Richard Tosanwumi
10 October 2008
analysis
A few days ago, Nigeria attained 48 years of self-rule, and without explanation, President Umaru Yar'Adua ordered low-key celebrations ostensibly to reflect the not-too-happy mood of the nation precipitated by the plethora of political, social, and economic challenges that continue to trouble the nation.
Characteristically, the print and electronic media were flooded with news reports, opinion pages, feature articles and reminiscences over how the country had fared since independence in 1960 from British colonial rule.
Going through these publications and television stories, a discernible Nigerian must have been amazed that a great number of them portrayed a people who are embarrassingly displeased with the current state of affairs in their country.
Some of them were simply lamentations crafted in unambiguous language to express the level of frustration clearly attributed to the poor performance of successive governments in almost all sectors of our national endeavour.
One headline described Nigeria at 48 as the height of leadership failure and another, a deferred dream. Very uncomplimentary assertions indeed. A national daily published a chronicle of major political events of the last 48 years, and it was dominated by several acts of military foray into the political arena.
Items in this compendium included several attempts at writing a suitable constitution for the country, the issues that heralded the 1967 - 1970 civil war, exercises of state creation, transition programmes that led to the second to fourth republics, relocation of the nation's capital from Lagos to Abuja, the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections and the death of some prominent Nigerians.
In all of the outpourings of lamentation that greeted the media reports on the low key celebrations, it was undebatable that there was something fundamentally wrong with the state of the country. It will not be out of place to characterise the 2008 reflection on the nation's 48 years of self-rule by Nigerians as a season of lamentations, instead of one of joyous celebrations as some state governors would want us to believe.
When I drove round the twin cities of Warri and Effurun on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 to gauge people's response to the significance of this historic day, I was astonished to note that most people did not even remember that the day was our independence anniversary day. How shameful! Markets and shops were open for business as usual and the people engaged in all types of non-celebratory activities.
This is in sharp contrast to what we experienced on "Empire Day" under colonial rule, and also during the first and second republics, when primary and secondary schools were made to cook rice and stew for the pupils to mark the national day celebration amongst other activities in order to stamp the importance of the day on our memories.
It was a day we longed for as proud Nigerians. Therefore, the lack of interest in this year's anniversary speaks volume of the low level of patriotism in our people. Surprisingly, our leaders seem totally oblivious of the nonchalance of the citizens over issues of patriotism such as celebration of independence anniversary day.
If the truth must be told, the lack of patriotism by majority of Nigerians is now at the rock bottom because the few who govern them treat the country as their private property, depriving the people of democracy dividends. Matters are made worse by the fact that there are no role models to tell Nigerians what patriotism is all about. A national calamity indeed! The seeming spark of patriotism shown during international football matches may well be for the love of the sport and not the love of the country.
It is imperative that Nigerians understand why they exude such abysmal level of patriotism. And happily, this was the focus of many of the news reports, opinion pages, and feature articles published in the last few days.
Granted that the different ethnic nationalities that make up Nigeria were forcibly put together by the British colonial masters, it is obvious that not enough efforts were made at the beginning to define precisely what the Nigerian project should be in philosophy, national ideology, political framework and socio-economic goals. What transpired so far has been experiments embarked upon by the various heads of state on how to share the national cake.
The history of humankind has revealed that nation-building is a process of complex interplay of human thoughts, vision, mission, and activities in an environment determined by geographical peculiarities and availability of resources. Obviously, the first thing that crystallizes in nationhood is the nature of leadership that provides governance. Evidently, democracy has proved to be the best form of government for human societies.
This is why the British colonial masters bequeathed to us, a parliamentary brand of democracy anchored on a federal constitution that allowed the component parts of the country substantial room to develop at their own pace, but unfortunately, it was underpinned by ethnicity, regionalism and religion. The Hausa/Fulani dominated the Northern Region, while the Yoruba controlled the Western Region and the Igbo also controlled the Eastern Region and the ethnic minority groups were ignored.
As convenient as this ethno-regional, tripod arrangement suited the colonial masters administratively, it laid the foundation which was exploited by the regional power blocs to create severe problems for national unity and harmony. This was partly responsible for the collapse of the First Republic.
It is often said that the major problem with our country is that of leadership, but we must not forget that the leaders are Nigerians by birth and perhaps a closer look at the moral values, character, beliefs and practices of the Nigerian people will shed light on why the leaders perform poorly.
By nature, Nigerians are hard-working and respectful of their leaders and they readily make sacrifices for the collective good of their communities, but painfully, they are yet to understand the dynamics of democratic governance, particularly the Presidential variant.
Our people do not know how to defend their rights and easily give up struggles needed to confront bad leadership. Corruption has taken root because of the abject poverty and high rate of illiteracy in the land exploited by the greedy rulers.
This may be due to the many years of military rule that Nigerians were subjected to and stunted growth of our democracy. Our people are still ruled by primordial attributes of ethnicity, nepotism, religion, regionalism, which to a large extent, modulate their decision-making process. This certainly undermines national unity.
One is, therefore, not alarmed by the poor quality of leadership by top politicians and government officials, which has made the country a toddler at 48 years. There are no landmark political, social and economic achievements commensurate with her age, and the leadership class has continued in its woeful attempts to provide good governance.
While the major blame goes to this elite class, ordinary Nigerians must also share in the deplorable condition of the country. They fold their arms and absorb all manner of abuses from their leaders in a slave-like manner. For a few crisp of naira notes, they sell their votes to the highest bidders, who ultimately visit them with more injustice, corruption and deprivations.
The million dollar question now is: How will the country overcome bad leadership, poor governance, abject poverty of the citizens, dilapidated infrastructure, joblessness which are some of the reasons for the lamentations during the 48 years independence anniversary celebrations?
Dr. Tosanwumi, a commentator on public affairs, writes from Warri, Delta State.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
