By Emeka Alex Duru (08054103327, [email protected])
Should you interpret Nigeria from the allegory of the blind males requested to explain an elephant, by which every gave completely different impressions of the mammoth creature, relying on which a part of the physique he touched, you gained’t be mistaken. The nation means many issues to its residents, relying on how one encounters it.
Some say Nigeria is a good nation, in actual fact, the enormous of Africa, apparently primarily based on its dimension, inhabitants, pure sources and different latent options. Some see it as a lilliputian, missing the desire to maximise its monumental alternatives. Others merely say it’s a crippled large that has not been in a position to stand on its ft. They’re all appropriate.
Right here is an entity that’s blessed with every part for development and growth however has refused to develop. If something, Nigeria appears to be perpetually in reverse gear, shedding no matter features it had recorded beforehand. As a substitute of standing firmly, Nigeria has been tottering, present on sheer mom luck and windfall, therefore the fad that it has been wobbling and fumbling, a fad attributed to at least one time handler of our Beneath-20 male soccer staff, Fanny Amun.
In 1999, when Nigeria hosted the (Beneath) U-20 World Cup, Amun the then coach of the Flying Eagles introduced a staff that didn’t meet up with many individuals’s expectations however managed to file wins come what may and progressed within the event.
When requested concerning the probabilities of his boys to go additional given their lack-luster efficiency, Coach Amun reportedly assured that the staff would “wobble and fumble until it will get to the ultimate.” Certainly, the staff did progress in a shaky trend and ultimately earned a bronze medal within the event. Although Amun later denied making the remark, it has been freely utilized in soccer and in politics, ever since.
At 64, Nigeria has been wobbling and fumbling. In my article of October 1, 2021, titled A nation and its shaky steps at 61, I recalled the paradoxes of nostalgia and regrets on the face of one of many foot troopers of the nation’s march to freedom, late Melie Chukelu Kafundu (MCK) Ajuluchukwu, whereas recounting their pleasure on Nigeria’s independence on October 1, 1960, and what turned overseas later.
MCK, an completed journalist, had recounted a touching story of the goals of Nigeria’s founding fathers, particularly their imaginative and prescient of an enormous enterprise that might champion and defend the reason for its residents and certainly, the black man all around the world. Buoyed by the engaging visions, the forebears, main 1000’s of youths and even the aged who supplied the uncooked power and verve for the nationalistic battle, thronged the Lagos Race Course (Tafawa Balewa Sq.) hours earlier than mid-night of September 30, 1960 to herald the beginning of a brand new nation.
By 12.00 AM, the lights within the area went off. Once they had been turned on few seconds later, a brand new period had dawned. Nigeria had turn out to be unbiased. The Inexperienced-White-Inexperienced Nationwide Flag had taken the place of the British Union Jack. Ajuluchukwu lacked phrases to elucidate the euphoria that seized him and others on the occasion. However when requested to make an evaluation of the journey to this point, the outdated conflict horse, bowed his head in regrets and uttered; “What individuals are pursuing now should not the issues we fought for”. He belonged to the category of Nigerians that died with the pains of a phenomenal dream they’d for the nation being bungled.
When the residents, particularly the youths and the city elite come throughout a fellow citizen that has been harm by the conditions within the nation or could have been handed the mistaken finish of the stick in enterprise or political undertakings, it is not uncommon to say; “Nigeria has occurred to him”. In easy phrases, the particular person has misplaced out. Some could even say he’s a fall-guy. That’s the scenario that almost all residents discover themselves now. We now have been made fall guys by the system.
At a degree within the crabby days of the Second Republic revolutionary music star, Sonny Okosuns, had in one among his songs posed a rhetorical query; “which approach Nigeria?” remarking that after a few years of independence, the nation was nonetheless discovering it needed to stand. Okosuns had queried how lengthy it will take the nation to get to the biblical Promised Land. The query was not answered and has remained unanswered.
There isn’t a how we are able to focus on Nigeria’s path to its current piteous state with out mentioning the ignominious function of its successive leaders. Literary icon, Chinua Achebe, in ‘The difficulty with Nigeria’, was proper that “the difficulty with Nigeria is solely and squarely the failure of management”. Successive leaders of the nation have failed the individuals in no small measures.
At 64, Nigeria is actually on its fours. Indexes of growth that ought to have been on the rise are in retrogression. In contrast with China with which it shares October 1 as Nationwide Day, Nigeria is nowhere but. In 2022, China’s GDP was $17.96 trillion in distinction to Nigeria’s $252 billion! Nigeria’s continental friends, South Africa and Egypt generate 58,000 megawatts every; we’re barely in a position to generate 5,000MW. At a degree Nigeria Airways had the very best fleet of Aircrafts in Africa. However the nation can not boast of a single airplane, presently.
Nigeria’s politics can be in recession. The trademark tolerance that had existed among the many element models previously, is now not there. The ethnic nationalities at present cohabit in mutual suspicion, mistrust, and disharmony. In 1952, a Fulani from Sifawa within the Sokoto Caliphate, Mallam Umaru Altine, was elected first Mayor of the town of Enugu, the political capital of Igbo nation. Within the Western Area, Emmanuel Ebubedike, an Igbo was the honourable member representing Ajeronmi/Ifelodun/Badagry Constituency within the Western Area Home of Meeting. Similar cases of lodging replicated elsewhere.
However in the identical presumed cosmopolitan Lagos in 2023, Bayo Onanuga, Particular Media Adviser to President Bola Tinubu and his fellow bigots, ensured that the Igbo weren’t allowed to vote or be voted for in elections. From seeing each other as compatriots, Nigerians are being made to see themselves from slender prisms of faith and area of beginning.
Whereas the residents struggled to recover from the electoral heist unleashed on them within the 2023 common election supervised by Prof Mahmood Yakubu and his Impartial Nationwide Electoral Fee (INEC), the farce that handed for a governorship election in Edo State on September 21, confirmed clearly that democracy had not taken roots within the nation. Should you then add these anomalies to the charade on the native authorities areas the place the governors and ruling events within the states, overtly acceptable your complete chairmanship and councillorship positions, you possibly can solely conclude that Nigeria is a misplaced hope.
It’s due to this fact, not sufficient for President Tinubu to declare in his Independence Speech that his administration understands the challenges the residents are going by means of. These have turn out to be hackneyed expressions he readily dives at every time he makes public look with out pronounced corresponding actions. This time, he must provide you with lifelike methods devoid of propaganda, to sort out the issues on floor. This home is falling, if he needs to know.
He’s proper that the 2024 Independence anniversary presents one other likelihood to mirror on the efforts at nation-building and to resume commitments for a greater nation that can serve current and future generations. That’s maybe, the one option to fill the lacking hyperlinks in Nigeria’s march to greatness.
•DURU is the Editor, TheNiche Newspapers, Lagos