Given Nigeria’s precipitous and barbarous descent into near anarchy and mediocrity, especially from the 1980s onward, it is difficult and painful to remember that Nigeria was not always the social and political pariah it has become in the eyes of the world. The military regimes of the 80s and 90s hastened that descent, and the democratic governments of the late 90s up to the present virtually sealed Nigeria’s unwholesome reputation. Sadly for children born in the 90s, many of whom are now in university, and are hence potential opinion moulders in the near and distant future, they have known no other cultures than the one engendered by the Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan governments. Older Nigerians have had a glimpse of ‘paradise’ so-called, and have lived under the tantalising hope of creating real paradise in Nigeria or re-creating the imperfect paradise of their youthful longing, but the new generation whose distorted values have exacerbated the social chaos and economic distress the country is contending with has had no inkling of paradise, real or make-believe.
As Nigeria prepares for the 2015 polls, it is time the sensible among the electorate pondered Nigeria’s past and present in order to make the right choice. For far too long, sentiments had influenced decisions and choices, producing men like Chief Obasanjo who have contributed nothing significant to the country’s civilisation, and others like Dr Jonathan who have produced perhaps the most elaborate schemes for the mediocritisation and ruination of the country. Chief Obasanjo probably has a little fire in his belly for Nigeria’s greatness; the problem however is that he lacked the discipline and the intellectual and visionary capacity to bring it about. Being an extreme narcissist, he was also quite incapable of detaching himself and his vile private goals from the great and noble objectives of a powerful nation.
On the other hand, Dr Jonathan is immeasurably worse. He pretends to transcend tribe and claims to be impervious to religious bigotry. But he has been unable to overcome the parochialism of his youth, a fact so evident even in his Niger Delta redoubt where he has surrendered to the irredentism of his Ijaw brothers to the detriment of other ethnic groups, and has in addition blithely acquired the sectarian extremism of the Middle Ages, pitting Christians against Muslims. For a country long accustomed to groaning under poor leadership and bad policies, it is now also being made to suffocate under deliberately concocted social, economic and political schisms. In about 30 years, a period productively utilised by other nations in Southeast Asia to plot their way out of underdevelopment, Nigeria has under seven megalomaniacal rulers plunged into poverty and near chaos, held together only by the thinnest of threads.
Looking at Nigeria today and the mess its rulers have made of it, who could have imagined that the same country produced the likes of Thomas Adeoye Lambo, a world-renowned scholar and psychiatrist, and Teslim Olawale Elias, famous scholar and internationally reputed jurist of the first rank? I limit myself to these two examples for reason of space. The 50s, 60s and 70s were a time of great promise for Nigeria, a time of can-do spirit, a time when the world seemed to be at our feet, inviting us to dare and to conquer. Even the civil war years could not fully dampen this new age of optimism, irrespective of whether the misunderstanding and mistakes that prompted and promoted the war were fully resolved or not. Sports grew in substance and frills, producing its stars and local heroes; and education received a boost even in the midst of the very profound social buoyancy and élan that hallmarked the careers of great musical impresarios.
Professors Lambo and Elias bestrode the national scene like colossi. They gave the impression their scholastic achievements were products of little efforts. In reality, however, their fame was the result of intense intellectual applications and exertions. We took it for granted that we would always produced such men of importance, and that in fact we could produced many more with a little bit more flexibility and resources. While Prof Lambo was the first Western-trained African in neuropsychiatry, and rose in 1975 to become the Deputy Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Justice Elias was the first African jurist to become the president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague, and five years later was appointed to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague. In fact at a time, Justice Elias was Nigeria’s Attorney-General and Minister of Justice as well as professor of law and Dean Faculty of Law, University of Lagos, while never letting up in writing great law books, lecturing in far flung places like India, and drafting the constitutions of some countries.
Sometime in 1995, in an interview with a magazine I worked for, Prof Lambo moaned about the appallingly low quality of leadership stymieing Nigeria’s development. He argued that given their predilections, it was obvious that most of them were mentally unwell. He then suggested it was necessary to subject anyone aspiring to leadership position to mental health checks. Even though that was never done, and indeed cannot be done, it was clear that he knew what he was talking about, having pioneered the study of psychiatry in Nigeria and displayed uncommon initiative and brilliance in marrying native psychiatry with Western practice, or what he called methodological syncretism. In fact, his study of traditional psychiatry yielded a huge trove of information that became integrated into the practice of psychiatry worldwide. For instance, he was first to draw attention to the vast superiority of the psychotherapeutic sessions of African traditional healers, as well as their unquantifiable pharmacopoeia of herbal and psychotropic drugs. So comprehensive were his discoveries that he became a regular face in world psychiatric lecturing circuits.
The intimidating achievements of Profs Lambo and Elias, their humongous scholastic works, their effortless internationalism, their unfathomable pioneering works, and the huge respect and honour they garnered for Nigeria were indications of a period in Nigerian life and history that gave hope of a greater future for learning, politics, leadership and social and economic development. It felt good to be a Nigerian, and the world looked in our direction at a time when racism was still a stirring and provocative issue. Nigerian leaders themselves never really managed to appreciate the priceless talents the two professors put at their disposal, given the depressing fact that both the Aguiyi Ironsi regime and the Murtala/Obasanjo junta relieved Justice Elias of his post. But overall, the world recognised the abundant talents Nigerians possessed, and were willing to take advantage of them.
Two main factors combined to destroy the hope Prof Lambo and Justice Elias represented for Nigeria. The first is the destruction of the Nigerian economy by, essentially, the military; and the second is the absolute lack of vision and intelligence by the same rulers. These two factors are still with us, and have in fact worsened under Dr Jonathan. He may have a PhD, but he has neither ruled like one who has that coveted degree, nor behaved even minimally like someone exposed to the cut and thrust of academic atmosphere, and the liberalism and accommodation a typical university environment affords its denizens. In the past two decades or so, the world has had pure contempt for Nigeria. Today, that contempt has risen virulently and obnoxiously to the level of shock and pity.
Recall that after Dr Jonathan and his government mishandled the Chibok schoolgirls abduction, a few Western powers led by the United States offered a helping hand. Well, they have all left in frustration, deeply shocked by what they found, according to them, of a country completely rudderless, and leadership so inept. The world can’t seem to reconcile itself to its knowledge of our past and the decay of our present. Nor can those of us who glimpsed that peculiarly Nigerian potential for greatness. No one, no foreigner, and no member of the future generations will forgive us if we make the blunder of reinstating Dr Jonathan and his henchmen of greedy, proud and insular aides and supporters. Worse, there is no proof that given the way the military, Department of State Service (DSS) and other national institutions are being subverted and destroyed, that we would have the opportunity of remedying our folly sometime in the future if we repeat the blunder.
