A lost republic;
where did we come from?
As the world
turned the lens with keen attention to where I grew up to know as country, I
was tempted with a desire to grapple with an imagination of the future of a
wanton state of nationhood. To be candid and as for me, this may have been a
written soliloquy of despair and desperation perhaps as I really can’t help
wonder about where it all might probably end. The leaders from the south had
said that if the eventual decision from the referendum is to split Sudan into
two, the emergence of a new nation will not be an end in itself but the
beginning for something new. That, myself and I guess so many others world over
would have supposed too. Observers had
not only gone from world over to Sudan to see for themselves, they had been
commenting since it was decided that the future of the country will be
determined by the referendum. More importantly, they wanted to know what would
happen to the existing structure of the country with reference to the
dimensions of the proposed border lines, the existing rich oil reserve located
at that same border, the existing wealth and debt of the country among many
others. I really did not blame anyone for desiring to know all that, on a
backdrop of our knowledge of what happened in that country when it was yet a
single entity, more so, comparing that
with speculations of what could happen after, i.e. now that everyone had made
up their minds; they had to go their separate ways. I had believed there would
be a sought of more, though camouflage, responsibility to the nation and the
people when it was yet one entity than when it is divided into a northern and
southern nation. I thought so because a war quest to defend your nation’s
sovereignty is easy to sell much more than a civil war in the market place of
international politics and power play.
My anxiety then
was probably focused on what the means of resolution might be, in a case that there
arose further disputes as to who got what and as to who gave what after the
referendum was far over. How will both nations perceive themselves? What
behaviors will be formed from those perceptions? Will it not be an African
version of Seoul and the DPRK? All these however, were best being thought of
when I first contemplated on the issue of having two Sudan. I am still thinking
though. These and more were as much as my thoughts and paranoia for a Sudan
that was very much an important part of the Africa I came from.
However, as
important as it was, the referendum and events that followed after and is yet
occurring there did not come close to my heart as much as it could have been if
it were to be a case dealing in issues about the Nigerian state of nationhood.
However, I did fathom a point of congruence with regards to current occurrence
in both countries. That was a hope that as the Sudan has divided, she will be the
last great national entity that would voyage into a search for a new beginning
on the continent. In my opinion, national breakups are not as demanding as the
need for nations to grow up on the African continent. On many occasions though,
breaking up and growing up had both been inevitably bloody.
The most populous
Black Country in the world is Nigeria. When compared to many other African
countries, Nigeria is of greater concern in many spheres. Sometimes I feel
Nigeria’s popularity is also quite enviable. But, I am compelled to note that
though the world was not watching Nigeria as much as it watched Sudan, Egypt
and Tunisia at those moment in question, the events that simultaneously
occurred in Nigeria was also worth looking into then. As the Sudan waited for
the results of their votes on whether to either stick together for life or to
split up and as the northern nations of Egypt and Tunisia were experiencing
political unrest due to their people’s call for an end to oligarchy, Nigeria
was getting ready to decide a new leadership. The Nigerian media had already
been flooded with many campaign jingles and divers, some sort political
propaganda from all kinds of would be elected Politicians from the Good luck –
Sambo duo, to Atiku, Babangida (that was before the emergence of the northern
consensus candidate for the PDP and prior to the party’s primaries’) and the
Ribadu presidential aspirants, as well as other gubernatorial, senatorial and
house of representative hopefuls. Not left behind were the local government
chairmanship aspirants too.
What had primarily
held while I first wrote this piece were the numerous party primaries and the
voters’ registration. Some of the parties had essentially decided on who will
be bearing their flag for the gubernatorial and senatorial cadres. Some others
were still slugging it out. The big one is who would be the presidential
candidates for all the vying parties and of more importance is that of the
ruling People’s Democratic Party. It was known then that General Buhari was
contesting on the CPC platform while the former Vice President; Atiku Abubakar
and the incumbent president had worked tirelessly to clinch the PDP’s ticket.
The caliber of men
that desired to rule in Nigeria was one that is most amazing, perhaps, the most
amusing phenomenon of the country’s politics. This has been so since the days
of dictatorial and deadly military regimes to the partially democratic and
somewhat oligarchic regime of an assumed democratically elected president (who
then, had recently visited the Ivory Coast to mediate, not realizing that there
was little difference in Mr. Gbagbo’s actions and the third term agenda). What
made it all so stunning then was the fact that it was yet rare to find a
contemporary new breed politician holding sway as the Obama’s of the west did.
I thought any
curious person would want to know why these men were all we’ve got or perhaps,
as it seemed, why they were the ones that had been able to plant themselves
like canker worms within the Nigerian polity. And annoyingly, the more we
secretly wished them away the stronger they became and unfortunately the more
“dead weight” we became. All these continued to defy possible change, despite
Mr. Chukwumerije’s comment, after winning his party’s ticket, which I implied
to mean the cost of running for political office in Nigeria only skyrocketed
with time and possibly the only thing that might be capable of going higher
than the country’s inflationary index.
Truly and
painfully, the old blocks have refused to cave in. They are still the ones we
continued to see so glaringly. And, anyone may want to ask if it isn’t probably
because they are the ones that not only decide the cost of politics in the
country but also because they are the only ones who can pay for it financially
and otherwise? This vicious circle keeps going round and round. From the
governors who had won second terms, to another governor who, from second term
in office sought to become a senator, as well as other house of representative
and senate members who came again for fresh terms, and not forgetting the
sibling and ward of former and present politicians who wanted to become
governor after a relative who just signed out. There was also one that sought
to continue a dynasty built on the father’s life and still another who had been
around for quite some time who profoundly worked to exemplify the character of
her father’s ruler-ship legacy and ideology of presiding over a generation.
Alas I bemoaned,
if I must not be afraid for Nigeria maybe I can despair a little, or at least
take solace in wondering. This is because the political continuum has generated
much concern than it should have, if there were actually apathy on the part of
other citizens; the ordinary and the not so ordinary. What we have is not a
consequence of apathy. I believe Nigerians are not apathetic towards politics.
I believe politics here is merely worse than the devil’s nightmare. If you
don’t have the guts to get in its trenches, you will be doing well by truly
staring clear. Who can’t bear witness to
the gruesome abuse of many bright, well-meaning and sometimes neo-Nigerian politicians?
Who can’t bear witness to the cruel termination by assassination of others alike?
I wonder if we have soon forgotten about the killing of chief Bola Ige, Mr.
Funso William and many others like them. Most of which happened at the zenith
of their political endeavors. Who then will not be afraid for a dear life and
the future of a dear spouse and children? I know it is not legally right to say
that the cold blood murdering of well-meaning individuals from that of chief
Bola Ige to the least of it all were political killings but what more can
anyone assume especially when these men in black (now with a touch of blue and
a ash coloured camouflage) called Nigerian Police yet have never been able to find a
single suspect to the termination of any one of these great individuals.
Instead, they have not shown to be ashamed of corrupting their priceless badge,
uniform and a pledge to protecting life and property, so shamelessly, as much
as they are forcefully, in collecting twenty naira bribes, in the public view,
from ordinary Nigerians trying to make ends meet by transporting other fellow
Nigerians. It’s jokingly said that they report to a crime scenes, to round up
and arrest sightseers, when the least of the real criminals is long gone and probably
snoring away on his bed.
Bye and large, as
it is now, it is either the old blocks or the chips of the old blocks. Per se,
it is not only unsafe to rub shoulders with them. It is expensive as well, with
chances that allows for ghastly and costly consequences for anyone who dares
well enough. The means remain with the people that have the means. Those means
they have acquired by less hook and much more crook means since the Nigerian
Nation came into existence, having all it takes in its very crude form too.
Now, the question
is: will this continue to be the way the Nigerian nation will continue to
evolve? If the answer is yes, it simply means, among many other things, that
the cost price of politics will continue to climb to higher grounds, with a
continual creation of financial and moral barriers for other new aspiring
political markets prospective entrants or person with a good will but with
little or not enough means. This high cost price will only continue to be
within the reach of these few crooked elites and their dynasty members. Well observed
though, but then, that will not be where it will all end. The financing of
these cruel and gruesome ventures of the democratic “powers” of Nigeria must
always come from somewhere. And, more than often, from the black market of
financial corruption; the market where it had always come from. If you think I
have erred in this aspect you may try to present an argument for the most
wealthy of Nigerians, as to their source of wealth in difference to a time or
term of active politics (military or democratic) or of affiliations to active
politicians. Sometimes ago, grapevine had it that one of the quite popular
governors from the western part of the country donated a whooping sum of hundreds
of million Naira towards the funding of the incumbent president presidential
campaign. That same governor is acclaimed on the streets to have mortgaged
almost all his state’s assets and future viability. The arm of government
responsible for providing water in that state does not live up to their call,
not until residents agree to buy water again from the agency (through its water
tanker supply services) and that is after having paid your monthly water bills.
It is said, that if it were possible, the governor will have the people living
in the state pay for the air they breathe. Why will such a person contribute
that much to another’s political agenda if it is not because it is surely a
viable form of investment?
Funny enough
though, as well as being the climax of it all is the dynamics added to this drama
by the fact that an economic and financial crimes watchdog called the EFCC Is
all over the place more or less like a restless dog. The agency’s activity and
all what is happening is like a chase after bandits of national treasure
hunters. Unfortunately, by the time they all get to the presumably location of
the great wealth or treasure they all want to take (the national cake as it is
called in Nigeria) and thereafter, by the time they have finished digging to
the bottom of it all, it could all be gone. By then we will all (actors and spectators)
be in trouble for making so much fuss about what was either actually not there
anymore, what was gone before now or what was nonexistent in the first place.
The market place
term for what everyone wants in Nigeria is the “national cake”. The political
elites and their cohorts are plundering the little (although believed to be
much by the leaders and generation that existed back then before and since
independence) wealth of the country. They are digging it all up for themselves
alone wherever and whenever it can be found on the corridors of power and
governance and at the expense of all other things including the simple dignity
of humanity. The common man, hence, is left to his own faith. The government
doesn’t seem to appear to care as much as to even provide him with the basic
human needs like food and water, shelter, security, electricity, education and
transport not to talk of employment. This simply means: if he must survive, he
too must learn to fend for himself by becoming to himself what the government
should have been in a rightly behaving system. Most Nigerians are rather a
government to and for themselves in the current situation. Being a government
to and for you and you alone is mostly what the average Nigerian does by any
hook and every crook means, denying also his immediate and other neighbors the
rights to sanity and other basic human needs.
The meaning of
this hence, is that in Nigeria; the people are basically and actually of the
same kind in terms of nature and reasoning, at the moment, whether in
leadership or followership. But there is a more important truth: we are a
reflection of all these powers and forces that rule over us politically as a
country. Some other people have argued otherwise; that the leadership however
is a reflection of the type and nature of the Nigerian people themselves,
hinging their arguments on notions such as the ones that says what a person
really is can only be manifested when that person becomes someone of reckon.
But I differ from this arguments on the grounds that every man is an “either
or.” He has both inclinations to be good
and to be bad in any given circumstance. What we are is what we chose and
continually choose to be in the situations we find ourselves. The politicians
have chosen to be mostly manipulators and plunderers of their own accord and the
populace have followed suit in their own simple ways. The government agencies
is now chasing after anybody and everybody in phony and unprecedented manner.
The ordinary Nigerian now runs and seeks for his own self alone as does his
political leader. They all have an important objective of being able to locate their
own slice of the national cake or their own share of the national treasure
before it’s all gone to another whether on the streets of Nigeria or in
government circles from every local government council to Aso rock.
The average Nigerian
really wishes to collect what he can for himself and thereafter disappear into
a thin air, in no time, before any one from any of the anti-corruption units or
other government agencies called in. So what can we hope for in that kind of
social system? I think, you can only expect or hope that by the time we all get
there, what we came looking for, thinking to be there all this while would not
have disappeared into a thin air too. I
also think, you can only expect or hope that we have not followed directions
found in a vain map of vanity, holding on so powerfully to and allowing
ourselves to be led to the nowhere we would eventually find ourselves. This may
unfortunately be that point where we’ll come to learn and understand, though
being too late; that what makes a nation is actually what each and every one
concern gives to it and not what each and every one concern can take from it.
What makes a nation is what government and citizens put into it and not what
they took or can take from it.
That place too, on
its own will not be an end in itself but it will be the beginning of a new
thing, as the leader of the south Sudan had said about the prospect the new
South Sudan. Notably, however lofty a new nation had been for the people of
south Sudan who have suffered severally over the decades from the western
concept of what a people and a nation should be (like Nigeria is also suffering
today, though with more propensity towards mediocrity and fear of confronting
the lie) and especially in the hands of the northern powers led by a man wanted
by the international community for crimes against humanity, the Nigerian
version of societal progressions, sovereignty, national emancipation may not
lead to or be as much as a “good end – new beginning” story as that of the
Sudan. That is because, one way or the other, we have bought and bonded into
the ideology of the Nigerian state of nationhood unlike the people of the
Sudan, willingly (or unwillingly as it is claimed in some quarters) while
hoping there will be nothing wrong in being a mediocre country and people, as
long as there is a chance to one day take out of the country what we can get
for our individual selves and our individual selves alone.
I believe this to
be so because when we get to our own version of a national dead end as it is in
Sudan recently, where everyone must have taken out of the nation his own piece
of national the cake, the only thing we will be able to say to ourselves will
be to ask a question: “where is Nigeria”? Where is my beloved country? Where is
the nation I used to think of myself a part of? Now that the plundering is over
with nothing to show for it and nothing left to take out of it or to build
upon, where is my country going to be? What will it be called and what must I
do with myself now? Now that the bandits and the treasure hunters, the national
plunderers, the scavengers and the phony agencies have found themselves on the
same spot with nothing to take away and not enough evidence to prove that the
men we are now meeting and standing with face to face, steering at each other’s
face are the thieves that needed to be caught. Where is my country? Where is
the nation we have all made bankrupt in the process of living for our own
selves alone? Where would be the Nigeria the politicians have thought us how to
pilfer and led us to plunder?
Nothing has the
power to break up this country as much as financial and political corruption.
Not religion or ethnicity but corruption. Let us not wait till when we can only
ask; where did we come from? Where is our country? Is it now a lost republic?
