When Chinua Achebe, the legendary novelist wrote his work on the “The Trouble with Nigeria”, he clearly held that there was nothing wrong with our land or climate or water or air or anything else but the unwillingness of our leaders to rise to responsibility which is the hallmark of true leadership.
Nevertheless, in a bid to sound patriotic, a lot of us have erroneously maintained that Nigeria is a great nation; yes, Nigeria is potentially a great nation. However, it is important to tell ourselves the truth. Nigeria is not a great nation from the true sense of the word, it is one of the most corrupt, noisy, insensitive and disorderly nation in the world. It is no doubt one of the most primitive and unpleasant places on earth. If you like, let me be unpatriotic for once, but again what is patriotism and who is a patriot? He is one who cares deeply about the happiness and well-being of his country and its entire people. A true patriot will always demand the highest standards of his country and accept nothing but the best for and from his people. True patriotism does not just seat-down and wait for events to deteriorate without asking critical questions and demand from her leaders’ basic infrastructure to better the lots of the people.
How can we say that Nigeria is a great nation, when her citizens cannot find food to earth, when thousands of her young folks have graduated with no job, when she cannot take care of the aged, when her life expectancy is one of the lowest in the world?
Every year, Nigeria uses over 40 percent of her National Budget to fight crimes, leaving 50 percent for her leaders to share and then 10 percent is used for developmental projects. This eventually creates poverty, which is the major cause of crime in Nigeria. Now tell me, how one man out of a community of 100 persons would own the only zinc house in his village, ride on a tinted SUV car with security provided by state comfortably enjoy his wealth in such a community? This is the situation in Nigeria today.
Each time we listen to the news or read on papers, almost everybody complain and abused the Boko Haram terrorists, Niger Delta Militants, Kidnappers, and the Biafran agitators as the enemies of the state. Logically, they are not the real enemies of the state; they are patriot who uses the wrong methods to ventilate their anger. So many of us who relax and watch evil thrive are not better citizens, we watch them steal our mandates, siphon the resources meant for development of the state, create divisions among the people by inserting religious and tribal sentiments and at the end we go to their offices to collect money for food.
The real enemies of Nigeria and Nigerians are most of our leaders, who do not want the country and its people to grow, if not why will someone steal from the National Treasury and instead of investing locally, so that at least it can create employment for our youths, they prefer to take these funds abroad to better the lots of the societies that are already developed.
During the struggle for the nation’s independence, almost all the Nationalist apart from Zik were below the age of 40. Again, all the young military officers who participated in the 1966 Military Coup were all below the age of 35 years, in fact President Buhari was about 24 years at this period and he was also one of the dramatic personnel who executed the Nigeria civil war and after 14 years, he took over power from a democratically elected Government of Shehu Shagari. This was the period when yours faithfully came into this material world and then that same man is still our President with the attitude of the only righteous man in the country.
What is the condition of a 24 year old in Nigeria today?, he/she still lives and eat in their fathers house, the boys collect money from their parents to have a hire cut or watch football matches at the nearby viewing centers while the young ladies are forced to go into unpleasant relationships in a bid to maintain body and soul.
Until our leaders come to have a rethink and stop this unholy attitude, we will still be facing these problems in years to come, just as we are facing the same problems our fathers encountered in the 60s. Honestly we all have to stand up and build Nigeria, if not for us, at least for the benefit of our children and generations unborn.
UWAKWE ROLAND C
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