculated journey mileages. I also remember him recollecting his university days at Ilorin when they were treated to early morning refreshment of beverages and fruits at the cafeteria before breakfast. How they were treated to delicacies of food menu including pounded yam with a life chicken shared between two students at Saturday or Sunday lunch, savouring ice-ream, cake, juice as appetizers all at just 50kobo per meal.
How they lived two in a room in the hostel apartments and alone in a room if you were a medical student, a sports person or a union leader – just for 50 to 75 five Naira accommodation fee per session. Libraries were adequately stocked with books without forced patronage of empty handouts of academic merchants who clown as lecturers.
An attempt to reconcile the past with the present will confirm the mighty has fallen or is either in coma or deep stupor. No thanks to private universities as our public institutions have become shadows of their past glories with none captured in the best 10 ranking in Africa left alone at global level. Quite disheartening and frustrating.
Where are the then “Great UIs” “Almighty “Ifes”, “Charismatic Akokites” and the likes? Many now live in the delusion of their past exploits consequent upon the visionless foresight of a clueless government, directionless leadership and a decadent generation of get-rich-quick youths who have lost their bearing with the past, who are disconnected with the present and who have no clear understanding of the (ir) future.
Why and how has situation degenerated to this level in a country benevolently enriched by the Creator? A country blessed with abundant natural and human resources! A country within the precipice of natural disaster but divinely insulated with celestial insurance that is inexplicable to environmental discernment. A country you hate to love; you forsake to seek, you detest to persuade, you reject to accept and deny to uphold. What a country of interjectory contradictions?
An apt answer is “so long a letter” – no apology to Marama (Mariam) Ba in her epic book of same title. It is a catalogue of historical antecedents that have culminated in an inglorious present strong enough to threaten our seeming uncertain future.
It must have started with the erroneous contraption of the colonial masters who lobbed together birds of different feathers. The altar upon which our political hegemony was consummated was not only ill-constructed but lacked the fervency of the firework required to melt us together as one.
The social, political, cultural, religious and perhaps psychological differences have remained intricately divergent that the passage of time at 55 years of independence has failed to either amend or refashioned – we still remain, just as we were at the onset, birds of strange fellows. We merely wedged together our perceived unity by the coerced force of quota system being unable to naturally tolerate our individual idiosyncrasies.
Even within same religious, social and cultural settings we detest the genuiness of individual’s sense of belonging. The core northern Hausas do not see their southern counterparts as true Moslems. The Ifes and the Modakekes of the Yoruba source cannot tolerate themselves as one based on a flimsy excuse of who is the aboriginal owner of the land whilst the land is of the Lord and the fullness therein.
Politically, the East still does not trust the North after several years of ending a war where there was no victor or vanquished. A people divided against itself can neither stand nor make remarkable success. It is high time we closed ranks if we must forge ahead and become the great nation we are destined to be.
Our leaders should start behaving as true leaders by being selfless, having the fear of God and the love of the people at heart. We should all start thinking of what we can do for Nigeria and not what Nigeria can do for us; what we can give back to the country and not what we can take or loot from her. It is time for all to sit back and think of how we can fix the rots; how we can make Nigeria great again. How we can reconstruct and give Nigeria a rebirth; how we can make Nigeria a place of pride that generations yet unborn can be proud of and appreciate the efforts of their heroes past.
Of course, serious-minded nations have done it in the past. Nations like Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, and China have at one point or the other gone through the throes – of revolution, of woes, of pain and of change and today are out shining. We only need a collective effort, collective hope, collective decision to change our collective destiny, to convince ourselves and the entire world that Nigeria can rise again. The time to look for what is wrong is gone we should rather start to look for what is right.
Our economy must be brought back on course. It is time to take advantage of the current economic quagmire to look for a way out – which of course is diversification. Let us go back to our glorious agricultural past. The yearly army of our National Youth Service Corp members can be deplored to mechanised agricultural ventures. By this unemployment will reduce, food scarcity will be tamed and social vices will diminish.
Our social infrastructure should be fixed for business to pick up again; for social amenities to be improved upon, for living standard to become bearable, for pains and agonies to be assuaged and for the citizenry to have a sigh of relief. What we need to have is a rebirth of greatness in a nation where electricity supply will be stable to stimulate economic development, where road, air and water ways will be smooth for easy transportation of people and products, where housing can be affordable, where security and safety will be without threat, where we can sleep rest assured that we will see the next day.
TO BE CONTINUED
The Guardian
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