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 Daily
Independent Online.
* Friday, July 02, 2004.
Imperatives of a national dialogue
By James Tar Tsaaior
E-mail: [email protected]
The spectre of the dialectics
of a national dialogue now haunts the contours of the nation. What from
the beginning looked like mere musings and silhouettes of
self-flagellation by nationalist groupings has gradually grown into and
assumed the status of a national discourse in Nigeria. From the foothills
of discursive skirmishes within micro-nationalist formations, the
agitations for a national dialogue have been transported to the
mountaintops of sinewy and vociferous voices competing to be heard.
The imperatives for a national dialogue,
are plethoric just like the appellations with which the dialogue itself
is being christened. Whether it be sovereign national conference,
national conference bereft of sovereign or national confab, the spirit behind the dialogue is the
same: to take Nigeria beyond the
wilderness of self-imposed inertia to the refreshing oasis of growth
and development; to ferry her from the tempestuous gusts of corruption
and ethnocentrism to the
safe harbour of propriety and patriotic fervour.
Proponents of the national dialogue
majorly name issues that pendulate between a dubious and fraudulent
federation we operate, and control of resources and the general atrophy
and underdevelopment that have conspired to drive us to this sorry pass.
Equally fundamental and crucial to
these agitations is the
question of leadership in
the country where its emergence appears to be an exclusive preserve or
birthmark of some sections of the country.
It is indubitable that a well-intentioned
and brilliantly executed national dialogue will not diminish Nigeria.
Rather, it will burst open the granaries of abundance that teemed with
groundnut pyramids, heaving cocoa houses, swaying palm trees for palm
oil, seductive yam and cassava tubers as well as buxom bean stalks and
regal millet or sorghum shoots. This will provide alternative sources of
income generation, broaden our GDP profile and significantly lessen our
near total dependence on oil as a mono-cultural economy.
This was the order in the first republic.
It encouraged growth and development in the regions before military
(mis)adventurism and the concomitant interregnum. It is sickening that
oil which should lubricate the arteries and pulmonary veins of the nation
now burns and scorches. And this is because of institutionalised greed,
decreed corruption and collective amnesia by our decadent and profligate
leadership that has gone berserk like a rebellious locomotive that flouts
all traffic codes.
A balanced, genuine and well-run
federation holds the healing herb that can provide an efficacious panacea
to the stubborn and weeping wounds a violent history has inflicted on the
nation. It is the viable beginning of national rumination, national
(re)affirmation and national self-retrieval from the quagmire of
self-negation.
The weirdness of our federation should
sting us with the venom of a viper and the flakes of a scorpion. Why
should ours be like chalk to cheese to other federations like the United
States, Canada, Belgium, United Kingdom, etc. And if the somnolent drums
of these agitations for a national conference that have been woken up are
drowned as is the case with the orchestra of weaverbirds voices issuing
form praetorian places, they
may be replaced by funereal
tom toms that no one, none will refuse to dance naked to.
But a word of caution. This imperative for
a national dialogue has been presented by some in martial metaphors and
sepulchral tropes as if it is
a premonitory event that will sound the knell for a national
conflagration and eventual
extinction. This is impolitic and unnecessary. It is my considered
opinion and courageous
conviction that the centripetal forces in this nation of nations
are more formidable than the centrifugal garrisons. The stakes are too high and our
coherent existence can be assured even with a SNC. This phalanx of
explosive metaphors unduly scares and drives into the distant horizon the
inevitability of this national dialogue. What is, however, reassuring is
that all patriotic citizens have
acknowledged that the nation should put off the snarling,
conquering flames before striving after fleeing mice.
Another word this time for those who lose
their appetite and sleep with the mere mention of a national dialogue.
Such a dialogue is for a greater Nigeria. But it will be a greater
Nigeria that will enlist as her handmaidens the eternal verities of justice, fair play
accountability and ultimately accelerated development.
It will be a greater Nigeria that will
dislodge entrenched corruption, ethnocentrism, complacency and indolence.
And when this happens, Nigeria would have sufficiently executed a project
of self-definition and strategically repositioned herself to lead the
whole of Africa and become a virile and voluble voice in an increasingly
post- modernist global neighbourhood.
• Tsaaior teaches English at Lagos State University,
Ojo
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