Celebrating Nigerian’s 54th Anniversary with Hopes and Apprehensions Nigeria has passed the middle age for living human beings who traced their lives and destinies in the language of the Bible. Three scores and ten is the widely quoted phrase when those who know their scriptures and history go back to Abraham as the founding father of the Hebrew people, whose lives have affected the course of human history. It is not a Christian or Muslim issue, but Nigerians are affected by these texts by these biblical historical events. .This legacy of Abraham for Jews and the rest in the Abrahamic camp among humans searching for the meaning of life deserves to be once again revisited. With this understanding, the celebration of Nigeria’s birthday today reminds Nigerian diplomats in Kuala Lumpur that Malaysia too was celebrating the day before her own independence from Great Britain and the great China as well. This coincidence of celebrations by many countries with any form of association with European powers should have meaning for the Nigerians. Then, Nigeria was on a better economic and geopolitical ground than Malaysia and many other British colonies, but the train of events since the 1960s leave us with many doubts and apprehensions about political leadership and economic planning in Nigeria. How can we prove these claims? Look at the record on the difference in agriculture and infrastructural development between Malaysia and Nigeria. Once upon a time, as British colonies, Nigeria had a monopoly in the production of Palm Oil. By the United Africa Company and the other import-export businesses prospering from the production and sale of palm oil, but Nigeria seeking worldly pleasure from the fruits of the palm tree celebrated our independence on October 1, 1960 with heavy buckets of palm wine. What happened to us since that moment of glory and celebration? Today, we in the Republic of Nigeria have almost and abandoned the palm tree; not so in Malaysia. They came, secured our products and made a revolution out of it. Ironically, we go back to them to secure the same fruit from our borrowers. Malaysia is doing well, but unfortunately, as we celebrate our independence, we fail to go back to our own history and the policies, programs and acts of our past leaders. Have we forgotten the aspirations of President Shagari? Then we talked much about a Green Revolution after we lost our track with all the euphoria about oil and its revolutionary effects on Nigerian development. Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and many of our scholars and poets celebrated our yam, today; we suffered from the Uncle Ben Rice syndrome as the Liberian government suffered after the Rice Revolt and the capture of power by Samuel Doe and his gang. Here I draw from the political thought of Professor Sulayman Nyang, who has shared this idea with countless Africans. “Like, in biblical times when Abraham and his progeny struggled with human ambition for power, wealth and the pleasures of this world, the common but not widely understood mantra that ignorance and arrogance are twins remain unsolved”. Satan is the embodiment of these two qualities and all human beings according to this narrative fall victim. Ebola is due to our ignorance of the processes of nature; the Boko Haram is due to the fanaticism of fellow Nigerians who allow their emotions to become violence against fellow Muslims and more aggressively against other Nigerians who are not Muslims. This is our story. Let us go back and take a look at our record with a fine tooth comb. There is a desperate need for this Nigerian to Tooth Comb. Happy Birthday with one love, peace and unity my beloved country Nigeria
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 00:12:33 +0000
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