Any entity at 57 years is grown and matured but that cannot be said about Nigeria. As a country we shall repeat the usual ceremonies associated with independence celebration only this time with suspended apprehension over threats about quit orders that if carried out will lead to bloodshed, civil disorders, dislocation and what you have. Personally, I don’t see that happening because there is no reasonable cause for that. Nigeria issues are too complex for many known reasons and over the years have been left unattended hoping that these issues will just disappear.
Let us not dwell on what we were supposed to have attained, how our economy was supposed to have blossomed beyond those of the Asian Tigers, how we were endowed with human and natural resources, how potentially we would have been great but unfortunately we are none of the above. So realistically, let us assess how we move forward now. We must admit that Nigeria is not prepared to what is evolving today, the cacophony of voices of what is wrong with Nigeria.
In all these complaints, one thing was missing, an expression of what we need to sacrifice for our country to get going again. It seems that we are all in a frenzy for some implosion to occur in Nigeria.Some sobriety is required to visit our collative psyche to avert a massive civil strife that will do no group any good. Ndigbo in general centers their displeasure on marginalization which they claim started after the civil war that broke out 50 years ago.
If one talks to five Igbo each explanation of the imagined marginalization is different from the other. The Igbo from Anambra view marginalization as the inhibition pertaining to market activities in various parts of Nigeria. The Igbo from Abia complain about being marginalized in the distribution of amenities especially roads and other infrastructure.
The Igbo from Imo State will allege that appointments in the Federal government do not reflect Federal Character and Ndigbo are left out in these appointments.
The Igbo from Enugu views marginalization as the non creation of Adada State with capital at Nsukka and the Igbo from Ebonyi is declaring that they are not for any regional arrangement whatsoever. Just as Boko Haram missed the opportunity to carry other Nigerians along in their ill fated campaign by not insisting that what they were after was a fight against corruption.
The Yoruba centered their grouse against the centre by calling for restructuring and have not advanced any cogent reasons for such restructure except to convey the simplistic solution of each region developing at their own pace. Both the South-East, South- South, have bought into this South-West position with North-Central just watching from the sidelines.
The IPOB missed the train by not starting with the time tested adage that “Charity begins at home” by not calling on their five governors to account for the billions of funds they have received and continue to receive from the Federation Account and Internally Generated Revenues (IGRs) to at least prove that a Biafra of their dreams will be that shining beacon on the mountain top.
It quickly became obvious that IPOB is another MASSOB preying on peoples fear and in the process acquiring money and power.
Not equating IPOB with Boko Haram, both bodies have no discernable agenda to promote public progression. Boko Haram and IPOB are contrived bodies, organised by some hidden hands with specific agenda to supplant the present occupiers of power. It does not require the genius of a nuclear scientist to figure out, first how Boko Haram was able to acquire its arsenal of arms and funds to carry out its vicious campaign and their insistence on ideological extremism give them away of their true intentions.
If in broad day light, a criminal outfit will invade a community, remove 200 plus girls and were able to sequester them in only God knows location for over a year and releases batches as and when it pleases them and to add insult to injury an international entity pays them ransom, Nigeria indeed is drifting to a failed state status.
When IPOB reared its head, the respected Dr. Dozie Ikedife was touted as its head and many of us viewed the body as something that can be one of the tools in the Igbo tool box to constructively ventilate the core Ndigbo concerns in the Nigeria Federation or use the popular description of calling it the Nigeria project. Hopes were quickly dashed when the former Ohanaeze leader was bashed mercilessly in the social media by the very body members.Not long after that bashing Mr. Nnamdi Kanu appeared on the scene with characteristic modus operandi that contained an expert propaganda method and system never seen in this part of the globe. It again exposed IPOB as an outfit with a hidden agenda contrived to wrest power through the backdoor exploiting the fears, feelings and hopelessness of Ndigbo in the Nigeria Project.
For over 20 years, Mr. Ralph Uwazurike has used MASSOB to acquire for himself tremendous wealth and influence and Mr. Nnamdi Kanu, a student of his simply supplanted him with a more superior method to continue the exploitation of Ndigbo youths’ frustration and hopelessness.
Whilst Igbo elders watched helplessly, the Igboland is being pulverized with foreign culture passed through social media. The old time Ndigbo spirit of Onye asha Nwaenyi was turned into tigbutigbuo and that community building effort disappeared from our culture.
Ndigbo progressed in the 40s, 50s and 60s not by complaining endlessly of marginalization but with their indomitable spirit of hard work, unity and commitment which elevated them in the Nigeria space. Let Ndigbo return to that era and march on with progress of a new renaissance. Marginalization has been so flogged that Ndigbo must rediscover an era to propel them to great heights in Nigeria.An adoption of this spirit is not surrender, rather it is wisdom. Let Ndigbo shift the Nigeria discourse to promoting the generic topic that emphasis on strengthening the core government institutions for restructuring than those ephemeral restricting ideas that begins and ends on catering for a minority few.
If Nigeria installs a strong and professional police and judiciary, all Nigerians will be secured in that sector of the building of a stable Nigeria were human rights are guaranteed and protected, a sign post of a good society. If we strengthen our education and health institutions, Nigerians will appreciate their government. If we discourage wastages in government and channel the country’s resources constructively, Nigeria will enjoy better infrastructure in roads, railways and airways.
These are what restructuring should focus on and search for a transformational leader that will regard all regions of Nigeria as his or her constituency. In all these, the Northerners adopted a sit don look posture believing that they are on the receiving end. Their huge mistake is that a major dislocation of Nigeria people will expose the Northern elites that are the primary beneficiaries of Nigeria bad governance.The various complaints by the various groups in Nigeria are just a scratch at the core ills bedeviling Nigeria. Nigeria is an unjust contraption pretending to be a country which it is and a nation which it is not.
Both the Igbo and Yoruba should realize that 85 per cent of Northerners are uneducated and are living in an unimaginable condition without access to basic needs of life and both groups have failed to view those millions as fellow countrymen and women. Are these helpless Nigerians not marginalized by a minority elites.? An Igbo or Yoruba hearing this will quickly answer back “is it not their people” in power
. It flies in the face of logic to make any meaning of the question. The call for a transformational leader for Nigeria is not a cliché but an urgently needed requirement if we expect Nigeria to progress.
For as long as a Nigeria leader that emerges looks at him or herself as belonging to a section what will be expected will be nepotism and nothing else. We have tried this for 57 years and let us start by making basic assessment of what makes a country progress. First and foremost is the quality of the country’s institutions. Nigeria lacks these institutions and for as long as these institutions are the way that they are today, we shall only quicken our steps to a failed state status. We are all in agreement that our police institution is in shambles riddled with massive corruption.
We are all in agreement that our state governments are one man shows where the governors are be all and end all. In fact, the state assemblies and local government area systems are mere tools of the governors and even the constitutional requirements of state budgets are rituals, just mere rituals that in the case of Imo State in the past four years are not even carried out for appearance purposes.
The greatest danger is going on in our educational institutions where a massive dysfunctionality is taking place. Is it not a common knowledge that our prospective graduates are asking parents and guardians for money to do sorting; an euphemism for bribing with money or sex or both to have grades changed in order to qualify for graduation. Do we visit health institutions to see the horror going on there?
To an average Nigeria, corruption begins and ends with taking not even giving bribes and to the same average Nigeria just take the bribes and give me some.
When nepotism becomes a culture, it corrupts the entire system and all suffers the consequences and reflects in the quality of what we get in the society. This leads to the absence of merit system in Nigeria and what it can produce at best are mediocre in position of authority and more and more nepotism. This narrative brings us to the issue of social media which is now dominating our viral information network.
It should be noted that this social network is good but mostly bad. It is good in the sense that people are more widely informed of what is happening around them and yet mostly bad because 80 per cent of the information are fake, false, manufactured and massively tinted. The social media outlet has become a source of very offensive propaganda tailored to create division and disaffection and it can never be good for any society.
Worse, it has been a source for pornographic distribution whether you solicit for it or not and could be of great harm to our children. It is also disruptive in general for any advancement in healthy nation building as most of the contents are trash and of zero educational benefits to the society. Above all and beyond it could cause an irredeemable damage to peace and security for the country.
By Ralph Obioha
newtelegraphonline
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment