New leaders – cultural, political, and religious – must emerge if Nigeria must be on the track to sustainable success.
The clichéd saying is that a fool at 40 is a fool forever. This probably applies more to human beings than to human constructions such as nation-states or political parties. Nigeria is well past 40 and it has acted for too long like a fool, having used the past 54 years to arrive at nothing more than a failed or a failing state in the reckoning of both pundits and peasants. But the consolation for the country and its lovers is that it does not have to remain a fool for eternity, if it chooses to re-launch or transform itself.
Like many nations and societies threatened in the past internally by failure of leadership and externally by the success of imperialists, it has the possibility of nine lives like the proverbial cat. However, the chance to transcend the status of a country that has become a trope or symbol for doing the wrong things most of the time and expecting the right results all the time, some new leaders-cultural, political, and religious–with visions that are distinct from what the country has experienced for the past thirty years, must emerge to put the country on the right track to sustainable success.
Readers should allow me to give meat to today’s piece by borrowing borrow freely from a young boy born in the United States of Nigerian parents some 18 or 19 years ago. This boy was brought to Nigeria by his parents at the age of seven on the excuse that he needed to be brought up as a Nigerian, with a good measure of understanding of a Nigerian language and culture and some cultural and psychological preparation to live in a world that has not been overdeveloped like America and Europe, where human beings look too pampered and thus incapable of taking stress. The young man at his departure, after fulfilling his filial obligation to come home and be a part of the life of his Nigerian parents, left his diary behind, deliberately, according to his mother and wrote on the front cover of the diary that he would like as many people to know his feelings. His mother gave me access to the diary to use in my column, without revealing the identity of her son.
The young man’s diary is full of expletives about Nigerian leaders. But it is re-assuring that he says several times in the diary that he loves the people of Nigeria, especially ordinary people while he has no respect for most of the country’s leaders whose actions and pronouncements he characterises as unbearably below average for a 54-year-old country and one that is a member of all standard-improving organisations across the globe. A recurrent theme in the young man’s diary is his worry that even young people of his age, so-called leaders of tomorrow in his own words, are wont to act like their culturally below-average elite while freely using religion to excuse their immoral deeds or thoughts. He gives several examples of acts and pronouncements of leaders that he considers boorish, dishonest or hypocritical. Many of his examples are too detailed and relevant for an 18-year-old stressed by a country that appears to have lost its bearing.
Even one year after the release of the young man’s diary about Nigeria to family members, many of the untoward acts and attitudes he commented upon are still happening with more bravado or less apology on the part of political and cultural leaders. A few examples of attitudes and pronouncements by individuals in positions of high power even on the eve of the country’s 54th independence anniversary would enrich any narrative that the young man may choose to write later.
For example, with respect to a plane purported to have been leased to a company that ferried 9.3 million dollars to South Africa, the registered owner of the plane, Pastor Ayo Oritsejefor, the number-one Christian in terms of hierarchy today in his capacity as the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria and also of the Pentecostal churches, known principally for their theology of prosperity, responded in a way that should worry both adolescents and adults in most societies. The man of God said that the Christian Association of Nigeria should not allow enemies of Christians to be putting a cat among their pigeons or throwing sand in their garri. The revered pastor expects innocent citizens to buy the line that it is either Boko Haramists or anti-Christian Nigerians that are trying to malign him on account of the matter of so much undocumented cash found in his plane in another country. It would have been expected of the pastor to cite the devil in such a crisis, but several commentators are also urging Nigerians to dismiss the hype about the undocumented cash-for-arms from the black market in South Africa as something that must have the hand of the Satan or mortal enemies of Christians in it.
Similarly, on the level of formal or modern politics (as distinct from traditional rulers in politics), Ekiti Governor-elect, Ayo Fayose, has also built his defense against those who alleged that thugs close to him violated the judiciary of Ekiti on the premise that his political enemies are trying to scuttle his swearing-in on October 16. So are his supporters and top members of his party looking away from the issue of thugs beating judges while invoking spiritedly efforts by political enemies to scuttle democracy in Ekiti. The publicity secretary of Fayose’s party has invoked, while calling for an investigation into the activities of officers of the Ekiti State judiciary involved in the crisis, the spirit of saboteurs from political parties opposed to Fayose. He suspected an “underground plot” to scuttle the inauguration of his party man as a “slap in the face of the people of the state, assault on democracy and an attempt to rape the judiciary.” Are their leaders out there, apart from members of opposition parties, ready to call for an independent investigation of the allegations made to the Chief Justice of Nigeria by the Ekiti Chief Judge?
As if professional politicians speaking on the matter have not said enough pro or con, Ekiti traditional rulers also said a few hours ago that they would not brook any attempt by anybody or group to delay the crowning of Fayose as the governor freely given the mandate to rule the state by the good people of Ekiti. While the judiciary is blatantly violated by political thugs in Ekiti, traditional rulers who the tradition expects to stay away from partisan politics have out of their own volition chosen to reduce the violation of the judiciary to the work of political enemies.
Even when a building collapsed in the synagogue of T. B. Joshua recently, the pastor addressed his congregation in a way to suggest that he was more interested in chasing shadows. He told members of his church in a televised service that his enemies and those who do not want to stop his church from growing are after him. He did not forget to assure his congregation that his time had not come and that his adversaries would fail.
Readers should allow me to end this piece by going back to the young man who expressed clearly his love of Nigerians and dislike of their leaders in his diary before exiting the country last year. In the last page of his diary, he urged parents to struggle for a new theology and pedagogy under which new generations of Nigerians can be trained to grow up to be prepared to separate what is bad from what is good, without feeling awkward about doing this. He urged parents to expose their children to value orientation that makes it imperative for them to know that getting what you want at any cost does not always lead to peace and stability. It is creating institutions that promote and sustain values that can lead any country to peace and progress, in the fashion of the old saying: “Righteousness exalts a nation.”
