God, I am here on my knees, deep down in meditation, full of remorse and regrets, on why you ‘made’ me a Nigerian. I have no option of changing my ‘divinely’ sacrosanct nationality, but the only option for me is what I am about doing- prayer!
This 2004, I can perceive fear. Fear that is bound to manifest by or before 2007. God, Nigerians are tired of tyranny and crude ‘intellectual theft’ of their governments. In the acclaimed religious enclave; killings, cheating, robbery, corruption, tribalism, nepotism all strive at its highest level. The Okija shrine rituals is a case in point.
We have all the political” social and economic institutions like in other societies, but ours is not working, I mean functional, God why? We have Federal Ministry of Agriculture, but fertilizer only gets to Nigerian farmers at the end of the farming seasons and not from the institutions, but from the so-called black (open) markets at high prices. Globalization is urging us to compete in the field, of agriculture, with other global societies, but our domestic agricultural institutional decay, is tying us down.
We are a country of over 120 million Nigerians, but since after Independence, and with a full-fledged ministry of education, we cannot boast of millions of graduates that passed through the NYSC scheme! Globalization will be meaningless in the frontiers of Nigeria, and having a ticket to belong to the global village will never be, but perpetual dreams.
In Nigeria, education is under-funded, with all the numerous universities in the country, the government cannot manage them well; students are bundled in rooms like sardine, and paying much for accommodation fees, and their lecturers in constant ‘wars’ with the government for poor funding and related problems. At the same time allowing private universities and the ‘supposed overriding’ interest of the Nigeria people. How, for God’s sake, do we compete with the rest of the global village? Who are you to question the brain-drain syndrome?
It is only in Nigeria that, those in authority are not managing resources properly. We are naturally endowed with crude oil, and in fact one of the best forms of crude oil’ in the world for its being sulfur free, with multiple refineries across the country, but none of these refineries is being managed by the government for more than seven years. Nigeria prefers buying petroleum and other related products from abroad, can you imagine this beautiful nonsense? If you talk of electric power supply, that’s what will make your blood pressure get to elastic limit. Certainly this is one mess of a lifetime since after independence.
In Nigeria, and from the experience of both 1st and 2nd tenure of the present crop of leadership, the saying that, the worst civilian regime is better that the perfect military regime’ is a fallacy. Why do Nigerians remember or celebrate Murtala’s Day every 13th February? Is Murtala a ‘Military democrat’, a ‘civilianized military’ or just an honest Nigerian leader?
God, it is only you that knows why you created the Nigerian state the way you did, multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-religious; a perfect diverse heterogeneous configuration, and above all black, the most populous nation on earth! You make us stay together but the “creation” has become a curse rather than a blessing. This perhaps explains why some Nigerians (past and present) regard the 1914 episode as a mistake. It is here in Nigeria that “each of us is against every one of us; ethnic, religious and tribal wars manifest almost at all nooks and crannies of the country, giving a perfect semblance of what our lecturers-used to tell us in the class. “The state of Nature, where life was brutish, solitary, nasty and short; because each man is against every other man.
We have women professional associations in Nigeria, a lot of them in government, but looking at the dossier of our aged parents, particularly women, mothers and sisters alike, you wonder what is being professional about the women organisations? Most of our rural dwellers; women in particular romance daily with poverty, sleep with poverty and shake hands with poverty. In short, poverty is their next-door neighbor.
It is only in Nigeria, that a leader will say something and change the following morning, making or rather reducing the state to a family possession. For the fact that religion is central to the general life of the state, making the inhabitants and their leaders alike to subscribe to good morals and ethics, ours is rather unfortunate. For God, in his Holy Books has enjoined us to be loyal and obedient to our leaders and those in authority, but in Nigeria, our leaders tell us that, the state has no religion, therefore, the Nigerian constitution has no recognition of the Deity, for its being seculer, and at the same time religion is a very potent weapon in campaigns and in winning elections in Nigeria, God what is wrong?
For the fear of 2007 and its attendant trickle-down consequences, I have no option than to subscribe to “Andrew’s theory”, of “checking-out” so as to find solace, somewhere else; to meet those whom their grandparents ‘did not miss the boat’ before the Atlantic charter! By attempting to stay and salvage the problems together, then you might be preparing to be sent to heavens. Whatever solution you proffer, it will be seen as an act of opposition; definitely any attempt will be looked at as an act of political opposition. May the souls of Marshal Harry, Dikibo, Bola Ige, Chuba Okadigbo and other political victims rest in peace Amin!
Resource controll, sovereign national conference, rotational presidency, federal character, are all not a solution to our common problems. And if care is not taken, certainly they will be ‘undertakers’.
God, does Nigeria really belong to Nigerians? We look forward to just solutions to our ‘national misbehaviors’, and pray come 2007 the fears, anger and traumas will be dispelled. May our political leaders have foresight in their wrongs and change for the better come 2007.
Abubakar Sambo Mohammed
is of Department of Public Administration,
Adamawa state University, Mubi.
