Obinna Osuagwu wrote: AVERMENTS WE MUST EXPIRE: A REJOINDER TO ELOMBAHS ESSAY. (II) Another averment of the writer’s which is equally common amongst Nigerians is as follows: “Support only a man or woman who has a just heart and will serve everyone and every community regardless where they come from; we need leaders who will unite us because our shared humanity is greater than any differences between us” My response: If you told me that some good leaders could arise from this system or that I must not vote along regional lines, Ill give you illustrative scenarios for answers to negate these simplistic averments: I. Considering the fact that the polity is so porous and that politicians play their politics to the extent the polity grants room, it is unfortunate that the good leaders Nigerians seek will never be born. The task before is to expire the current polity and entrench one that has the capability of harvesting the best conduct from us despite our idiosyncrasies. II. The election of one moral colossus into office against the backdrop of the current polity and in a democracy would not yield the outcome of our dreams. We would still be faced with this question: who monitors the last monitor? Would the colossus be consistently ubiquitous from the backwaters where Nigerians live to Abuja? After the exit of the colossus from office how would we sustain whatever possible gains his administration may have made especially if a mere mortal became his successor. As one who lives on West Africa’s worst dilapidated street, I am convinced that what would reverse my situation in my locality is for active governance to be brought as close as possible to that street and not necessarily the emergence of a moral colossus in Abuja or Brick House Port Harcourt. III. Southern Ijaw in Bayelsa State for instance is yet at 16th century’s civilization of despite being a source of wealth to the country. The best they could benefit for all their resource wealth is projects that just cause the humans in those localities to hang in there; the Nigerian state would never allow the resources under its feet to turn it into an economic hub. The result is that Southern Ijaw cannot preserve its cultural heritage and become one of the big names in Nigeria just as Port Harcourt, Lagos and Abuja—even their most viable sons must migrate away from them to be any people to reckon with in society. Have we condemned certain sections to junk yards that Nigeria may live on? The state of Southern Ijaw cannot be solved from the federal center or government house Yenagoa while retaining this same political structure IV. A friend of mine who served in Opobo came back with horrifying stories of the state of civilization there. I asked, When would Corporate Social Responsibility and FG largesse and allocations transform these lands into places they can call home and which can compete for the attraction of fellow Nigerians to them like Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja?” “This could only happen when these milieus are accorded the rights to exploit their resources in their own interests first and for the sustenance of their people and not upon the emergence of some moral colossus at Abuja or Port Harcourt as leader. With the over-centralized system which Nigeria constitutes, the tendency to strive viciously for central power as a means to local development and prosperity promises to remain. The issue therefore is for Nigeria to be transformed to a polity where sections and regions largely have their destinies in their hands and as such have a far reduced reason to vie for power at the center. Let me buttress this important point: the first republic failed because the little power with which the FG was vested became a cause for strife amongst the regions. Rather than think of how to maximize the use of the new-found partnership for inter-regional cooperation, the regions were locked in a war of attrition over how much goodies they could steal home to their people from the federal center. Consequently what became of a crying need given these trends was for the powers at the center to be devolved on the regions so that peoples could look inwards to realize their destinies. Perhaps a confederation would have been the way out coupled with a rotation and rationing of whatever little responsibilities and powers remained at the center which would have already been made less important, but unrealistic nationalist misread the whole thing; they thought that the country’s problem was ethnicity and that a unitary system was necessary to de-emphasize ethnic and regional bias. This was what drove the Nzeogwu coup and J.T.U Aguiyi Ironsi’s policies. To date, Nigerians still misread the real issues making futile attempts to foist a nationality on diverse peoples whose cultures steal remain very irrepressible. (To be Continued)
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 20:47:40 +0000
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