THAT WE MAY BE NIGERIANS

                   

      This piece is dedicated to Ngozi Nwozor Agbo...may her gentle soul rest in perfect peace.

I would start this piece with the great words of the lady that gave my pen a voice. The Late Ngozi Agbo said on her daily CampusLife column on The Nation newspaper PUSHING OUT  titled Behind failed fathers and children on April 12, 2012 and I quote that ‘whenever I hear government officials and agencies making political gain out of what compensation/offsetting hospital bills they pay to victims and families of the dead. I get furious. I do not know that person, even the laziest, who would prefer any compensation to being spared the expectation in the first place. And that is what the government should do well to concentrate on: saving us the recurring anarchy and carnage.’’

 

The above quotation expressly shows the kind of country we are. A country where we have bunch of incompetent leaders; who are totally clueless. They would have killed before resign; and even when you ask them to step down, they would rather engage in all manner of the shenanigan. Nigeria, with all due respect is a place where nothing works. My heart right now like that of Reuben Abati (of the good days) is moved to tragedy because we have a group of power mongers who keep using our country to play the game of ludo. They throw the dice, and they play what it comes up with, meanwhile they are buying time privately and pursuing their own their self-interest. Some have even argued that the game of ludo on Nigerians as extended to that of chess. Nigerians are the pawns i.e. the element of small attack with no special strength and are very gullible.  

The fundamental question is, for how long shall we stand and watch our future eroded in a wasting generation; for how long shall we stand in a place where men are deprived of what is their own?

In everything we do in Life, there is always a method to go about it, even in madness. Life is all about making an imagination to produce a good result. Imagination sets the goal which our automatic mechanism works on. We act, or fail to act, not because of will, as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination. My joy drowns in my grief has I have started imagining that there may not be a place for the coming generation to stay.  Nigeria has been plagued with a viral disease called “National Incompetence”. The title ‘Giant of Africa” remains on our lips by precedent and not by what we used to have. We operate the best system of government and yet we remain at the extreme corner of the world. Democracy’s world is rich and multifaceted. It is a system that combines the centrality of laws and values but yet all the values have gone into extinction in my fatherland. We live in a state of emptiness where no one can predict well what the country is ready to offer talk less of what to offer. Emptiness is a symptom that one is not living creatively. You either have no goal that is important enough to you, or you are not using your talents and efforts in striving towards an important goal. Yes, we are blessed with all manners of blessings under the sun but the blessings and geniuses in us are hundred but because of corruption occasioned by the priority and perpetuation of self above the interest of the citizenry, we remain at the extreme corner of the world. Few states can boast of recent developments but the remaining states can show case to the world power tussle between political opponents, maiming and assassination, religious bigotry, lawlessness, pipeline vandilization etc. The modesty in us as Nigerians is already fading out as we know longer command the respect of other countries rather we get embarrassed in different countries as Nigerians. Does this not worth a shame?

Development is on strike in Nigeria. Every good thing is in a standstill.  All we get is various and incompetent reports of constituted committees that are full of individuals with tired brains and not active and articulate ones. Our problems are enormous that not even the solutions suggested by the committees are effective. We want to see actions and not paper works. If nations of the world are to be judged by the well-being of their people, by  the provisions that is made afforded to the growing minds and bodies of  children and by the provision that is made for those who are vulnerable and  disadvantaged. Nigeria would be ranked among the worse.

The process of a nation building should commence for the purpose of posterity. Instead of saying man is the creature of circumstance; it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance. At this  moment I would say that those who have nothing but guns for the hungry and  think of nothing but death and dying, let them spend our earth’s fortune  harvesting blood from the fields of war and corruption. The last banquet shall be their children’s blood. Charity is no longer enough, there should be an extension of hands full of love and help to change the unenviable lives of citizens ravaged by diseases. We should always remember that earthly treasures are not ours to keep. Our dollars, naira, Euros and pounds are of little use if not invested in the future of our fatherland. The fight for superiority is not a day process and it is time we get a cure to the viral disease that has crippled all spheres of endeavour in our country.

Agbo Agbo said on the PUSHING OUT Column on the 19^th of July, 2012 in his piece titled In the throes of failed leadership, and I quote: ‘When leaders refuse to be change in the world they wish to see, they not only lose, their nations lose as well. I recall with some nostalgia the exploit leaders, such as Chairman Mao of China, Ho Chi Ming of Vietnam, Josep Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Winston Churchill of Great Britain, Madiba Nelson Mandela and F.W De Clarke of South Africa, Nwalimu Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, and the great Marthin Luther King. I f you study the lives of all these great leaders, one thing that is common to them is their willingness and convictions to truly represent the change in their country they wish to see. They not only talk the talk, they walk the talk. They truly practice what they preach and use themselves as role models.’’

Nigeria needs good leaders that would stir the affair of the country for better. I call on the sleeping giants of today, to please rise up for the challenge to save our father land. The youths are sleeping while some people are awake to loot our treasury. No matter what we want of life we have to give up something in order to get it. The good we do is never lost, each kindly act takes root, and every bit of love we sow, in time will bear its fruits. I expect the youth to pass through this life but once. If, therefore, there can be any kindness any one of us can show, or any good thing that we can do to make Nigeria a better place, let us do it now as we shall not pass this way again. We need to do our best for our country so that we may be the Nigerian we claim to be.

      This piece is dedicated to Ngozi Nwozor Agbo...may her gentle soul rest in perfect peace.