In this circumstance, Nigeria as a country is stillborn while Ohaneze lives, Arewa lives, Afenifere lives … You must agree that this is a crying shame
A while back, I put forward the proposition that we have somehow contrived to get Nigeria lost somewhere in the thick folds of starched agbadas donned by our politicians. Many of you read the report and responded; I thank you indeed. To many of you who read it and merely grunted as if saying, tell us something we don’t know, I also grunt my thanks. To those of you who did not read the article, I shake my fist at you. Just be sure it does not happen again.
In particular, I am giving a reply to someone who raised a question arising from one of my statements that getting Nigeria lost is neither a crying nor a laughing matter for the country. The reader had asked, what then should we do? Well, let me first explain what I mean. We cannot laugh off the fact of the loss because it is heavy. It is a little like a company running a deficit of billions of Naira and the chief executive blithely tells the shareholders at the AGM that the deficit is not something that cannot be laughed off. Well, yeah, if the company has credits of trillions and trillions. Even then, I can imagine some intrepid shareholders bursting their veins at the thought of such heavy drains on their profits.
We also cannot sit and howl our heads off. As they say, life must go on. Just because we are howling does not mean that other people’s or nations’ lives will stop. They may stop momentarily to watch us howl but they will move on to continue their inventions. Believe me, it is because they are not stopping to watch nations howl that the industrialised world has now invented arm chairs for people to sit on (imagine this!) and even foldable arm chairs you can take with you to your village (imagine that!).
So yes, we should neither laugh nor cry, but we can reassess our approach to national development. Right now, one of the strongest approaches we are adopting in Nigeria is regional affiliation. This affiliation is so strong that people do not identify themselves as Nigerians but according to their regional body. Unfortunately, the existence of these bodies is directly antithetical to the existence of the corporate body. This is why Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba people (as well as the other hundreds of minority groups) exist as concrete entities while ‘Nigerians’ only exist as an abstract entity. So, when we find ourselves outside the country, we present ourselves in this abstract sense as ‘Nigerians’; within the country however, we are content to live this big, fat lie.
The lie began with the old Nigerian anthem that went ‘Though tribe and tongue may differ/ In brotherhood we stand’ and continues in this present anthem with words like ‘compatriots’, ‘fatherland’, ‘one nation’, etc. In practical terms, however, we are neither ‘compatriots’ nor do we ‘stand’ in ‘brotherhood’. How do I know this?
To start with, do you know how many cries of marginalisation we have had to endure over the years? Let’s see now. During the years of Obasanjo and Jonathan, the Arewa north, the Afenifere west and the Ohaneze east never tired of singing tunes of being marginalised by the government in the distribution of public posts and amenities. Barely into this present era of Buhari, we have now been having earfuls of Ohaneze’s loud tunes on how the eastern areas have been marginalised in the distribution of national or public perks (i.e., public office and social amenities). And the beat goes on; but it is mostly off tune, off key and staccato.
From my observation, and I am willing to be corrected, Nigeria is only a pretend country; in reality, it is the three regional countries within it running things. Fifty-five years after independence, the citizens have not evolved to see themselves first and foremost as Nigerians who happen to have come from a locality. Rather, what we have are citizens who have evolved first and foremost into regionalists who happen to reside within the place called Nigeria. Within this circumstance, Nigeria as a country is stillborn while Ohaneze lives, Arewa lives, Afenifere lives, and all jostling for domination, along with their religions and traditions.
You must agree that this is a crying shame. Just imagine the parts of the body and where they are all coming from. The body can surely not survive where the arm fights for what it can get for its own components (arm, hand, fingers, nails, etc.); the limb does the same for its own group (leg, knee joint, toes, nails, etc.); and the torso does the same for its own group (body, shoulders, head, etc.). Each one will only succeed in drawing the life out of what it is designed to protect and reduce it to a skeleton if it looks out only for its own interests.
In the present constitutive Nigeria, each region appears homogeneous, which it uses to advantage when seeking the things of itself. Need more representation in government? Cry as a region about marginalisation. Need to protect a son or daughter hounded for embezzlement or misappropriation? Cry wolf as a region. Need more money pumped in your direction? Sing as a region about how no one is paying attention to you. Need more food pumped your way? Why, cry crocodile tears as a region…
Call me naive, but I do not think any country can survive where the intent of its so-called citizens is to garner as much as they can for their own little corner of the earth. To start with, it jeopardises the most essential ingredient to national development: PATRIOTISM, PATRIOTISM, PATRIOTISM. Oh yes, it also makes everyone sound like a broken record. We have jokingly said many times that a national cake that is only eaten and not baked or replenished will soon run out. When people insist on just taking, sooner or later, they will reach the skeleton.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have now reached the skeleton of Nigeria I am afraid; people are not ‘doing for’ Nigeria what they should, they are ‘taking from’ Nigeria what they should not. I just look at our lightless situation (e.g. my house enjoys two hours of electricity in twenty-four hours on good days) and shake my head. I am told a story of how someone stopped a national agricultural project from being carried out because it would not benefit his part of the country. Projects are now executed at ten times their cost because someone insists it must be located in his corner of the earth or it must benefit someone else from his locality… I’m sure you know one or two of such stories.
I ask, how long do you think even a skeleton can keep standing while it is being scavenged? Nigerians are busy now ravaging this skeleton to benefit their various regions and, magically, they also expect it to continue standing and live in good health. How can that be? I think the logic is simple. The continued good health of these regions will spell doom for Nigeria; the continued good health of Nigeria must also spell the doom of these regional interests. We cannot eat our cake and still hope to have it.
By normal thinking, each region should have been made into or left to evolve as a country at the beginning by Britain. But in Britain’s wisdom (or lack of it as we all appear to have agreed), the units were yoked together. These homogeneous units must then decide which they would rather prefer to survive: their regions or the country. We all need to have been born somewhere; but those places need not be placed above the interests of the nation.
