The Problem with Nigeria (2)

Look around and you might notice the disgraceful sight of various ethnic social cultural groups parading themselves as serving the interest of their tribes and people. They come outside in the open to advocate for unity, but hide under the cover of their tribes and religion to secretly preach ethnic jargons at their meetings. This is Part of the problem with my dear country Nigeria, and part of why we still fight over indigene ship and breed the reprehensible settler syndrome.  Try dating or marry a woman from anywhere in Nigeria, the first question that is bound to confront you is where are you from? Wish tribe are you? And what religion do you belong?  Many young men and women have been denied their rightful privilege to choose and wed their heartthrobs based on these feeble excuses of tribe and religion differences. Yet, we all go to the same markets to sell and buy, without discriminating against the tribe or religion of the person spending the cash.

How many of my country men and women have been slaughtered and their property destroyed in the name of tribe, religion and settler syndrome? How many have lost their jobs and livelihood just because they don’t belong to a certain tribe or religion? Something they never made themselves. Or is there anyone alive who can claim to have created him or herself and decide what tribe or race they want?  I tell you, most of our problems in this big rich country are man-made Wahala, planned and created by our fellow countrymen and women for selfish interests. Part of the reason why we are still swimming confusingly against the tides of development and daily confronted with the current Katakata of insecurity, kidnapping, terrorism ,armed robbery, ritual murders, and frequent ethnic-religious crises across the country.

The monster call corruption now resides permanently in most of our ministries and government agencies. It has long stolen patriotism and the fear of God from the conscience of some of our public servants who now daily find joy in looting and milking the nation dry; building gigantic vanity structures, cruising proudly in artificial toys, chasing after licentious women and breeding spoilt kids. The blight of corruption has eaten into the vision of some of our greedy politicians so much that most of them are too blind to see the poverty in their communities and the impoverished conditions of their towns and villages, including the frail figures of their hungry looking towns men and women; the same purported people whose interest they were expect to represent.  

A prudent glance at Nigeria would reveal a glaring fact that we don’t appreciate what we have and who we are. Across the country are able and creative manpower, but the quest for importing other peoples creativity from abroad and zealously marketing and selling them; thus encouraging capital flight and enriching these other people and their nations has always been part of the problem.  What really happened to that Nigeria of old, where we had prolific writers like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Abubakar Imam, Ola Rotimi, Cyprian Ekwensi and Flora Nwanpa? These great pen-pushers helped revolutionized the Nigerian literature and brought us respect and honors in the eyes of the world. Today, despite the large concentration of intellectual citizens across the globe, our literature presently is nothing to write home about.

What happened to that promising country that had some of the best schools in sub-Sahara Africa, some of the best brains in almost all facets of human endeavors, including some hitherto world class industries? The Nigeria nation today depends largely on imported products and brains. We derive pride in importing anything under the sun; ranging from used and discarded second hand fridges, second hand clothes, toxic radios, out model TVs, virus infested computers, outdated used books, and fake drugs, expired beverages, frozen chickens and packaged food.  Our big nation now goes as far as importing matches, toothpicks and other simple cheap things that could be manufactured here by the abundant manpower and creative brains wasting away in all corner of the country.

What sensible nation would keep importing fuel to its citizenry, despite having one of the best crude oil in the world? How can we expect to have a made in Nigerian car when we have never appreciated the ingenious creativity of our mechanics that despite their local breeding could always dismantle any car in the world, fabricate and fix any spoilt parts and reassemble it back on the road. How do we expect to win medals in major sporting activities in the world, when we have long dumped the idea of grooming from the grass root? Instead what we have today is a politicized sporting establishment. Strangely, those ruling us expect to see development in the country when in actual sense they have gone against the natural laws of nature, which glaringly shows that everything that grows under the sun start from the root. Unlike before when the past nationalist leaders had a sensible vision of developing the local authorities that are the roots of the nations to the top, our present crops of prejudiced divided leaders have relegated the 774 local government areas to a mere space of milking money to feed and sustain their expensive and unworkable system of government and at the same time maintain their insatiable flamboyant lifestyles. After all, leadership in Nigeria today is all about sentiment and not quality.

Believe it, the problems confronting this diversified nation are too enormous to mention, but thankfully, they are artificial quandaries that the citizens can tackle and wrestle down if they have the will and courage. The Nigeria nation can really stand tall among other nations in the world if the Nigerian in Diaspora can sincerely sacrifice their intellect, wealth and collections to the development of their nation, without subscribing to the ethnic- religious division tearing the country apart, just like other diasporas are doing in other countries across the globe. An example is India, where the Diasporas of this populous nation have been able to inculcate their nation into becoming one of the biggest Information Communication Technology giants in the world. Or what stop those running the affairs of this overshadowed great nation from taking an example of how the Chinese, though the most populous nation in the world, have been able to utilized their enormous size into becoming one of the greatest technological advanced nations in the world and catapulted their country into a rich economy.

This country, I tell you, is one of the luckiest on earth, blessed with various tribes, cultures and diversified people. Look prudently around you and you are bound to notice this in its beautiful topography, its vast rich land, and the various countless life sustaining agricultural produce from its captivating weather. Which other country on earth then would I want to swap for this naturally gifted country?  I think none, believe me – I love this country no be small. 

The Problem with Nigeria (1)

  

To set the record straight, I am very proud to be a Nigerian any day, anytime and anywhere. in fact, I won’t trade this big rich country for any other on earth. I love my country no be small. But, I have, just like many other citizens of this great giant of Africa long been aware that there are some problems confronting this beloved nation.

To be honest, most of these hitches are ordinary man-made lacuna created by my fellow country men and women over the years since our freedom from our colonial masters who unwillingly imposed themselves and their ways of life on us. How else should we describe a country as big and rich like ours, with abundant human and capital resources, but still lag behind in this 21^st century, despite our abundance.

Part of our problems over the decades has always been as a result of greed, self centeredness, myopic reasoning, ethnic sentiment and religion bigotry. I tell you this, go anywhere in Nigeria today, the story is the same everywhere; from the east, south, north, and down to the west. It is all about what tribe you are or what religion you belong. This disgraceful out of date reasoning has eaten so deep into the fabric of our social structure with these prejudices taking over a large chunk in our government ministries and agencies. These government establishments have over the years served as a breeding ground for ethnic and religion segregation, instead of the united settings that they were supposed to be. Just take a prudent study of any of our ministries and you will grab what I mean.

It is no more a hidden fact that the so-called federal character system has contributed to the lapses and division we are witnessing today, with the system encouraging more tribal sentiment everyday in our various places of work. In fact, one would always notice the tribal and religion partition anytime, even in our communities, schools and markets. It is visible in our transport system with some ethnic group having the monopoly of ferrying us across our dilapidated roads. It is equally conspicuous in other professional fields. It is a fact that we have some concentrated numbers of certain tribe as lawyers, doctors, engineers, including our armed forces.

The problem with Nigeria include the over dependence on foreign ideas and our worship of anything from abroad. We always have this shameful habit of rejecting what we have for others from outside. We love globetrotting across the world, marveling at the human and capital development of these other nations and always proud to boast about them. So many Nigerians today would hurriedly forsake this country and change their nationality to become American, British or Canadian citizens if given the opportunity. I tell you, many of my country men and women would abandon their villages, culture and tradition if requested to do so just to travel abroad. Our present generations are so carried away with the materialist life in these purported developed nations that many of them can’t even speak their mother’s tongue. Again, just take your time to study our movies, newspapers, weddings and music and you might understand what I am blabbing about.  

Your name and your surname has become the ticket to get you a job, admission into some of our ramshackle schools and promotion in your place of work. God help you, if you work in an establishment and the person heading that place or those with the authority over your salary, wages or promotion don’t subscribe to your faith and name. You either stay stuck at a position for long because of nepotism or find your way out.  Promotion and employment is no longer based on merit or qualification, it is now more centered on ethnicity, religion or who you know at the top. Again, God safe you if your name is Audu, and the majority of those in your place of work are the Ukechukwus, Nnamdi, Ngozi or Chinyere. Likewise, pray God to help you if your name is Emeka, and the dominating tribe in your office has name tag like Abubakar, Bello, Aisha or Halima. The same thing if your name is Segun or Bimbo and those holding sway in your place of livelihood are from these two major ethic group, and equally the same story if Mr. Adewale happens to be the oga at the top in these ministries or agencies, then God help those whose name or surname has anything to do with Uche, Onyeka, Sani or Jamila.

Surprisingly, this syndrome has also found its way into our places of worship. Go to some churches and mosques in some part of Nigeria and what you see and hear is all about what part of the country is the pastor, reverend, Imam or sheik from? Or who are the majority tribes in these places. We have seen and witnessed how some pastors and Imams have turned their churches and mosques into political campaign grounds and without the fear of God preach discords among their followers.  We’ve seen and heard them shamelessly canvass votes and positions for candidates of their faiths, members of their churches or mosques or any politician with mouth-watering tithe or Zaka to dole out during elections or whenever there are any vacant juicy federal positions. 

The problem with Nigeria is part of our famous Nigerian syndrome. Our leaders give us roads, schools, hospitals, and even drinking water based on regional sentiment and other prejudiced calculations. We appoint people into high professional positions based on ethnic bullshit and an outdated federal character disorder, and we expect to get good results. Wrong pegs are fixed into wrong holes everyday and the retrogression continues all across our economy, political and social structures. Funnily, even electricity distribution in the country is also tented with politics. Go to any part of the country and you will hear tales of the ethnic, religion and political manipulation involved in the distribution of ordinary transformer to a deserving community. The people in these areas either tax themselves huge amount of money for NEPA officials or play servant to a serving politician to obtain one, and they are mostly refurbished and outdated ones.