*President Buhari |
Its population estimated at about 190 million, exceeds the
combined population of all other countries in the West African sub-region of
the Sahara . Endowed with enormous wealth, a
dynamic population and an enviable talent for political compromise, Nigeria stood out in the 1960s as the potential
leader of Africa , a continent in dire need of
guidance. For, it was widely thought that Nigeria was immune from the
wasteful diseases of tribalism, disunity and instability that remorselessly
attacked so many other new African states. But when bursts of machine gunfire
shattered the pre-dawn calm of Lagos its
erstwhile Federal Capital in January 1966, it was now clear that Nigeria was no exception to Africa 's
common post-independence experience.
During
the following four years (1966-1970), the giant (and 'hope') of Africa measured her full length in the dust. Two bloody
military coups, a series of appalling massacres and a protracted and savage
civil war, which claimed more than a million lives threatened to plunge the
entire country into a limitless chaos. It also deprived black Africa, already
weakened and disillusioned, of a crucial element of strength and leadership in
the growing confrontation with white Africa along the Zambezi .
This shows that Nigeria
has always been at war with itself. Yet, Nigeria is in some ways a concept
as well as a country. For the colonialists who concocted this vast space of
about 250 ethnic nations with more than 400 languages in the interior coast of
West Africa into one country, Nigeria was a state of mind of Flora Shaw,
Frederick Lugard's girlfriend, as well as a nation-state. There are a good many
things about this Nigeria
which most analysts do not understand. One hundred and four years after its
creation and almost 68 years after flag independence, Nigeria still
appears a sunny enigma wrapped in the shadow of a consuming paradox.
A nation
steeped in history, a nation behind history; a culture rich in arts and music,
a culture poor in mass education and formal learning. A humane, ebullient and
kind people, an inferior, indolent and debauched people. A society essentially
catholic and spiritual, a social life unblushingly sensual and epicurean; a
system of cool Machiavellian realism, a system of grandiose dreams, tainted
visions and disastrous extremisms; a country of geniuses and greatness, a
country of tragedy and catastrophe. These cliche-ridden contradictions serve to
remind us that we have yet to unravel the ponderous mystery of Nigeria , which
is ultimately her enduring essence. Historical interpretations on Nigeria
inevitably gravitate toward great men theories. Even the most studiously
counterpoised approaches to the country's past must acknowledge the steady
sequence of powerful individuals who have successfully dominated the political
scene. The powerful imagery surrounding these figures has turned persistently
to federal symbolism. A ferocious menagerie roams the political landscape.
Yet this
imagery denotes more than a people's enduring appetite for a dynamic leadership
as well as a dogged desire for a decisive break with a past that refuses to be
easily shaken. Looking to history for clues to the workings of power in
contemporary Nigeria ,
one must thus be very attentive to the full range of elements that recurrently
make possible and attractive such individualistically centred contradictions of
power, including the degree to which such patterns represent a repeatedly
frustrated quest for new alternatives. But human feelings and energies released
by great upsurge in history astonish and reverberate at their moment of impact
but quickly vanish or become distorted under the fog of time. Yet, in Nigeria , the
political or cultural basis of class formation is an unmistaken reality. It is
virtually impossible to comprehend the idea of a dominant class aside from the
determining impact of ethno-religious forces. More precisely, political power
is exerted to create and expand social organizations. The leading members of
such organizations have common interest in social control and they constitute
the wellspring of class formation.
The
danger threatening Nigeria
as a modern state is that there is a combination of adverse forces with
hegemonic tendencies which could perpetuate economic dependence and
underdevelopment thus making political independence meaningless. It is an open
testimony, however, that despite the obvious shortcomings of our beloved
country, it has never been a complete failure after all. In fields as diverse
as science and technology, medicine, law, business, literature and sports,
where we won the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature and the 1996 Olympic Gold
Medals for soccer and tract events, Nigerians have made matchless
contributions. A Nigerian also recently won a Pulitzer Prize in Journalism. The
fact that the winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature, who brought such
uncommon honour to Africa by writing its name in gold in the intellectual map
of the world, was at a time driven into exile, and that the man who led our
national football team to an unprecedented victory at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic
Games, was frustrated out of our country soon after the victory, is yet, a
ringing paradox.
Fortunately,
that is not the import of this piece. It is, rather, to examine the angle of
perception in order to ascertain the intellectual image of Nigeria on the
brink of contradictions. Nigeria
is the only country on the face of the earth that recycles its old generation
of politicians who have been playing the game since independence when they were
young as though the nation has no young ones. It is the only country among the
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, indeed, the sixth largest
exporter of crude in the world, which is still importing finished products for
local consumption. Yet, only those who appreciate how, in the agonizing irony
of history, a nation blessed with vast human and material resources, through a
curious somersault of the will, now parades the highest number of those living
below the poverty line in the world, will appreciate the disturbing enormity of
the Nigerian condition.
For only
an idiotic and clumsy giant with feet of clay could produce such embarrassing
ironies, such lamentable national contradictions. It is only in such a nation
that politicians deliberately gang up against democracy whereas its military
forces install democratic governments elsewhere. Despite Nigeria's intimidating
population of well over 190 million and her vast natural resources, it is on
record that Cameroon, her tiny neighbour of just 11 million took over her juicy
and oil rich Bakassi Peninsula without firing a shot and without the
involvement of her much polarized and balkanized National Assembly. But Nigeria has an
irresistible attraction that is impossible to deny.
For those
who witnessed the Nigerian Civil War, the first civil war in history in which
African armies led by African officers fought each other with modern weapons,
it is Nigeria 's
amazing power of survival that fascinates them. That, you would say, is another
shining paradox. The human virtue of Nigerians is actually their high degree of
patience and endurance while their cynical attitude toward human frailties
causes them to acquiesce to bureaucracy and corruption. In Nigeria , the
most corrupt are the most ardent fighters of corruption. It's only in Nigeria
that President Muhammadu 'Integrity' Buhari, the Saint whose cardinal mission
in government is to fight corruption would give a clean bill of health to a
former head of state known worldwide as the most notorious looter of the
nation's till. On June 9, 2008, Buhari said: "General Sani Abacha never
stole". But on May 14, 2018, Buhari said: "I will use $320m Abacha
loot to help the poor." Such is the disturbing magnitude of the Nigerian
contradiction.
It is
only in Nigeria
that the head of a government which prides itself as fighting corruption would
openly say that a former military dictator who looted over $7 billion was not
corrupt even while the looted fund is still being repatriated from Swiss banks
and from other banks across the world. If these startling contradictions cannot
jolt you from illusions into stark realities in this era of change, then
paradox is a Nigerian. Yet, in spite of their abiding love for peace, Nigerians
are favourable to a condition of anarchy. And despite their traumatic
experience in the hands of those who promised them security instead of
opportunities, despite the antics of those who have stolen the national
patrimony into private pockets, Nigerians still allow them to play a dice with
the collective destiny of the nation. The retired Generals are the ones
dictating the tune in a "democracy". In Nigeria , the unschooled misrule the
schooled, and we all clap in acclamation. It is not democracy of debauchery. It
is 'Paradoxica Nigeriana'.
*Dan Amor writes a column (CHECKPOINT) on the back page of Lakis News every Monday.
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