Nigeria Was GREAT During Regional Governments Before the Igbos Dabaru Everything with their 1966 Tribal Coup and Introduced Silly Unitary System that is Making Every Nigerian Stupid and Lazy... ----- ------------------------- ----------------------------------- ------------------------------ I Feel Like Crying Each Time I Think Of How Nigeria Was- Prof. Niyi Osundare Despite working comfortably in the US, why do you still come back home here to work? Life in the US and Europe is, no doubt, very attractive. All the things that make life and living comfortable are there. You don’t have to battle to get anything. As you can see right now, there is power outage. It is really difficult to be a scholar, writer or even a thinker in a society like ours. Water, good road networks, good medical care are available over there. And there are things around you that show you that the governments there respect their citizens, are accountable and answerable. All those things are absent in Nigeria. (It takes Idiots to be Ruled by the Fools- Tunde Bakare) I say it all the time: Nigeria is not a country. We don’t have a country yet. We don’t have leaders who respect the people. I used to talk about our leaders only in the past, but I have included the followers. Our people don’t demand respect from their rulers. It is very important, it is a two-way process. Nigerians are in a position where they could be taken for granted anytime, and we are being taken for granted. We are a set of people who just take things as they are and do not protest. You tell the Nigerian populace to jump and the question you will get is, “How high, sir?” and not “Why?” We really need to get rid of the Oba kepe, Kabiyesi (Your Excellency) syndrome. Countries like US, Britain, Japan and Korea, and to a very large extent, Malaysia, are doing well because people ask questions from their rulers. They have a stake in leadership. It is difficult comparing the two places; it takes efforts and a lot of courage to leave a comfortable life in America or Europe to come and face the hardship that we have in this part of the world. But there are also things here that we don’t get abroad – the human touch, for example. I was brought up in a modest background. My material expectations from life are very modest and limited in a way. I have never thought of a time when I will fill my garage with an assortment of cars, or when I will have a house in every important street in Nigeria, and bank accounts that will make Bill Gates envious. This is one place where if I walk on the street, I run into people who know me and we crack jokes, laugh together, and trade opinions about our problems. And you must know that I didn’t leave this country until I was 50 (in 1997) due to some family issues. My roots are here. I owe this society a lot, which is very important. Whatever America or Europe takes out of me, they are just creaming off the broth that has been prepared. I used the scholarships of this country on three occasions and whatever I am today, it is Nigeria that made me so, and I will never forget. And this is one of the reasons I want to sing with Wole Soyinka, “I love my country, I no go lie, na inside am I go live and die. When im push me so, I push am so, he push me, I push am, I no go go.” In my keynote at the Soyinka Conference last week, I cited that stanza. People started singing and they laughed. It is the most serious stanza in Unlimited Liability because Soyinka is a trepid nationalist and a patriot – trying to tell a country that has been trying to destroy him for the past five, six decades that no matter what they do to him, he would bounce back. It is a lesson for all of us. So nothing will ever drive me away from this country. As a writer, too, I know what exile does to people who use their imagination. I have had the opportunity to mention this in a number of places: when you leave your root, you are leaving so much of yourself behind. When you leave that place where people know your name, where you don’t have to spell your name all the time, you are leaving so much behind. How can I write authentically about Nigeria and Africa and don’t have physical contact? Physical contact is very important. I want to be able to feel the smell of this country. I want to be able to see the glory of the rainforest in the season of the rain. I want to hear the noise of the leaves as they crackle under your feet in the dry season. I want to feel the rainbow in the Nigerian sky. I ask myself this question all the time: the moon I see in the United States, is it the same moon in Nigeria? Well, I wouldn’t know. It is important to be part of the struggle and the development of this country. If Americans ran away from their country when it was tough, we wouldn’t have any America to run to today. If the Britons, French, or the Germans did the same thing, those countries would be as poor as we are today. I ask myself all the time: What am I even doing to contribute to America? Those countries are already developed. I know I am doing my best there and they appreciate it, but in relative terms, the little efforts I put up here show more results than what is obtained there. The two places are important to me except that here, there are too many distractions and you can hardly do much because of the challenges, but there, a few people know me, and therefore, I can hide and do many things. I usually refer to Nigeria as my laboratory and America as my hideout Copyright PUNCH
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 14:42:53 +0000
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