Follow Us on Google
It is commonly said that if wishes were horses, beggars would ride the best. However, life is not wired to run on wishes. It is made for deliberate thinking and precision efforts. Smart hard work is the game, anything outside this would amount to a waste of time. Where there is no effort, stagnation if not retrogression would be the symbol.
On an ordinary note, it is not only Nigerians who want the space called Nigeria to experience what some of us call «classical development» style. The significance and importance of Nigeria in world civilization and affairs need no rehash here. Based on statistics Nigeria has the highest concentration of black people anywhere in the world.
By any yardstick, it holds an excellent record of being one of the best naturally endowed places in the world. Nearly every mineral resource can be found here, just name it. It has the most friendly weather conditions. Added to all these is an abundance of human capacity. At independence about 63 years ago, the expectation was that if given a few more years of meaningful nation-building efforts, Nigeria would enter the class of the very few developed countries in the world. From the look of things, that expectation has been met in the reverse order.
Rather than progress, everything has gone topsy-turvy. We have retrogressed to the point that some of the rich legacy we inherited at
independence has been destroyed beyond redemption. For instance, we knew of a system driven by merit; we killed that on the altar of religion and ethnicity. In place of affirmative actions, we went for an outright “equalization” process which spared no chance for merit, the consequence became that we have had officers who couldn’t think, let alone initiate the kind of acts required to move any space from its raw state into a country and finally into a nation-state.
After 63 years of independence, the hard truth is that we don›t have a country. Many wake up and say, «Nigeria is our country, our only country, we must love it and make it work.” Those who hold to this line keep at it year in and year out, but the state of what they proclaim to be a country still falls far short of what a country should be. One would think they should at some point pause and ask themselves the question: why is it that what they say still defies realization?
If they did, they would have found out the point we made in this discourse is that wishes don›t produce castles; rather progressive thinking and hard work do. Countries may be decreed into existence, yes but what gives life to it is hard work. We work countries into being. And this is the experience of all great countries, just name them: America, Britain, France, China and Russia. In each of them, the compatriots sat down to decide the make-up and the best system that would suit the harmonious living of all the parts.
Europe remained boiling when diverse nationalities were by conquest lumped together as entities. It began breathing and brimming with ideas and life when another thought swept through, suggesting they would be far better off allowing nationalities to evolve into countries. Most countries in Europe are nearly homogeneous. It is the reason one can run through some of the countries in three hours driving on very good roads. It also explains the level of development found in each of the units which makes trans-border movements not very necessary.
One is not advocating the balkanization of our space. Our diversity is indeed an asset but there are arrangements and administrative structures that will curb waste, eliminate duplication and unleash the latent ingenuity of the people in all areas of daily living. One is not saying anything new by throwing the observation, the truth is that our founding fathers built the pillars of our country on such a great idea as federalism. Citizens destroyed that and foisted on the rest of us a concept totally at variance with the existing reality and what we want.
A unitary system is not only a contradiction of who we are, it is toxic, and toxicity kills a system. We can see that very clearly; we need not recount that here. This brings one to the central theme of today’s intervention. Our leaders would come to power talking about their love for the country and the great ideas they have. They subvert processes to get there and to stay for all of eight years. Yet when they leave they turn into activists, disturbing everyone about the things they had the opportunity to do but didn’t do.
We have made many noise about the issue of unity. When General Olusegun Obasanjo who had ruled this same country as a military officer was offered another opportunity to wangle his way into power as President under a civil atmosphere, he was not patriotic enough to say no and to advise his fellow power manipulators to look down east and particularly to Dr Alex Ekwueme, who apart from bearing the brunt of pushing the military back to the barracks was far better equipped than anyone else who wanted the job.
They recruited lesser beings amongst us, subverted the system and brought Obasanjo to power. He didn’t care about damaging the process and what it would mean for the health of the country. The trend has continued to the extent that an electoral umpire has two rules for one election. Now Obasanjo who was brought to power for the sake of keeping the country never thought of how to unite the country rather he became brazen with the use of power.
When he was beginning to lose legitimacy, he moved to have a constitutional conference even then the motive wasn›t noble, this much we have heard. Till today he is talking of Nigeria as his dream. We leave it there. President Goodluck Jonathan wanted to begin and end as governor of his homestead, Bayelsa State, but system manipulators took him into the presidency. It was definitely above his competence, so he was in government but not in power. When the aberration began to take a toll on him, he quickly held on to a hastily organized national conference, one he couldn’t even implement one aspect of the recommendations. He became a hero for conceding to an election he lost woefully.
President Buhari came with feigned love of country but his actions while in power did far more damage to the concept of nationhood. President Bola Tinubu has come, but before now he was with a national movement that parroted “restructuring” of the country for growth and development. Over eight months on the saddle our President has not offered one word along that line. Not even his speech in the new year produced a hint of the anticipated direction. He is talking about reforms with the buy-in of the entire citizenry. Soon the first tenure would end, and we would hold another sham election, a second tenure and finally in the end the plagues would have grown to become monsters.
Wole Soyinka once described this as a “cycle of national stupidity.” While President Tinubu was talking to us about reforms and his version of New Dawn, hundreds of citizens were being attacked and killed in Plateau State. Yet, our leader was talking about reforms when the question should have been unity and federalism. If states had their police alongside that of the federal, more spaces would be covered in terms of security. Hoodlums and religious fanatics won’t have the free rein they seem to be having currently across the country. How do our leaders intend to increase productivity without citizens’ buy-in into the concept of one country? This is the magic many want to see.
