By Babatunde Jose
“When the citizens of a nation deem their most accomplished thieves as the most electable, then they lose the right to complain when theft becomes their national creed.”- Modibo Keita (1915-1977)
The plight of millions of abandoned Nigerians who today are languishing in poverty and squalor signposts a collateral ‘damage’ of the huge wastage of our ‘God-given’ resources.
In ‘The Last Show of a Wasted Generation’, Adeola Aderounmu berated the supposed millions of passive citizens for contributing to our current woes –
“The endless resiliency of the ordinary Nigerian has made nonsense of the principle of time and performance as well as accountability and probity. By sleeping away mentally while living in a country devoid completely of social justice and equity, the ordinary Nigerian have been as guilty as the marauders who raped the land and cart away the treasuries for themselves and their children. Passive citizenry contributed largely to the wasteful years that befell Nigeria.”
Passive citizenry is one of the causes of our retrogression as a nation. We resigned our fate to and acquiesce to the thievery and brigandage being perpetrated by our leaders and often at times take part in the looting and savoring the forbidden fruit.
We are, therefore, equally guilty of the fate that befell us. By acts of omission and mass commission, we allowed marauders to get away with impunity. Those who defrauded our common patrimony are today walking freely and amassing national and traditional accolades; the choice hilltop addresses are reserved for them.
We watch with mouth agape as they dole out billions to purchase private jets, SUVs, mansions, and estates: Playing ‘kalokalo’ with monies of a lifetime. Yet, the mass of the populace are impoverished and pauperized, wallowing in hunger, want and poverty.
The debauchers who gorge the nation’s wealth and fritter its assets in the realization of their gluttonous hedonism are today feeding fat on their loot to the detriment of the impoverished masses.
Our parliaments are filled to the bursting brim with men of doubtful pedigree, knaves, dubious characters, drug barons, and political marabouts. They are bereft of mission or vision and are propelled only by the allure of monies to be shared and proceeds of looting of the exchequer. They are not nation builders like their ancestors, and neither are they role models for their descendants.
The younger generation has been socialized into the ignoble mores, values and ethos of their fathers and has evolved deviant and devilish idiosyncrasies to uphold those criminal and delinquent values. Their hopes and aspirations are all focused on becoming like their fathers. We are in trouble! Another generation has been wasted!
Our youths seem content to file behind old politicians like area boys, hailing ‘twale’ with their hand raised. Rather than get organized and form a strong mass organization with fresh ideas to wrestle leadership from the antiquated regime, and chart a course for their generation, Nigerian youths are being used as enforcers of the old order: They are content to serve as social and political pimps and gigolos.
Alcoholism, drugs and the easy life has become the order of the day; and they are not immune to the corrupt and criminal tendencies of the older generation. Rather than raise a voice against crime, corruption and impunity, they are content to feed off the crumbs from the same politicians who have been plundering the country since independence. Omo ‘ole jo baba, k’ama binu omo. We cannot grudge a child for resembling the father; can we? Yet, there are some who have seized the mantle of positive and purposeful leadership from their fathers; they are few. But, we need more of them.
In 1983, late Chinua Achebe in his seminal work: The Trouble with Nigeria, declared that, “the trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a problem of leadership” and of the inability or unwillingness of leaders to rise to “the challenge of personal example.” Very true, as is exemplified by the misrule of post military Republic; 16 years of the locust and 8 years of the ‘undertaker’, both Evil agents of ruination! Will the current administration renew our hope?
About the same time, a disappointed Wole Soyinka had observed that, “after a quarter of a century of witnessing and occasionally participating in varied aspects of social struggle in all their shifting tempi, dimensions, pragmatic and sometimes even ideologically oriented goals, I feel at this moment that I can only describe my generation as the wasted generation, frustrated by forces which are readily recognizable, which can be understood and analyzed but which nevertheless have succeeded in defying whatever weapons such ‘understanding’ has been able to muster towards their defeat.” WS
But little did this conscience of society know that successive leaders would make the situation worse. Nigeria is a country that has never risen beyond its potential. We remain the ‘sleeping giant’, while our potentials were never harnessed for greatness: Even in mundane areas such as sports; a country of 200 million cannot assemble 22 players to form a formidable soccer team or develop its youths to excel in athletics.
In a Netflix 6-part sports documentary series titled SPRINT, elite sprinters navigate training, media scrutiny and fierce competition following their race to become the world’s best. It is sad to note that no Nigerian athlete was featured in the documentary.
Today those whose fathers have ruined Nigeria, and the contemporaries of their fathers are what we have left on the stage: Criminal politicians and soldiers of fortune, who have been recycled and patently overused.
We had opportunities to become a great nation, but we blew them; our oil boom became an ‘oil doom’ as our wealth was frittered away by ‘leaders’ who behaved like drunken sailors.
Our educational system has also contributed to the failure to raise patriotic future leaders. Public education has suffered a gradual but steady decline. Why won’t it decline when ASUU has gone on strike cumulatively for almost 5 years since 1999.
The country has witnessed a massive brain drain that led to the depletion of human resources at the nation’s tertiary institutions. Those who would have remained in the country to help salvage the rot, checked out like Andrew; in what Pat Utomi described as ‘the generation that left town’.
There is no doubt; we have had good leaders in the past. Though they may have been challenged by bigotries and sectarian attitudes: They may have been irredentists, geo-political gladiators or tribal champions, but by God, they had some ideas. They articulated their dreams for their country as they saw it. But their best was not good enough.
Today, the leadership crisis refers to a glaring lack of alternatives to a bankrupt political class. There are still politicians who describe themselves as disciples of the patriarchs; but these self-styled disciples have distinguished themselves only by their ready abandonment of their mentors’ principles.
The sons and daughters of our past leaders would have changed the course of this country if they had exhibited greater fidelity to their fathers’ principles. As soon as our democracy was truncated by Abacha, the so-called Awoists were jostling to serve the ‘goggled’ General. It marked the greatest low in the camp of the so-called progressives. What manner of ‘discipleship’? The cases of some were particularly disturbing and heart rending. It was a season of political backsliding and apostasy.
According to Olaniyan Olumuyiwa, commenting on our declaration of Abiola as a hero of democracy, in our hunger for heroes: “We forgot in a hurry that Abiola was manufactured by the CIA (read ITT) and the Nigerian militocracy. It was even said that he sponsored the coup that ousted Buhari; and which held democracy hostage for eight years. What goes round comes round. It was the same military friends that eventually annulled his electoral victory. See Max Siollun: Soldiers of Fortune; A History of Nigeria (1963-1993).
The truth is that most public officers who administered this country should be vilified and not praised. They brought us to the point where we are. “We live in a “republic of mediocrity” – a realm in which the best is possible but never achieved; where common criminals attain power and are serenaded for their villainy by a dysfunctional society and a bankrupt state; where politics is about the distribution of the spoils of office and defined by the absence of ideas or principles.” Olaniyan Olumuyiwa
Unfortunately, many of today’s leaders were youths 30 years ago. Where do we draw the line? It is pathetic that we continue to recycle those who contributed to our predicament: It implies an unwillingness of the present generation to ‘jettison survivalism and gerontocratic’ tendencies. Ideally, these veterans ought to retire and become living fossils in our ‘political museum’. There is therefore a dangerous vacuum of leadership and ideas in our society.
Despite their high level of education, intellectual capacity and proven acts of patriotism, Nigerian youths have been grossly corrupted. They have succumbed to the allurement of position, power and money, seeing these as their only means of survival: The present generation, like its predecessor, is fast wasting away. It would be a monumental tragedy if the rot is allowed to continue. Whither my country?
“What is a Nation’s foundation if not its People?” Asks Abimbola Daniyan. “To build a strong Nation, you primarily focus on building the People’s capacities and capabilities and positively deploy them in order to build the Nation and Country. By the People, we mean the majority of the population, essentially young people in Nigeria’s case. They are the vast reservoir of its strength, potential and possibilities. Overpaying big men and women enjoying the privileges of wealth mostly stolen from denying the majority the fair share of resources won’t help build this country. Any Government by whatever name which does the contrary is destructive and does not deserve to be there even for one day.
“Somebody must call a stop to the nonsense that passes for governance and Government in Nigeria before it finally sends this country into an intractable state of unrest like we are seeing in country after country now.”
There are 200 million solutions to our problems, seeing that we are all part of the problems. Our attitude would therefore determine our altitude!
Prayer!!!
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, The Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds; Most Gracious, Most Merciful; Master of the Day of Judgment. Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek. Show us the straight way, the way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, Those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray. (Quran 1:1-7)
Barka Juma’at and a happy weekend
