Nigeria: Our Golden Jubilee celebrations in Holland

There’s a party to attend

It was for the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Nigeria’s independence in the Netherlands that I thought for once in the 20 years I have been in Europe, I would seek out a Nigerian event and attend.

The programme for the event appeared as a Facebook status message, a graphic with alternating green and white backgrounds and text as a homage to the flag of Nigeria.

It is impossible to clearly identify how the Nigerian Embassy in the Netherlands gets news of events out to Nigerians resident in Nigeria but from this notice it is fair to say no lessons have been learnt from criticisms given years before about publishing such notices.

Facebook triumphs

A five day programme of events commencing Wednesday the 6^th of October 2010 was published on Monday the 4^th of October 2010 on the Nigerian Embassy Facebook page and there was no indication of these events on the now much-maligned official website [1] of the embassy.

Maybe when it comes to these events, there are people in the know with the town-crier penchant for information dissemination and using the modern modes of communication and advertisement is for those of us who are to fill the halls for attendance rather than for recognition of our Nigerian affinity.

Therefore, the business forum events of Wednesday and Thursday might well have been attended by those in cahoots with others in cahoots with them who swarm the premises of the embassy which I am made to believe is no better than a raucous marketplace at the best of times.

Though on closer inspection the embassy seems to do much more on Facebook than its official website, if you are not on Facebook, you are not in the loop. It makes you wonder if social networking with its restricted access is the smarter way of information dissemination when the public web presence is the one the most visitors will encounter when searching or information about the embassy. This is begging for a new IT and publicity strategy.

Over here and over there

The Friday Muslim Juma’at service would have catered for those of that persuasion just as the Sunday service would have for the Christians; for a country with at least 10% animist following and a greater percentage of those who dabble in multi-faith allegiances for immediate safety and eternal judgement, no allowances were made for that middle ground of Nigerian heritage.

Saturday was programmed as a full day of events; a novelty football match between Nigeria and its more credible rival Ghana in Amsterdam; and then in Rijswijk a suburb of The Hague - an arts and trade exhibition, a lecture and cocktail and a gala night.

We arrived at the venue thinking we were late for a well organised event when at the entrance we were being offered wrist bands for Nigeria or for supporting the candidacy of the President for the 2011 elections – surely, even if the becoming an ambassador is a political appointment, open politicking under your watch giving partisan advantage to people is definitely not on.

We refused the wrist bands and were immediately accused of lacking patriotism, to which I retorted, our patriotism was already evident in our gracing the poorly announced event.

We were then asked to sign an attendee’s register and I could not help but noticing that there were probably over 150 people there for the event and I was just about 20^th on that register.

Farts and tirades

What passed for arts and trade when we eventually cottoned on what they were would not have helped promote either tourism or trade in Nigeria; for the 1^st time observer, they would have been none the wiser about what any of the statues, material or pictures meant.

In fact, there was nothing indicating what trade Nigeria might be involved in, I dare say, people who have walked the corridors of the embassy might just have recalled seeing those statues before – a nation of 150 million with 400 ethnic groups and centuries of tradition and culture could be better represented with an “Ibeji”, a Benin Bronze, a Nok culture terracotta pottery piece that I believe the Dutch will be familiar with just walking up an exotic antiques street anywhere in the Netherlands.

Die of thirst lowly ones

On arrival we each got a drink but as the day wore on and the programme was running late without any sign of the dignitaries, we could no more sate our thirst as bossy officials stepped up to bar the stewards from serving any drinks to anyone but the distinguished guests of the high table who had not yet arrived and no allowance was made to purchase drinks if needed, certain guests got desperate almost to no avail, thirty and hungry without any idea of if they will survive the night.

About an hour into the scheduling, the ambassador appeared but proceedings did not start for another 30 minutes and when they did start, no one had the courtesy to announce that the national anthems of Nigeria and The Netherlands were to be played, we were well into the first before everyone realised the need to stand up.

Scratch that speech

The compere with his suit fully buttoned up, that is all buttons made no apologies for the late start of the events and the ambassador was introduced twice with all her extraordinary and plenipotentiary titles before she came to the podium where the sounds system dared to spare us for a while – she holds a PhD in something but I suppose her welcome speech was to appeal to the common man in the language of the lowest common denominator

It is the only excuse I could give for the lack of rigour or erudition in the speech which ended in the same admonition I rebuked her for [2] when she was appointed ambassador in 2008. If the ambassador cannot find herself apparently honest, trustworthy, law-abiding Nigerians to engage with that to trot out this tripe; that is unfortunate.

Tell me about this tribal frolic

The glossy programme pamphlet had this whole event set for the venue of the Town Hall in the Hague, but this venue was in Rijswijk; as the order of the programme was dispensed for a hotchpotch of activities with dancers from Edo State coming on stage and squealing down the microphone everyone clueless of the words and intent until at the end we were told these songs were for the Oba of Benin.

I remember visiting opera houses in the Netherlands and where the performance is in another language you either have a narrator and/or sub-titles to describe what is going on – this performance could have well been in a hamlet with the women pounding the brown earth welcoming the bwana in their midst.

The cacophony continued for 30 minutes before the keynote speaker was introduced, that was we thought as the person we thought was the professor rambled on for another 10 minutes before the professor was then called to the podium.

Not the texture of a lecture

I was expecting a lecture, the man sitting in front of me had his head in his hand with a feeling of utter despair if not embarrassment, and only a comforting hand on his shoulder brought a smile to his face.

This professor of some sort of policy failed to acquit himself well, it was not a lecture but a polemic of rehashed clichés about Nigeria, I found no original thought or exercise of productive reasoning but a throw-back to vocal affirmation typical of Nigerian Pentecostal circles, dripping with religiosity and lacking in the rigour expected of a supposed senior academic – I had to ask if the speaker was really a professor.

It might well be that he is not that much of a public speaker but is much better at his day job, however, we much genuflect to people with academic titles and applaud twice more even if we have learnt nothing new from his lecture which the ambassador commended as having ideas that she can convey to the president another holder of a PhD who is begin to fail to exhibit the class, demeanour and conduct expected of those in high office with his bungling of the bomb attacks in Abuja on the 1^st of October.

Breaking rumours for facts

At that point, I had had enough of this atrocious charade, though as people began to sink their teeth into the food and the expectation of jollity, every need to objectively review events to that point would have been lost.

The programme suggested a popular musician (9ice) would be in town, performing in The Hague, but no one was sure if he had even managed to get a visa to visit the Netherlands and perform.

The rumour mill was in full tilt and no one had a story that had a sense of veracity, eventually, 9ice appeared at a venue in Amsterdam where the patrons were fleeced anything from 25 Euros onwards to listen to him.

I have no clue who 9ice is, but if anything was evident from the events of yesterday, the sense of organisation is still lacking even though the jumble would end up a qualified success and one is not encouraged to waste time at any of these events if one could help it.

Suffering like a Nigerian

As I walked to Rijswijk Station, a young man, travel weary and confused asked for directions to the Nigerian event, for 2 hours he had wandered looking for this venue having first gone to the originally publicised venue in The Hague and there is every probability that there was no notice put up there to indicate the change of venue.

Poor chap! But then, how can you be Nigerian and not have to suffer the gross incompetence of fellow Nigerians? I wonder.

Sources

[1] Akin: Nigeria: One look at our Dutch website - Ewww!

[2] Frankly, Madam Ambassador, I am not impressed [akin.blog-city.com]

Cordially invited, my regrets [akin.blog-city.com]

Nigeria: One look at our Dutch website - Ewww!

Another website to cry about

I suppose by now I already have a reputation for being a nit-picking imperfectionist of sorts who has a penchant for finding errors and atrocious mistakes in official documents but almost always ends up with problems in my exposés.

As I have tried to make the keener observers understand, my blog and comments about websites are personal, but those websites under review are official, they are the public face of the institutions that commission them, someone gets paid to provide that service and at the least before publication somebody should proofread the stuff before it goes online.

I am beginning to think that the issue of attention to detail is systemic and endemic in Nigerian officialdom and it is not restricted to the confines of Nigeria’s borders. After Babcock University [1] and The Nigeria @ 50 website [2].

Nigeria showing in the Netherlands

I paid a visit to the website [3] of the embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in The Netherlands this morning and the first impressions could not be more amateurish, the site looked like the mock-up creation of a kindergarten school finger-painting class, it was appalling – but that is beside the point.

The home page had an important notice of an event that took place between the 5^th and 16^th of July, 2010, I think today is the 8^th of October, 2010. It was titled “e-Passport Intervention Exercise for Nigerians”, I am getting ahead of myself here, but what I have done is taken a snapshot of the page and presented it as graphic with the numbered parts being the particular issues I want to concentrate on.

Detailing the itemised points

Item 1; shows how addresses are written and spoken out in The Netherlands and usually in most of continental Europe, the street comes first and then the house number. Nothing wrong with this.

Item 2; “Intervention Exercise”, whilst I agree Nigerians are given to verbosity, myself included at times, giving verbosity vacuity such that context is implied from redundancy is just an excess. However, maybe the “Intervention” implies the normally smooth process of obtaining an e-Passport does not work for all sorts of reasons and the ambassador has decided to intervene.

Otherwise, it is just a registration or validation exercise, the use of intervention confers on the word irrelevance pretending to official importance.

Item 3; speaks for itself, the spelling checker on the author’s computer even if set to Dutch would have flagged that as incorrect. Any public relations department MUST ALWAYS have their copy spell-checked before publication, I dare say, it is a sin not to. Hereby, whack the miscreant across the knuckles.

Item 4; as I stated in Item 1, addresses are written in a particular way in The Netherlands, it helps the post get to its destination and even GPS systems ask for addresses in that order.

I will be as uncharitable as to suggest that some greenhorn who has just been brought over from Nigeria to probably lord it over those who have a clue about things here has thrown their weight about and come up with this nonsense. It might well be the Nigerian Embassy but it is located in The Netherlands, you promote Nigerian culture and values whilst adhering to Dutch standards of communication.

That address should have been The Embassy of Nigeria, Wagenaarweg 5, 2597 LL, The Hague. The use of Post Code No. is redundant but proves my point, a tyro wrote this.

Item 5; English, I believe is still the language for the dissemination of official documents in Nigeria. If that be the case, it is not too exacting to expect the usage of correct grammar and number agreement. Would “who have satisfied” be better than “who satisfied”?

In the same sentence, the indefinite article “a passport” would have been preferred to the definite article “the passport”, I suppose the excuse of English not being the author’s first language might suffice in Nigeria, but surely not in The Netherlands, relatively, Nigerians should and must be better speakers, writers and users of the English language than the Dutch.

Item 6; There might be some disagreement about the use of hyphens in this phrase, which means there would be no preferential treatment or reservations. It is a contraction of “the first to come is the first served”. Hence, it should be first-come first-serveD, not forgetting the essential “D” at the end. Phew!

Item 7; “The Her Excellency”, our pre-occupation with obsequiousness and predilection for titles can get us into serious trouble. Perish the thought that the ambassador is being addressed as such. I swoon with a backhand to my tilted forehead.

Going back to the caption that accompanies the photograph of Dr. (Mrs.) N. N. Akanbi – She is the Nigerian Ambassador to the Royal Kingdom of the Netherlands in The Hague if we are to follow with consistency the way the president has been addressed in the photograph to the left of the ambassador – maybe I am just being pedantic, but surely, it is not too much to ask for.

It is also my desire that all publications from the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria have a modicum of professionalism, attention to detail and show us all in better light than this.

Honestly, I am appalled.

Sources

[1] Akin: Nigeria: Ike follows the Babcock University cock-up too

[2] Akin: Nigeria: Reviewing the Nigeria @ 50 website

[3] the embassy of nigeria in the hague, the netherlands

Thought Picnic: Starting my own story

Many stories to tell

The stories of our lives might be worth telling but you wonder if you are ready to tell stuff that might interest some but shock others more.

Through blogging I have realised that many aspects of my life are in no way ordinary though there are days I wake and wonder why I do not seem to be anywhere near where I ought to be.

The question then becomes where one really should be and in relation to what, measured by whom and to what ends?

Maybe it is just the quest for improvement and perfection, something that compels you to strive to greater things though purpose and aim can so easily become fuzzy.

The many ifs that plague me

As for stories, one should just write what it is, from the beginning and there are many beginnings and many life-changing situations that change your perspectives and also kept you being the same.

Then there are the ifs; the ifs of life; if I had, if I could, if I did, if I heard, if I touched or the negations of all those ifs creating a hydra-headed and hydra-legged river delta of possibilities putting you in parallel universes that take you away from your reality.

The past becomes the story, today becomes the foundation and the future is as deep as you will like it go constrained by certain deeds of the past you hope never catch you too unawares not to have been able to anticipate or regulate.

Not gonna sing that song?

So, my friend thinks I have a story, I know I have a story, I am not sure if I can tell that story because just like Betty Wright’s mother said to her about the song, Tonight is the night [1].

She said, “Uh, I like the music

You know, baby, the melody it’s really nice

But I know you’re not gonna sing that song”

She did sing the song [2] against her mother’s advice and it became one of her biggest records as the story goes.

Many a night has been that night, but maybe not as you might think of it, it was decision time as it was experience time, but one day, I might just write that story and be done with it.

You might like the plot and it might become my biggest story too.

Sources

[1] Betty Wright - Tonight Is The Night Lyrics

[2] YouTube - Betty Wright - Tonight Is The Night

Do you still Facebook from there?

Be my friend

In invitation to become a Facebook friend arrived the other day to one of my many email addresses not registered with Facebook so this time I decided to add that address and another one to my profile just to get a view of the invitations I have once before ignored in trying to compartmentalise the different aspects of my life.

I learnt a bit late that Facebook was meant for friends in a social sense and LinkedIn for those from a professional life, that distinction is a bit clearer now, but I have made a few more friends on Facebook for the fact of being a tad opinionated.

We’ve been waiting for you

On the first email address there were 6 pending invitations including the one that prompted this amalgamation of email personalities, as I accepted the first, I saw a familiar name.

In fact, he had invited me on Facebook years ago when I was quite shy of the phenomenon, besides, our friendship had been on and off for years that I never really got the opportunity to renew the acquaintance.

So, here I was given the opportunity to become friends again and I would have jumped at it and I hoped and wished that was really possible.

Do you still Facebook?

He hadn’t updated his status for a while but that did mean there was no traffic on his page, birthday greetings, invitations to events, jokes and the kind of fare that makes Facebook what it is.

The one that was most interesting was a message of regrets about not being able to attend a very important function arranged in honour of my friend, eerily, his burial.

I could at least confirm exactly when he died and that he was well loved by all of us who had the pleasure of his company – he remains a friend on Facebook and a fond memory.

Sometimes you have to ask yourself, am I ready for Facebook? The more bizarre question being, do you still Facebook from there?

Nigeria: The president should keep his counsel

At Nero’s fiddle concerto

I find myself writing today not to praise President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan but to contemn certain of his views because at this point he stands accused of a naïveté that is unbecoming of a leader, talk less of a country like Nigeria.

As we all prepared for the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Nigerian Independence all the eyes of global news outlets were focused on the most populous country in Africa.

This offered a time for the elite of Nigeria to congregate in Abuja with invited “Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen” the continual phrase that prefixed every sentence of the Masters of Ceremonies on the 1^st of October.

On the Internet, I found a live stream of the event and could not help but notice amongst the guests people who have no example to give like the First Hair of Cameroon Chantal Biya, Former President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and King Mswati III of Swaziland who might have visited with any number of wives to keep his manhood fully occupied.

Fireworks of disruption

During the ceremony two car bombs went off hardly a kilometre from the festivities to which the militant and nominally terrorist brigandage called the Movement of the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) assumed responsibility having first warned important news outlets and then later apologised for the unfortunate loss of life.

Apparently, the government had been forewarned of this impending terrorist attack and the home of the heretofore mistaken leader of MEND, Henry Okah had been raided in South Africa the day before on Thursday.

In my view, the fully mobilised terrorist plan in Nigeria could not have been stopped within 24 hours from whatever would have been discovered in South Africa, the authorities were well behind the curve on this.

MEND in the frame

In essence, as the government began their investigations, their spotlight should have been beamed on MEND and its leadership with the view to capturing all the miscreants and bringing them to swift justice.

To any thinking person, MEND had purpose, opportunity, motive and means to perpetrate that attack even though it was the first time that an IRA-style car bomb had been deployed in a terrorist attack on Nigerian soil and also now, the fight had moved from the Niger Delta to the federal capital in Abuja.

Making amends for MEND

However, at an ECOWAS meeting of states celebrating their 50^th Independence anniversaries in 2010, the President made these statements [1].

“What happened yesterday was a terrorist act and MEND was just used as a straw; MEND is not a terrorist group. The Niger Delta people are aware of the government's noble efforts to assuage the suffering and deprivation in that region.”

“I am from the Niger Delta, my father's house is few metres from an oil-well, so nobody can claim to be a Niger Deltan than myself.”

He went on to say, “It is erroneous to think that my people who have been agitating for good living will deliberately blow up the opportunity they have now, I pray for the souls of those who died to attain peace and fervently pray for those who sustain injuries in the blast to be healed.”

He’s lost the plot

The Twitterverse and Facebook literally went into meltdown after this speech and not one of the comments and views I read were charitable.

I have always given President Jonathan the benefit of the doubt and suggested many a time that his PhD in zoology gives him an interesting insight into the behaviour of animals, organisms, primates or to put a finer point on it, simians.

In this case, I suggested he go back and dust his books and swot up on this because whilst he might know the difference between apes and monkeys, this was a different kind of monkey.

The straw man burns

If I were to take apart his statements of yesterday there are some interesting points to note about what he said.

+ We can all agree that the attack was a terrorist act.

+ He saying the MEND was being used as a straw is terminologically wrong, I presume he mean straw man and was deploying the straw man argument which involves ignoring the facts and offering fallacious claims.

+ MEND with its subversive and ruinous activities in the Niger Delta is at the minimum terrorist group though it might not yet have the outlay that Al Qaeda has.

+ Indeed, he is from the Niger Delta and though his father’s house is a few meters from an oil well, his properties were attacked twice in 2007 [2] when he was selected to be the running mate of late President Yar’Adua.

+ Whilst the acronym MEND suggests the agitation for good living standards for the people of the Niger Delta it is incredulous to suggest that the activities of MEND have really been about activism for social welfare, that view is both delusionary and dishonest.

The Aftermath

To buttress the points he made, the President has now suggested that the terrorist attack was launched by some foreign-based group [3] despite the fact that no other group has come forward to claim responsibility nor apologise for the carnage but MEND itself.

Meanwhile, two suspects have been named [4] as masterminds of the bomb plot whilst the President continues to plumb the depths of incredulity with fallacies begging the question about his reasoning.

This was for the global news

For all the attention the Golden Jubilee garnered in two car bombings the focus was snatched from the jollity of the elite to a festering problem that does not seem to have a solution or game plan in sight.

It can be said that the bombing was staged on that particular day to gain maximum publicity which is why the perpetrators sent out an IRA-style warning for Eagle Square to be evacuated but the way the president is handling this matter rather might well lead to an almighty bungle.

Handling the matter

This is not to say all lines of inquiry and investigation should be not tapped to their conclusive ends but taking the focus off the obvious, the deliberate and the facts serves to give the so-called masterminds a head-start with the possibility of that trail going cold.

The greater issue for all is this new development of car bombs in Nigeria and two in succession; the idea that foreign groups can come into our federal capital on an auspicious day to wreak havoc with bombs is concern.

The President is not helping the situation with these unverified and uncorroborated theories of casting blame elsewhere despite the telling lapse in our security and the seeming poor response to handling the disaster after it happened.

Keep your counsel

The information minister failed to capture the mood of the moment dismissing the attack in favour of the supposed success of the celebrations but before the whole world the party was marred by this.

If I had President Jonathan’s ear, I would say, keep your counsel, it is not compulsory to be seen to talk and then when you talk you are viewed with expressions that range from incredulity to derision the risk for an almighty bungle looms.

If foreigners terrorise you, you have a problem, if your people are the terrorists, suspend your disbelief and handle the catastrophe before some sarcastic security analyst says they had all the data and messed it up, so typically Nigerian.

Sources

[1] Jonathan says MEND not responsible for Abuja attacks | 234Next.com

[2] Is Goodluck suffering a run of bad luck? [akin.blog-city.com]

[3] Foreign-based group behind bomb attacks – President | 234Next.com

[4] Nigeria: Police Name Suspects in Dual Car Bombings - ABC News

The Netherlands: A Coalition of the almost freedom

We might just have a government

The almost soporific coalition building process that separates the English-speaking governments like the UK and Australia from their continental European counterparts slowly came to a conclusion at the end of September in the Netherlands.

The elections of June produced a result that was not too far from expectations; the populist rhetoric of the right-wing elements had raked in dividends not enough to assume power but to become kingmaker.

With time the parties that cringed at getting into bed with this rather unpalatable bride found themselves in blushing embrace of each other copulating to create a bastard child that would have the town pointing fingers at it every time it came out to play.

The finger needs to scratch an itch

The Polder model concession-compromise deal-making political process in the Netherlands is under strain. It is like having three threatening holes in the dyke with Hans Brinker and friends plugging the holes with their fingers, however, one friend has got a nasty rash that needs a good scratch – that hole will not be plugged for long.

So the Christian Democrats (CDA)who lots big in the elections, the liberal sounding but right-wing VVD which would provide the Prime Minister and the PVV anti-Islam party have reached a deal with the PVV taking no cabinet responsibilities but able to bark and maybe bite from the periphery.

I would suppose there was a fear of allowing the PVV in government to prevent the sanctions that the Austrians suffered from the EU for going in coalition with an ultra-right-wing party years ago.

One only has to go through the agreement that makes up this coalition operating under the motto of “Freedom and Responsibility” to see that it has Geert Wilders paws, spittle and doggie poo all over it.

The message is the substance of horrid

Our intelligent being insulted with impunity that anything there represents freedom and the idea of responsibility is more along the lines of each Dutchman to his own.

Squaring populism with the realities of government is hard enough a task, if the Dutch would see what nasty hand they have been dealt is another thing.

Childcare and healthcare subsidies would be cut, probably in order to hit the pockets of the supposedly more fertile immigrants, it is however a measure that seems to gel with responsible handling of the economy in these tough times.

Immigrants emigrate with faces covered

Immigrants would now have to pay for their integration courses, they are not wanted and it would not be made easy for them to integrate, the Dutch language is hard enough; but why also give the immigrant a helping hand to belong amongst the Dutch?

In my over 10 years of living in the Netherlands and I live in Amsterdam, I have seen many things of Islamic orientation including streets in certain neighbourhoods designated alcohol free but I have never ever seen a woman in a burqa.

In fact, I am getting beyond myself here, I have never seen a person in a burqa, the sex of that person might have to be determined on closer inspection. Now, I regularly see people in full visor helmets which are for safety and protection – to the Muslim one might stretch the case for the burqa being for the safety of the person and the protection of that person’s honour.

No doubt, there is a conflict of civilisations where in the Middle-East the womenfolk are seemingly without expression but in the West the face is the link for any expression and communication, without the face and the eyes people become unsure of what and who they are dealing with.

The point I am trying to make is out of the 16 million inhabitants of the Netherlands we might not be able to count 1,000 people in a burqa and we are going to waste parliamentary time promulgating laws for a problem that does not exist but panders to a sense of fear that has been agitated to the extreme all around Europe.

Thinking it through

Most right-wing and populist rhetoric cannot stand intelligent scrutiny and it might well inform why education would get hit by this cabinet by the reduction of the duration of student grants from 4 to 3 years and the spending on arts and culture will be cut, lest I forget, integration tests are to be made more difficult.

For that last clause, the subtext is we don’t want immigrants, we will not help immigrants and those who strive to be integrated will have a tough time at it, the cultural schemes to help the process of integration will be starved of funds – basically, if you are not indigenous, start packing your bags – I am going nowhere, I am European.

If you work for the police or in the justice ministry you should leave your headscarf at home, I suppose the milliners can come up with amazing designs that make a mockery of that ban.

I had to lift this from the text, “Benefit cuts for people whose clothing or behaviour stops them finding work.” I suppose if I wore a suit for a cleaner’s job interview or I hate being sworn at I could be at risk.

All hot air to no particular end

You can go faster on the roads, you need to be a member of coffee shops to visit, prostitutes have to be old, Sundays will be kept holy for the 12 days where you can defile the temples in a year, stop and search might become indiscriminate, you could end up in prison longer, Israel will be a better friend and Europe will be getting less and much more eye watering stuff.

All of this to make the Netherlands a better place, the Dutch more comfortable with having their concerns addressed and the dawning of a great nation to rival the ranking of the Dutch in the golden age of the 17^th Century – if you believed that you have been had so badly, you will never cut lose.

This arrangement according to my itch analogy earlier might only last a few months before it disintegrates for a new election where Geert Wilders might well have beguiled enough to become Prime Minister, especially those who do not notice that having voted for him their minimal wage is to be reduced.

That cabinet will only last a few months and hopefully we are on for a reset for the electorate to move back to the centre – the experience would be painful but a veritable lesson would have been learnt very well.

Reference

A summary of the coalition agreement

Nigeria at 50: Looking to the Future

First published on NigeriansTalk.org for the Nigeria@50 Series

Giving Nigeria a new looking at

The anticipation for this day has been presaged with a lot of debate and discussion as to how we would want to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Nigeria’s independence from the United Kingdom.

In my view, the failings and failures of Nigeria over the last 50 years have been documented relentlessly by activists, polemists, detractors, traitors and patriots, there is probably not much else we can add to that catalogue than to rehash the old mantras with more sophistry about leadership, corruption, religion, poverty and whatever else we can deftly use sarcasm to portray with every increasing excellence.

Today, I want to try a new perspective, there was a great euphoria and burst joy with the realisation of opportunity and responsibility that greeted the 1^st of October 1960 when the Union Jack came down and the flag and standard of Nigeria was raised heralding the birth of an independent, sovereign country ready to grow and do its part as a member of the global community.

Our claims to responsible government

The speech given by Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa [1], the Prime Minister on that day contained a number of declarations the chief amongst which I read as “We are called upon immediately to show that our claims to responsible government are well-founded, and having been accepted as an independent state we must at once play an active part in maintaining the peace of the world and in preserving civilisation. I promise you, we shall not fail for want of determination.”

This I believe is the continual challenge we have faced since independence and it remains a goal to aspire to without contest for the future. This is the theme of my write-up “Nigeria at 50: Looking to the future” as if I was living the circumstances that inspired the speech that heralded the birth of Nigeria’s sovereignty 50 years before.

We can paint a brighter and hopeful future for the next 50 years or regress to the scepticism and cynicism that is the easy default to what we could readily call the intractable issues with Nigeria – but this day should hopefully give us a sense of optimism and maybe a new foundation defining that great harvest of Nigeria our founding fathers and leading women saw in 1960.

A representation representative of the people

The first claim to responsible government is the onerous task before us in the election of a new executive and legislative branch of government at the federal and state levels. What we need are people representative of the interests of the people who are committed to the development of the country in its people, its resources, its outlook and its status.

The Independent National Electoral Commission needs all the leeway to ensure that elections are conducted freely and fairly, that the will of the people is duly and correctly expressed and with that the people who have lost should gracefully retreat and find other ways of contributing to their communities without the need of political office.

The people as citizens and stakeholders

The second claim to responsible government evolves from the people, stakeholders of this great nation who should be able to pursue worthy goals of better livelihoods and the pursuit of happiness whilst being able to hold their leaders accountable for their views, actions, practices and sense of duty.

The people should be able to enjoy the protection of its government in security, in the economy and in the maintenance of peace and order in our communities. They should be able to seek redress without being priced out of the system, their rights should be championed by every representative without pandering to populist or divisive rhetoric – we need to relearn the fact that Nigeria is bigger than any one group, any one tribe, any one religion, any one faction and any Nigerian who calls the country motherland or fatherland.

Applying reason to faith

This great nation of people of different faiths needs to temper their faith with reason, the application of intellect, the deployment of our individual and unique talents adapting the things that define us in our culture, our language, our customs and our traditions which are not necessarily so divergent as to make it impossible for us to co-exist.

We cannot afford religious fundamentalism just as the followership of supposed men of God cannot be dumb, without examination or inquiry. We each need to have a personal comprehension of the truth by reason of our study, reasoning, debate and discussion. We should ask difficult questions and not be fobbed off with easy or unreasonable answers.

Let us look for logic in the place of idle superstition and old-wives tales, allow imagination to take us beyond our comfort zones but be grounded in reality. For every quest for gain there must be the exercise of labour, the religion of wishful thinking and the fixation on mammon is the wrong foundation for moral rectitude or the development of faith.

Nigerian above all else

We belong to that entity called Nigeria and have the identity of Nigerians that should be first and foremost in our hearts and minds; we seek the best Nigerians to help Nigeria not our close kith and kin for the deceptive safety of mediocrity.

How wonderful it would be if state-lines and tribal lines dissolved and what binds us together is the geographical fencing that demarcates the country of Nigeria, this would enhance the view of being accepted as an independent state preparing us for national greatness and the ability to project that moniker of the Giant of Africa that we really should assume without derision.

There is a future of an industrial and industrious Nigeria, the exploitation of our natural resources for creating a contented middle-class not consumed with hedonism and unnecessary ostentation which is usually more expressive of a poverty of spirit.

Our youth being able to recite the National Pledge with a sense of patriotic fervour and optimistic future mentored by grown-ups who remembering the day of independence would recast their vision to better ideals living out the National Pledge as examples and role models, unimpeachable and above reproach.

We are unwitting ambassadors

Each of us at home and abroad are unwittingly ambassadors of Nigeria either by designation or by affiliation no matter how remote, we all have within us a sense of passion about our dear country but all that has to be harnessed to positive ends.

Excelling in all we do, honest in all our dealings, exemplary in all our conduct, accommodating of all our differences, tolerant of opinions at variance with ours and meticulous in quest for improvement of ourselves and our communities both far and near.

Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress

Let us take the respect for our flag; the words of all our anthems that plead for brotherhood, an adoration of motherland and fatherland, the land of birth, land of our ancestors or any other affinity; the pledge which we should hand on heart with all integrity and purpose strive to live out to ourselves, our communities and the world at large and give it all prime importance.

The coat of arms with all its symbolism and the motto that should mean everything to Nigerians as Nigerians first and anything else second, the quest for unity, the use of faith with reason, the pursuit of peace for all ends laying the foundation for progress, we should stop having potential and start exceeding potential with excellence.

This is what our independence is about, the ability within ourselves to secure our identity in one entity Nigeria, having sound moral grounding from whatever religious affiliations we may have whilst being tolerant of others; compromise for confrontation, control for chaos, and harnessing every talent and good knowledge to make the best of what Nigeria should aspire to be and rightly occupy – a well-founded claim to responsible government.

That day, this day and a day in the future

This day, the 1^st of October 2010 can be that day when a new resolution can be made to build Nigeria up and condemn every action inimical to the process of our dear nation.

There probably was a time Nigeria was worth dying for, but this is not a call to war but one to a cause greater than each of us, one that ignites us with a resolve to see Nigeria praised, glorified and honoured for who we are, what we do and what we represent as individuals and collectively and for this cause we shall not fail for want of determination.

Happy 50^th Independence Anniversary, our great people of Nigeria and the greater nation of Nigeria, I see a future that can be different but it would take each and every Nigerian the will, the determination, the resolve and the desire to see change, engage change and become that change.

God bless Nigeria and help us see a brighter future that is of greater promise and achievable goals beyond that which augured October 1^st 1960.

Thank you.

Sources

[1] Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa's address to the nation on Independence day