A Dream Of Nigeria

There are very few entities that emerged as nations without ever having to be subjugated by other nations for a period of time. At a time when the independence of nations is taken for granted, except for the resource rich Western Sahara, there are still some that are still either partially or fully colonised. The shocking thing is that some that have since raised their own flags are not really independent and are not conscious of the fact that their independence is little more than merely being under new flags and anthems.

The colonial flag was lowered in Nigeria in 1960. The anthem at that time was “Nigeria, We Hail Thee” and our people sang it with relish. That anthem was jettisoned in 1978 and was replaced by the current “Arise, O compatriots.” Over time, the old anthem has become a protest song while the second stanza of the new one has become a National Prayer. We can learn a few things from this metamorphosis. “Nigeria, We Hail Thee” is clearly old English and while it may sound like a salutation of respect, it also presents itself as a sigh of exasperation. It is like when we throw up our hands and say, “It can only happen in Nigeria” or “What do you expect, this is Nigeria!” The second stanza of the present anthem provides a safe way for us to pray at national events without having to call on representatives of a multitude of religions to lead such sessions. It is like the proverbial fig leaf hiding seared consciences.

While the opening lines of the old anthem may sound as a mark of exasperation with a system that is not working, the second stanza of the current anthem can also be read as a sharp rebuke to political leaders at many levels. To aid a level of reflection on the words we reproduce it here:

O God of creation, direct our noble cause, Guide our leaders right, Help our youth the truth to know, In love and honesty to grow, And living just and true, Great lofty heights attain, To build a nation where peace And justice shall reign.

The dawn of a new year is a great time for us to ask what may be Nigeria’s “noble cause” and what may be the “great lofty heights” we pray to attain as a people. The anthem places the onerous task on our leaders to guide our youths to know the truth. How could the youths know the truth when we are not students of history, when history is deliberately obfuscated in our curricula, as well as in national discourse, and when the youth cannot readily see that the rot in the system has been entrenched by the same people that facilitated and orchestrated such rots? The anthem dreams of youths that live “just and true” lives, but what of the leaders? Basic wisdom tells us that a person cannot give what he/she does not have. Would justice ever reign in a system steeped in hypocrisy and rigged to oppress as well as suppress the weak and those that are not in the ruling class, clique or cabal?

It is obvious that we may bandage our wounds and plod along in fetid garbs, but ultimately a systemic change must take place before the nation’s sights can be fixed on lofty heights of any sort. Aspects of this change may be teased out of the numerous political restructuring postulations, but it must go beyond politics and encompass the very fabric of our economic and social relationships. The revolution is sorely needed and must begin from our mindset.

In his diaries of the revolutionary way in the Congo titled, ‘The African Dream,’ Ernesto Che Guevara declared that it is infinitely better to die in battle, even if we think it is for a wrong cause, than to live under a defeat orchestrated by a refusal to fight. His thoughts may sound extreme, but we can attest that the semblance of democratic ideals that we see today in Nigeria emerged from the trenches of struggles waged to terminate years of military dictatorship in the country. A simple reflection on reasons given by military coupists between 1966 and 1999 shows that we have since then had worse scenarios in our political realities without having military tanks rolling to State Houses and mass media houses.

The point to note here is that we may have succeeded in making military takeovers unfashionable, but there is a deeper struggle we have merely assumed to have won but which must now inescapably be fought.

We have already alluded to the fact that knowledge of our history is one of the actions needed to build a virile cadre of youths for the attainment of “lofty heights”. Political leaders cannot provide that platform except they themselves first get immersed in political education. It is basic political literacy that would overturn our current warped transactional relationships and mercantilist politics. A good starting point is to realise that due to the nature of the quasi struggle that led to the lowering of the colonial flag Nigeria merely raised a new flag without radically evaluating and changing the machinery on which the system runs.

We are aware that many are weary of placing blames on the colonial past, but our political parties and the political class must interrogate that past and see that they are running neo-colonial systems prepared, oiled and handled down to stay ineffective and block avenues for genuine emancipation. This situation is not restricted to Nigeria as it is same in most other countries where independence was “given” without struggle. A lack of struggle eliminates the need for fundamental changes and indeed creates situations where celebrations of the feat negates even national best interests. The sad outcome of this can be seen in the needless internal divisions along ethnic, religious and other fissures carefully and foundationally crafted into the faulty political architecture. Rather than struggle for socio-economic and ecological justice, we engage in political manoeuvrings and elections are won by those with scant regard for basic norms of decency and who have no qualms engaging in blatant criminality of election rigging among other vile actions. It is a system that operates on the septic tank principle – with the biggest chunks floating to the top.

Unfortunately, we have seen countries where independence was won through struggles and where leaders that emerged saw themselves as demigods without whom the nations could not go forward. They routinely ran their nations to the ground. They forgot to learn the critical lesson that every leader (indeed everyone) only knows a tiny part of what we ought to know. This is the gap that is inclusive of leadership covers.

This is a good time for us to dust our history books, study the pedigree of our leaders and engage in political education. As we approach national elections we need to examine the import of democracy beyond the ballot boxes. The “lofty heights” we must aim to build will necessarily require a subversion of what we currently hold as ideals. The miseducation of our youths must stop. We cannot afford to continue entrenching failed and dubious neoliberal dogmas in our children and youths.

The doctrines that the government has no place in business, that public establishments must be privatised before they can be efficient and that the business of government is merely to provide the enabling environment for the private sector, require urgent interrogation. The teachings that youths must employ themselves and that they should all be private entrepreneurs may produce a slim wealthy class, but will continue to erode solidarity, lock in the erosion of our common heritage and keep the nation as a supplier of raw materials with little care about the obscene ecological exploitation that weakens our capacity to lift up our eyes to any lofty height beyond the daily battle for survival.

The dream encapsulated in the second stanza of our National Anthem is a stern rebuke that places an inescapable duty on us all to dream of a nation that is socio-ecologically transformed on our terms and not on the relics of dead systems. We must build a nation on the richness of our diversity and come free from being stuck in the barrel of crude oil, pipelines, mine pits and destructive monocultural and agrotoxic production. We must build a nation that secures our commons and emerges from the mire of depravity, corruption and reckless exploitation of our peoples and of Mother Earth. This dream requires a corps of disciplined folks ready to offer sacrificial leadership and not to be emperors living fat off the common heritage.