Years ago, a friend of Martin Luther made three profound statements as follows: 1. On all things non-essentials, they should be freedom; 2.on all things essentials, they should be Unity and; 3. On everything, they should be love. There is no doubt that in my dear country Nigeria, there is freedom to do the non-essentials-personal things. But on the unity and love, we are lacking. What are the essentials? Leadership, nationhood, system of government, revenue derivation and allocation, rights of citizens, judicial system, integrity in government, security and law enforcement. On these important and critical issues, there is no unity. Take the issue of nationhood as an example, are we a nation or just a collection of people within a geographical space? We do not seem to agree on any and everything. We have different views and positions on what our nation is. Some have questioned and continued to question the unity of the country and all we are being told, is that the Unity of Nigeria is not Negotiable. Even the last Conference that was expected to deal with the issue was told the issue was a no-go-to-area. Now, if a marriage is not working, why cant the couple discuss and find the way forward, why are we nurturing what is evidently not working? Some parts of the country prefer a Regional system where the regions will be semi-autonomous, others prefer the extant system, whilst some, want to quit the entire arrangement. You cannot compel Unity, it comes from people accepting a thing and believing in it and so, we have no unity on virtually everything and anything. What about leadership? The same thing. Where the leader comes from and not who he or she is or what he or she can do is never the consideration. This is because of the thinking that leadership confers advantage on the part of the country where the leader comes from. Evidence available, suggest otherwise for the generality of the people except for few elites who have amassed enormous wealth from closeness to the leader. The North of Nigeria has been in power longer than any part but the people are the poorest. Right now, it is the turn of the South-south and the living conditions of the generality of the people has not witnessed any significant improvements, only the elites and the ex-militants are having swell time. Leadership. Here we have no unity on how to proceed beyond the zoning arrangement that is prone to manipulation by whoever is in power. Someone said to me that the only thing that unite us is football and to some extent I agree but even that has been a source of problem and division. Over the years, we have questioned the choice of the National team coaches based on the parts of the country they come from, we have raised issues on the choice of players not based on their talents but the part of the country they come from the coach is Igbo that is why ...... Person is in the team...........is in the team because of quota and so on. We do not and cannot agree on anything. On love, we are extremely lacking. Yes we belong to faiths that teaches love for one another and we are even ready to kill others for the love of our faiths but have no love for one another. I have heard some people say Boko Haram can destroy the northern part of the country if they like. Afterall, BH is not in the South. Really? We have people telling us that Nigeria will burn or cease to exist if their son is not re-elected or if power is not transferred to them. To these groups, the outcome of an electoral process is inconsequential and the choice of the people meaningless. Religious and political leaders are entrenched in their hard positions and trenches on national issues with voice of moderation increasingly decreasing, violence is on a steady increase, issues that can be resolved through dialogue and have been resolved in the past through dialogue are now subject of armed struggles as if we are in a permanent state of war. Managers of public resources appropriate the resources to personal interests whilst the larger interests are suffering. Leadership at all levels have no empathy for the people and the people, no genuine love for the leaders. We need to find common grounds on key issues, we need to engage in open and true negotiation on the future of the country and above all love one another. Love and unity is needed to move forward. What do you think?
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 11:28:50 +0000
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