The Nation Newspaper

Tag: make

  • Just the two of us…we can make it if we try

    THE emotional space is as competitive as any business environment you can imagine. Faced with that reality, it is always better to make sure that the one that you are attracted to get value for the emotions that they would be giving to you. You just have to put yourself constantly in your partner’s shoes to appreciate what you do or have left undone.

    Conversely, accepting a situation that is anything other than what you truly want in a relationship will not only make you unhappy, it will also keep you tied to someone who is not right for you. So really ask yourself what kind of relationship you want before you become involved with a man and the chemistry starts to cloud your vision.

    Adunni and Tolu had courted for about seven months and they got along pretty well. During this period, the two lovebirds discovered some of the things they shared in common and hoped that the relationship was going to lead them to the altar. Just when Adunni thought she had found the man of her dream, the dream was aborted.

    How did things fall apart? you ask.  A few weeks before the discovery, Adunni paid Tolu a surprise visit in the office. That was in order; it sometimes gives you direction and you would find out if you are on the right emotional track or not.

    How did the bubble burst? Our dear friend who was still day dreaming an emotional adventure ran into another ‘competitor’ who surprisingly had won the emotional crown. “I found them together in a very uncompromising way and I began to ask some questions.”

    So did she get answers to these questions? Not really. “Tolu simply introduced the lady as his fiancée.” No apologies! For a few seconds, she felt as if her heart had stopped. This relationship had caused her so much harm in the past and this certainly was the last straw. Gradually, she gained composure, got her car keys, ran out of the office and sat inside the car for a few minutes.

    It was very cold and she was lonely and alone. All kinds of things started riveting on her mind. Cars were revving as everyone was in a hurry to get out of the car park and then she finally found her way out of the mess (physical and emotional).

    Like Adunni, Nnamdi is in a deep emotional mess. He was supposed to meet his fiancée, Matilda, in the restaurant at 5 pm. The traffic was really bad and somehow he was a little late. He finally found his way into the restaurant panting and almost breathless. A few seconds after, he felt better and looked for her in their usual corner.

    To his surprise, she wasn’t around. That was quite unlike her and he decided to call her on phone. The line was dead and so he decided to wait for his sweetheart.

    With his laptop opened in front of him, he happily slipped into a happy reverie of all their moments. The things they had shared. The words she had said; he had turned out to be quite the poet.

    In that few minutes, he tried to work on some of the pending mails in his inbox. Here he found a note from his beloved Matilda. “I can’t make it as promised. I am a bit confused about this relationship. Please I need some time to think about it all. Sorry for whatever inconveniences this might cause you.”

    At this point, he knew that something new must have happened; after all they spoke about an hour ago. So, where do we go from here? Should he really give her another chance or start thinking of a plan B?

    It is important to know how to interpret your partner’s mood from time to time. Usually, when a man or woman acts withdrawn, that is a signal that the person is undergoing an emotional process and needs time to recharge.

    Women tend to think that if things are going well with a guy, that he will naturally want to move things forward to the next level. They’ll just assume this even when the guy has never talked about the future.

    Things will be coasting along, and suddenly the guy will change gears; she’ll find out he’s dating other women, or he doesn’t make plans with her every weekend, and she’s left wondering what the heck happened.

    The answer is that the woman created all these expectations about what the relationship was supposed to look like and how he was supposed to behave, and when he fell short of that, she became disappointed and unfulfilled. This usually winds up in a confrontation that causes tension and maybe even creates more distance.

    When the emotional matter is more than a fling, then you would discover that it can be very devastating to handle. So the next question is how you survive during the hurting period. The crux of the matter is that it can be really tough but you just have to be determined to move on and create a better emotional space for the future.

  • How not to make a hero

    How not to make a hero

    In demeanour, he does not stoke a crowd. His rhetoric, even when on fire, does not burn down a leaf. He walks even with dignity, like one accustomed to the deference of crowds. He calls himself a Jew, in the pious not in the symbolic terms that accommodates modern Christians. Bespectacled, and sometimes with a walking stick and a fan, he conveys the carriage of an elder even though he is in his middle years.

    When he addresses a crowd, Nnamdi Kanu comes away more as a balm than an argument. Maybe that is why he is dangerous. Men do not have to carry the fierce visage and towering diction of an Odumegwu Ojukwu to send shudder to a ruling elite. After all, Awo had no gift of the garb in the 1960’s when he soared in the courts and in rallies. The soft-spoken swagger of the Ikenne denizen piqued the men of power enough to consign him to the confines of solitude. The power of suggestion sometimes comes in the conviction of kings than in the laws of the monarchy. De Gaulle was no orator. Neither was Washington. Pol Pot had a silky voice.

    Whether we like it or not, we have made Nnamdi Kanu into a substance, from being a mere agitator in the shadows. He no longer is a poison-free serpent lurking in the hedges of Nigerian unity. His neck sprouts out, his tongue forked, venom drips. He has become more than a shadow of a titan, if a budding one.

    It was not his doing. During the Goodluck Jonathan years, we could have called him a thing without a sting. If you thought so, you no longer think so after what happened in the southeast about a week ago. IPOB called the indigenous people of Biafra to stay home. Not since June 12, when a certain Ubani skulked the government of the day, had a people shrunken out of daylight. Some say it was out of the fear of punishment. Others counter that it was an act of conscientious solidarity. Whatever it was, Igbos abandoned profits for cause. The last time they started it, 30 months of gunshots, and bombs, and fratricidal dislocations turned Nigeria into a hump of a nation. About a week ago, the verve of Onitsha market, the cacophony of Owerri streets, the hum of Umuahia offices paid homage with their silences to the subversion of a former nonstarter.

    He might have been nothing, if the Igbo elite were not compelled, including the erudite Pat Utomi, to ask the federal government to release the man. He was a subvert, an anarchist even, a lawless, demoniac spirit in the federation. But the nation had no right to subvert his rights in the pursuit of the purity of right in the country. We made him a hero by undermining a straightforward adherence to our own law. If we wanted to prosecute him, it meant we had the law on our side. But if we overturned that law, we had no superior moral fibre or constitutional claim. We made Kanu our equal in impunity.

    So, while he was in detention, we lionised him. We made him a rebel with a cause, and he became caustic by the hour. His people cried for him, wielded sticks and machetes for him, died for him. If that is not how a cause grows into myth, how else?

    Even a certain story gained momentum when his handshake reportedly healed somebody of stomach ache. Is that not how legends are made? In historical tales, we read of men who die as gods. In our age of celebrity, we are like the stories of the Greek myths where stalwarts live as gods. If Ogun, Oya, Sango, all died into deity, we are not so patient. In our lifetime, some Nigerians saw Awo in the moon. Black Scorpion, who stung Biafra many a time vanished in the battlefield. In the slavery era, a black man equated Abraham Lincoln with Jesus, saying “he walk the earth like de Lord.” French philosopher Montaigne mused in one of his seminal essays why the greatest general of all time had a reputation of giving off a scent while he sprinkled no oil on his body. He was, by nature, a scented genius. So lofty was Alexander the Great that he did not need a “cologne” to please the nostrils.

    Little anoints Kanu as a force more than the court’s decision to grant him bail. Why is Sambo Dasuki still sulking behind bars? Why is the Shiite leader Ibrahim El Zakzaky not out on Zaria alleys? They were three whom the federal government have locked up against their rights. Forget the farce of conditions that the judge gave Kanu. It was an act to save the faces of a besieged judiciary. It was also to bow to the pressure of the streets and turbulence of media onslaughts. Kanu has become a hot piece of yam we must either eat or leave on the plate.

    He might not have been a gentleman. He might not have been one of the men to stand up to the creme-de-la-creme of the Nigerian society. But we have, by our own fear of him, made him an icon of sorts. When Buhari won the election and became president, he looked at the man with contempt. It was naïve, and he must take responsibility for alienating a people he should have clasped into his bosom, the same way the DSS has given his Katsina home the divine right to gulp the lion’s share of recruits into the intelligence agency. Nothing but limp logic has tried to explain away that lopsided extravaganza.

    Rebels are not always for good causes even when they ride populist support. U.S. confederate general Robert Lee was described as “legend incarnate” and a gentleman. He led forces to support what he and his cohorts called state’s rights. But it was a right to uphold slavery in a society that described blacks as a fraction of the human soul. Some top southern politicians still echo that toxic euphemism. Even Reagan roared his support for state’s rights. Trump is the modern-day champion.

    The rebirth of Biafran anger must be traced to our habitual contempt to solve our crisis. We keep hopping from crisis to another, hoping they will just go away. Yakubu Gowon said there were no winners or losers. The Igbo believe they have been treated as losers, a cry that was almost non-existent when Jonathan, who called himself Ebele, garlanded them with choice positions. The Igbo caulked voices of dissent. They felt part of the governing elite. A Kanu would have been anathema then. He is an item today because Buhari made him.

    How Buhari handled Kanu and the Biafran uproar is an example of how not to make a hero, especially in the aftermath of the relative quieting of Niger Delta militancy.

  • On the make

    On the make

    A bully reigned on his street, a huge boor whose visage, gait, brawls and conquests menaced everyone around. But he was nothing like the thug. He was slight of build, thin and lightweight. By all perception, the tough would gulp him up in one swoop.

    But he was no one to bait. The coercer came his way and wanted to browbeat him, especially because he did not share in the intimidated respect others nursed for him.  Before the bully struck him, Bola popped his faced with a head butt. The brute retired as the neighbourhood tyrant, his face squished into a dam of running blood.

    The myth was over. A diminutive fellow had played David, and the goliath scampered out of sight. Bola stunned not only the tormentor but the street. “Sometimes, it is the people no one imagines anything of,” noted the great computer code breaker Alan Turing, “who do the things that no one can imagine.” Everyone knew he was spry and stubborn. Few expected the giant to turn clay at his feet.

    As Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu marked his 65th birthday last week to an uproar of praise as a political high roller, few know he has been a giant killer from childhood. It is perhaps to make the symbolic point that former world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield will meet him in the ring in May. He does not see giants. He is not like the 10 Israeli spies in the Bible who returned with fright and saw their enemies as giants and themselves as grasshoppers. He is like the other two who knew that the enemies were little.

    He is also a practical gladiator. He knows the fight to accept, when to unleash a blow and how. He is not a megalomaniac like Hitler who boasted before the Second World War when he crooned: “Our enemies are tiny little worms. I met them the other day at Munich.”

    While the party lasted and the colloquium buzzed, President Muhammadu Buhari came close to classifying the stature of Tinubu when he described him as the greatest politician of this era. That understates him. Any credible student of Nigeria’s history would know that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is not only the greatest politician since independence; his is the greatest since Herbert Macaulay.

    As he beat the bully, he has been replaying that script all his life. He has done so in the corporate world as auditor. He shook up Mobil with a report that capsized the company’s top brass. The CEO fell. He earned the fear of his bosses, but the respect of the headquarters in the United States. He did it in the democracy struggles as senator in the June 12 struggles as well-documented in an upcoming book. He baited, dared the Abacha junta, was gaoled, escaped death a few times, and amassed resources and brain to fight the despot till his death.

    He returned to slay giants and became governor of Nigeria’s signal state, Lagos. As governor, he inhabited an island when the centre under the Owu chief could not unseat him. He challenged and outclassed him. With his party of one state, and the rest of the country under the sway and resources of a behemoth of the PDP, some saw his obituary. His colleagues fell after the first term, and OBJ was shocked Tinubu returned a glory.

    Lagos became the last bastion, what in Texas history is called the Alamo. They expected him to fall in 2007. They plotted Obanikoro to unseat his party and best Babatunde Fashola. Obj dallied and wanted his troops to move on Lagos. Security forces warned him against it. Eventually, he yielded and Fashola became governor. The king had become kingmaker in the most contentious of elections.

    With all of these, he had earned himself the plaudit of a great politician. He was not yet in the big league with the great politicians of our history. He was still a regional wrestler.

    He was still so when he brought the West back to the progressive fold. Osun. Oyo. Ekiti. Ondo. Ogun. Then even Edo.

    It was time to go national, and that was the big task. No politician had been able to rally forces in our history to victory. We had in the First Republic an alliance to bring down the NPC government under the Nigerian National Alliance. They owned the centre. To topple them, other parties coalesced under the United Progressive Grand Alliance. It did not fly, and the result was not only the turbulence of the West, but it triggered a coup that gave us a 30-month bloodbath.

    The next attempt was the PPA in the Second Republic. Some were sanguine and expected the coalition, especially of Awo’s UPN and Zik’s NPP and Waziri’s GNPP. They could not form a melting pot. Ego replaced concord, and each party went its separate way. At one stage, Zik landed in Enugu airport after what seemed a cheerful dialogue in Lagos airport. He accused Awo of contempt. NPN won the election but it lasted only a few months when Buhari struck.

    The only attempt to bring parties across the regions for a truly national foray was spearheaded in 2011. It all seemed it would work but it fell apart in the last flush. Jonathan had his way. Buhari is president today after many expected the APC to be a bust. The party’s formation is the biggest fruition in our political history. He single-mindedly envisioned, architected and worked it. Even a little detail like getting the logo right made him travel across the country from Lagos. US President Richard Nixon wrote in his memoirs that the proof of a tough guy is not only to make a tough decision but his ability to bring his associate along the path.

    The big feat was not so much the 2015 election as the APC primary, which he choreographed without a bitter aftertaste. The primary prefigured the ultimate triumph. That triumph, history will show, saved us from the abyss. Jonathan and Nigeria was ineluctably on the path of perdition. Debts and corruption were out of control.

    Macaulay rode the nationalist movement across tribes and regions. Zik succeeded him but the NCNC progressively shrank into a regional party. Zik was a diffusion. Tinubu is osmotic. He has been in this odyssey since he abandoned his lush job as Mobil treasurer. He slept on the wet and damp floor of Alagbon prison, ate on the fly, ran out of money, hid in bushes and stared death in the eye. He never accepted the Mobil offer to return to the luxury of his former life.

    Yet his is not about politics alone. It is politics as buoy to policy. He began a governance template that compelled Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun to confess that they want to copy it in the centre. No politician in history has enjoyed such emulation in politics and governance. It is not for nothing that Lagos is the one great story of governance today under alpha Governor Akinwunmi Ambode.

    Not since independence have such an array of bigwigs in politics, business and culture gathered in honour of a man who left office a decade ago. Governors, former governors, bureaucrats, captains of industry, CEOs, cultural mavens, et al.  They were there. It is a tribute to his soft power, apologies to Harvard Professor Joseph Nye. Hard power collapses easily. But soft power endures. Those who have not read Governor Ambode’s parable of the coconut should digest it for its import of a man who, in spite of many laurels, is still a phenomenon on the make.

    What other major statesman is known by his chieftaincy title from a different tribe!

    Just as he fell the bully, he still has giants to bait and beat. Except that he sees grasshoppers when others see giants.

  • Canada 2014 world cup: Falconets can make Nigeria proud, says Glo

    Canada 2014 world cup: Falconets can make Nigeria proud, says Glo

    Major sponsor of Nigerian national football teams, Globacom, has tasked the Falconets to conquer all opposition at the 2014 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup scheduled to begin on August 5 in Canada.

    The Nigerian team is competing in Group C and will play its first game on August 6 against Mexico, before meeting South Korea on the 9th and then England in the last Group match on the 13th.

    “Falconets have come a long way in this competition and we believe it is time for them to take their proper place by going all the way at the tournament,” Globacom said in a statement in Lagos on Sunday.

    “We have also noted the tenacity that the Falconets’ technical crew has brought to bear on the team’s preparation and we believe that everything will work well for the team this time around.”

    According to the telecommunications company, the complement of new Falconets’ invitee, USA-based Courtney Dike will add value to the squad.

    Courtney, an accounting student of Oklahoma State University who also plays in the school football team, is the younger sister of Super Eagles striker, Bright Dike.

    “We commend the resolve of the coaching crew and the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to widen its horizon in recruiting fresh talent to fortify the team. Everything necessary needs to be deployed on the technical front to achieve the ultimate goal of lifting the trophy,” the statement further said.

    Globacom added that “It is important at this juncture for all Nigerians to give maximum support to the Falconets so as to stimulate them to bring glory to the nation as the tournament begins.”

  • Kalu Orji to make January switch to Academica

    Kalu Orji to make January switch to Academica

    Heartland FC of Owerri midfielder, Kalu Orji, whose transfer to  Academica FC collapsed due to both parties’ failure to reach an agreement for his transfer, is tipped for a January return to the Portuguese side.

    According to the Maisfutebol, Orji left a good impression on Coach Paulo Sergio before getting injured in training on Wednesday, and the coach confirmed they would keep tabs on him in view of a transfer in the winter.

    “We couldn’t reach terms with his team in Nigeria, over his transfer after agreeing personal terms with him for a three-year deal, but we will monitor his performances in Nigeria and try for him again in January,” the coach stated.

    “He is a good player as he has shown with us, even if we can’t get him in January I believe other clubs will also bid for him,” he added.

    SL10 gathered that Orji is scheduled to return to Nigeria this weekend after Heartland hiked his transfer fee during negotiations with the Portuguese outfit.

    “We were told the fee he would command by the board of Heartland even before he went to join the team for pre-season. Academica were willing to pay the agreed amount, that was why they agreed terms with him, made him do a medical and announced he had joined them,” a source close to the deal told SL10.

    “But Heartland moved the goal post in the middle of negotiations asking for almost twice what was agreed before he came to Portugal, hence the team pulled out of the deal.”

    Heartland are known to be tough negotiators when it comes to player transfers. Aside Orji’s failed move, Benjamin Francis saw his switch to Ironi Kiryat Shmona collapse after the Israeli team couldn’t agree a fee with the Owerri outfit.

     

     

  • Ajayi to make Arsenal debut

    Ajayi to make Arsenal debut

    19 year-old ex-Nigeria Under-20 invitee Semi Ajayi is in line for his Arsenal first team debut after being listed in the match day squad for Arsenal’s first pre-season game against Boreham Wood.

    Ajayi joined Arsenal last season from Charlton Athletics but despite training with the main team on so many occasions last season he failed to make the match day squad for any of the Gunners game in the entire tournament they played.

    However, Ajayi’s big chance to impress manager Arsene Wenger was presented to him following the absence of the club’s regular centre backs who were all involved at the World Cup with Metesacker’s Germany up against Argentina in the final on Sunday.

    He made quite an impression last season on his debut for Arsenal B team, scoring with a header in a victory over Blackburn Rovers before turning in an impressive display against West Bromwich Albion at Emirates Stadium in the next fixture prompting the coaching staff to offer him a two-year contract at the club.

    Tip to pair with returning Spanish centre back Ignasi Miquel in today’s game, Ajayi still needs to fend off competition from another Spanish youngster Julio Pleguezuelo rumoured to be named as the club’s fourth-choice centre-back for the new season, at just 17 years of age.

    Last season Ajayi spent time on loan at Conference side Dartford last season and featured for Norwich City during pre-season prior to being offered a trial with Arsenal and played four friendly games for Nigeria Under-20 team before the World Youth Championship 2013 in the UAE.

    He is still eligible for England as he was born in the country to Nigerian parents.

     

  • Ajagun, Umar make FIFA list

    Ajagun, Umar make FIFA list

    ABDUL-JELILI Ajagun and Aminu Umar’s goals against Portugal and Cuba respectively have been included in the FIFA top 10 Turkey 2013 goals.

    Video clips of the 10 goals are available on the world football governing body’s website, fifa.com, and SportingLife understands that if either of the Nigerians’ goals secures the most votes, it would be declared the winner of the best goal of the 2013 World Youth Championship in Turkey.

    Flying Eagles skipper Ajagun’s goal against Portugal was nominated before Umar’s.

    The first video captured Ajagun, who drew Nigeria level with Portugal in the 2-3 loss, from a deep corner all alone in the penalty area, before controlling the ball and sublimely curling it into the far corner of Sa’s goal.

    Umar’s had a touch of flair to it as Nigeria beat Cuba 3-0. Osuchukwu’s deep corner found Abdullahi Shehu, who drilled a cross that Umar flicked between his legs and into the bottom corner.

    According to FIFA, voting for the best goal by fans will end on July 17. The entry began on July 13.

     

  • What do I do to make him know I love him?

    I’m 19 years old, I am in love with someone but he does not know that I love him. I’ve tried to forget about him but I can’t, please help me; tell me what to do to make him know I love him. Thanks. Hussaina.

    Dear Hussaina, in as much as I don’t have much fears about people of your age falling in love, I like letting them know that 18 to 20 are still vulnerable ages when men can work on your innocence and take you for granted.

    Talking about a girl coming out to tell a guy who hasn’t noticed her that she’s in love with him could spell trouble if the guy is not matured enough. It might be interpreted to mean free invitation to sex. It might be interpreted to mean desperation and it could be used against her. So before walking up to a guy to say you like him, be very sure he’s exposed and matured and has good friends who won’t tell him to use the opportunity as an awoof to devour easily.

  • ‘This will make me live longer’

    ‘This will make me live longer’

    Emotions went high yesterday at the Unity Hall of Government House in Asaba, Delta State, when 86-year-old Awoturo Eleaya said that he felt like running again and that the event that he was witnessing would make him live longer.

    Delta State was unveiling the mascot for a sports programme named after him, the Awoturo Eleaya Athletics Fiesta. The finals will hold this year in Sapele. It is a fall-out from the Sports Summit the state held on October 30 last year. The implementation of the report has already started, although the report was officially submitted to government at the same event that also witnessed the inauguration of the Local Organising Committee for the African Youth Athletics Championship that will hold in Warri in March.

    Delta State Governor Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan had promised that Delta would produce Olympic medalists and the Awoturo Eleaya Fiesta is one of the launching pads towards achieving the feat. It will see track and field taking place from ward levels to Local Government Areas and from there to Senatorial districts and then the state finals which will take place in Sapele. Juniors, intermediates and seniors will all compete in the fiesta and world stars like Blessing Okagbare will compete in the senior event. The idea is to mentor the young athletes who, no doubt, will be inspired by their presence. Okagbare attended the event. Former African queen of the tracks Mary Onyali was also in the hall. And little Ese Brume whom Amaju Pinnick, head of sports in Delta, touted as one to step into the shoes of Okagbare was also there with her parents.

    Eleaya was so moved by the day that he prayed for God’s blessings on Dr. Uduaghan and his government for not only honouring him while he is still alive but also embarking on what he likened to a revolution that will turn around sports in the country. Grassroots football has already started in Delta with the Governor’s Cup and weightlifting, swimming and other events will follow in due course.

    “I’m so delighted that at almost 86, I feel that I should be in the field running again,” Eleaya said in his remarks that attracted ovations.

    “Many of those I ran with are no more. Some are on wheelchairs and some not too strong again. The concept of this competition really covers grassroots, it’s what will make athletes graduate from juniors to intermediate and then to seniors. This is great. (Turning to Governor Uduaghan) You are making me to live longer and I pray that God blesses you and all those putting this together. You will live to watch these competitions and your children will live to watch them too.”

    Before Uduaghan spoke he paid tribute to the late Ayo Ositelu and asked that all should stand for a minute’s silence in honour of the veteran journalist who passed on last week. He also extolled the virtues of sports and reiterated his commitment towards transforming sports in Delta, saying that “sports reduces criminality, enhances good health and employs the youth and as we are planning for a period without oil; sports is one key area that could be vital to the economy.”

  • How to make Nigeria work

    How to make Nigeria work

    SIR: The public hearings which attended the constitutional amendment process has revealed the anxieties amongst citizens many of whom have been thinking aloud on whether the National Assembly would live up to expectation. This is in the background of the entrenched notion that the Assembly is not so much in tune with the yearnings and aspirations of the people of Nigeria. This sad but painful perception must be corrected in a deliberate manner. I am yet to see any Nigerian who wishes for the country to continue on this path except those who are making a fortune from this skewed arrangement.

    In the past, many have advanced logical and highly convincing arguments for the re-structuring of Nigeria in such a manner that will make it work to the delight and reward of all and sundry but regretfully that is yet to receive government attention. The challenge is how to build Nigeria without fear and without grievances? It might appear simplistic but with every blast from indiscriminate killings and maiming of innocent Nigerians, rancour and flare of ethnic acrimony which has remained a recurring decimal of our history, it is evident that the national fabric is under strain. We must all rise up before this house caves in. The failure to live true to our claim to principles of federalism has made a mockery of us.

    The pains and frustrations are ever mounting and if all men and women of good conscience do not act and do so in a deft manner, then we all might be consumed in the looming anarchy. Nothing is more fundamental for us at this moment than for us to answer without any deceit if what is obtainable is the best for Nigeria. I nurse no doubt that we are not at our best given the enormous mineral and human deposit which abound within our national frontiers.

    Given that we have travelled this road before without much success, it will do no hurt but rather a lot of good if we can be courageous enough to candidly answer the question of how to organize Nigeria that the best can be gotten from the composite nationalities under a stable and virile government. It is not a presumption that the vast majority of Nigerians want a functional and stable polity. Given that fact, the National Assembly should not foreclose any option in its task to fashion a living constitution for the benefit of all our country men and women.

    The agitation to address the nationality question is not, and should never be misconstrued as calling for the balkanization of the country. The fire of the nationality question which was lit shortly after independence in 1960 has continued to grow in intensity simply because the relationship between the nationalities has remained one defined by fears of domination, some real, others imaginary. In such a foul atmosphere, it is only rational for us to seek a truce in a potentially charged arrangement. The best way in my candid opinion is for all nationalities that make up Nigeria to step forward with a road map that will assuage their fears.

    We must be bold to make a necessary change. The reason why every nationality within Nigeria makes desperate push to control political power at the centre at all cost is the absence of considerable autonomy for all to flourish at own pace.

    Many Nigerians have been killed or maimed and many more face a grim future in our country for no fault of theirs, perhaps simply because of their mode of worship, place of birth or economic status and place of birth. Whatever motivation that propels this rabid intolerance should be addressed rather than fold our hands until the entire country slips into a bloodbath.

    Clearly, the fissures generated by such a potentially destructive path continue to grow with each passing day simply because of the erroneous believe that a section of the country holds the master key or is actually the master in a lopsided arrangement. It has not worked in the past and will never work if we are sincere enough to face the truth. We must re-examine our perceived “settled issues” with a view to making our country truly functional. It is an ethical issue which if well handled will usher us to a more purposeful living.

    There is ample example to point to the fact that we have breached universally known face of federalism and compounded problems of harmonious ethnic co-existence for so long. The greatest gift we can give to our country men and women is to be guided by this historic mission to alter for good our reality of today.

     

    • Rotimi Opeyeoluwa,

    rotbaba@gmail.com