In the 12 challenging months since Bola Tinubu assumed the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the population of Nigerian patriots of Yoruba extraction has grown exponentially. These are citizens who now counsel for understanding and patience with the federal government.
These patriots, brimming with impressive love for government and for country, admonish others who show impatience, or disapproval of the policies and tendencies of the government in office to take it easy. The patriotic fervour in the government-supporting citizens is found, in many instances, to burn so intensely that they seem ready to engage even in fisticuffs to defend government and country. To them, every Nigerian owes it a duty to support the government of the federation.
To most of these new patriots, the head of the government, otherwise known as President, is almost a deity. Nothing he does warrants any true patriot overly criticising or indicting him or his government. To them, also, there is hardly any need for opposition to the government, not anymore. For them, all political parties should join hands with the ruling party and the government for the good of all.
Some of the patriots took their advocacy for zero opposition a higher notch, with a call on opposition parties and their presidential candidates to avail the President and his government of their ideas and plans, in the interest of the cherished fatherland. Such a stirring patriotic pitch, reminiscent of the Messianic age of Prophet Isaiah’s allusion, where “the wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard will rest beside the kid, the calf and the lion cub will feed together and a little child will lead them.” It would have been so inspiring, if it was not, obviously, dishonest and self-serving.
But the South West, from whence the new spirit of patriotism is currently gushing fort, was not always like that. It has not always been known for supine patriotism or uncritical support to government at the centre. History is a witness. Apparently, what obtains at the moment is a situational stance.
As a matter of fact, a few years back, between 2010 and 2015, the South West was not the home of patriotism in Nigeria. In those days, the spirit of patriotism resided in the Niger Delta area. The greatest and most vociferous patriots in Nigeria were not Yoruba. They were Izon. By their Niger Delta suit they were known, great patriots of that season. They walked with a peculiar swagger and espoused the loudest and best words of patriotism, asking all other citizens to love country and support the government.
The patriots of the 2010 to 2015 period did not fail to inform anyone who did not know that they not only held the lifeline of the country in their hands, they were also the bridge that linked the disparate parts of the troubled confederation. By coincidence, perhaps, a certain Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, son of the creeks of the Niger Delta, was President.
Instructively, while the cup of patriotism was spilling over from the Niger Delta, the predominant disposition in the South West was completely antithetical to the notion that patriotism meant supporting the President and government at the centre by all means. Indeed, many elements from the South West, chief among them political linchpins, political activists and some vocal professors, not only defined patriotism as rabid opposition to the government at the centre but also made a duty of casting the government and its policies in a negative light globally. All was fair in that expression of patriotism. For good measure, abusing the hell out of the sitting President and even his wife was fair game in the South West axis.
In due course, the spirit of patriotism departed from the Niger Delta region and moved on elsewhere. Between 2015 and 2023, patriotism found both home and voice in the North. Coincidentally, again, Muhammadu Buhari, son of the North, reigned through that period as President. Once Buhari arrived the presidency, the loudest voices for patriotism began to ring out from Kaduna, Katsina, Kano and other parts of the northern axis.
Although Buhari’s antecedent spoke eloquently about his undemocratic credentials, which credentials he wasted no time in reinforcing on a democratically elected stool, a crop of new patriots promoted the notion that not to support his government was to be unpatriotic. Even when it was apparent that Nigeria under Buhari was caving in from multiple ends, the prevailing voice of the patriots of the time was that Buhari was Nigeria and to support him was to be patriotic.
The definition of patriotism as readiness to acquiesce to even clear faulty policies of the government has emerged a major handicap to progress in Nigeria over time. Situational patriotism has continued to do harm to governance in the country.
Unfortunately, the vocal patriots who played significant roles in pushing the country into a ditch in a particular regime, always recede swiftly from public limelight once the government leaves. They recline into some comfortable cocoon, with no reference ever made again to the harm they did to all. Meanwhile, a new set of seasonal patriots springs up, defining by their standard who a patriot is, or is not. The cycle continues. The present position by post-2023 patriots that Tinubu’s economic policies are unassailable and will yield bounties down the road is expected. It is a rehash of the common refrain from situational patriots in Nigeria. It is a seasonal song.
Sadly, in this frame, Nigeria has not succeeded to any reasonable extent to cultivate a viable pool of population of citizens whose patriotism is constant, undiluted and beyond seasons. Of course, to build up a citizenry of genuine patriots requires that government rises above petty, parochial tendencies to establish a system that offers justice to all, irrespective of who they are and where they come from. That has proved almost an impossible task for Nigeria.
The prevailing reality often leaves ordinary citizens at the mercy of a very harsh and heartless system, with no one to turn to. In such a setting, the difference between criminality and patriotism becomes so blurred. The powerful become the patriots, the defenceless victims become the villains.
This reality seems to have played itself out again last week in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, in a pathetic incident that went virile online. In the video clip, a poor, heartbroken citizen was heard crying out about his shattered life. His tanker, laden with gas and heading to deliver an ordered consignment, was seized by soldiers, so he narrated, next to his burnt down vehicle. He alleged that some soldiers accosted the tanker driver where the vehicle was parked by the road side, waiting to take off for the delivery. First, the soldiers said they were seizing the vehicle for carrying products from “illegal bunkering”. Mark you, the vehicle was not being being chased, it was parked by the road side. Then they siphoned out the gas, which they said was illegally obtained. What followed was heart rending. The said soldiers reportedly demobilized the tanker and burnt it down to ashes. The poor fellow, ostensibly a hardworking entrepreneur, was distraught. Gas from illegal bunkering? From Where? As confirmed by who? And where was the siphoned content of the tanker? Did anyone ask where the poor man loaded his gas consignment? Which law empowers servicemen on the road to confiscate and set ablaze anybody’s vehicle, even if on suspicion of carrying product illegally obtained?
Between that heart-broken entrepreneur who apparently had nobody but God to cry to, and the uniformed men who arrested his tanker, siphoned the full gas content of his vehicle, before burning it, who is the criminal? Where, indeed, as Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu asked, is justice in Nigeria? The military authority needs to pay attention to incidents like this, which sadly, have become common in the society.
The empty sermon of patriotism and loyalty to country by situational patriots of the day, will never yield any enduring fruit. Of course, they know that. Until government provides protection to innocent citizens and rein in the blatant rampage of criminals, whether on the political turf, in uniform, or in public institutions and prime stations, Nigeria will remain a hollow contraption with no loyalty from its citizens, an entity at the mercy of the worst of carpetbaggers.