Ningbo, P. R. China

According to Wikipedia, the web based free encyclopedia, patriotism is a feeling of love and devotion to one's own homeland (patria, the land of one's fathers). This “feeling” of love and devotion is usually expressed in varied manners by different nations and people.

The types of acts considered patriotic depend very much on ones point of view. Perhaps the clearest example, according to Wikipedia, is the act of risking death in battle. It is why every military man that has been in the warfront for his country considers himself to be unquestionably patriotic to his nation.

While the levels of patriotism vary across time and among nations, generally speaking, however, any selfless act that directly benefits the nation is universally considered patriotic. A taxi driver who delivers his customer, especially a foreigner, to his/her right destination - without diversion to other routes for the purpose of charging higher fairs or handing the customer to criminals to be robbed, a footballer or other athletes that forgoes international club remunerations and fame to play for his/her country, a lawmaker that acts in the light of facts and in the interest of the nation while avoiding corruption to act otherwise, to mention just a few, are all examples of acts of patriotism.

In Nigeria, government and politicians have abused and exploited patriotism in attacking not only their critics and opponents, but also any individual or group that dare demand for their legitimate rights; accusing them of being unpatriotic and betraying the nation. To our political officeholders, a citizen is patriotic to the country only if he/she dances to their dictates, no matter how detrimental to the individual and the country, without complaints.

It is sad to observe that in a country that is one of the world’s major oil exporters, it is difficult if not impossible to distinguish between health-care workers and health-care seekers in her poorly-equipped hospitals. Nigerian medical doctors and nurses, with the exception of few, are as drained, worried and emaciated as the patient they see. Yet, when the nation’s medical doctors recently went on nationwide strike because government ignored their demand for better working conditions and pay, the government and its supporters - through deceit and sentiment- portrayed them as unpatriotic. They were quick in citing how critical their services are to the nation, the number or patients dying daily as a result of their strike and that it’s professionally unethical to deliberately take life through such strike actions. It would equally be considered an outright case of lack of patriotism for any of these frustrated, underpaid and uncared for medical doctors, or other professionals to leave the country.

The Nigerian public is fast assimilating the politician’s warped sense of patriotism and no where is this wrong perception of patriotism more glaring than in the country’s education sector and sports - particularly football, being the most loved and recognized as the strongest unifying factor in Nigeria. When any athletes or footballer fails to represent the nation, irrespective of his/her reasons, he/she is simply unpatriotic. But for the recent disgrace to the nation by the Falcons, our female football team, who collectively refused to leave their hotels in South Africa and return to Nigeria after games until they are fully paid their dues by management, Nigerians would never have known how badly these patriots and the nation’s ambassadors are treated.

Perhaps no group of Nigerians have had their patriotism questioned and their image battered in the eyes of the unwary public like University teachers, operating under the umbrella of the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU). The Federal Government embarked on media propaganda against ASUU, capitalizing on parents and students frustration arising from incessant strikes in the universities when ASUU went on six-month strikes in 2003. A prominent Nigerian author and former national president of the Association of Nigerian Authors, Alhaji Abubakar Gimba also bought the government idea when he implied ASUU was, somehow, less patriotic to the nation, as, according to him, other avenues for addressing their issues without strike did exist. However, three years after, the Federal Government has not fulfilled its side of the agreement. This has forced ASUU to, again, embarked on what it called a three-days warning strike which lasted 23-25 February, 2005 to force the Federal Government to implement agreement mutually reached at the end of the first strike in 2003. Who is and who is not patriotic here?

In all of the above, workers simply demanded for what were legitimately due to them, basically their salaries and allowances, which is a pittance when compared with that received by their counterparts elsewhere in the world, or that received by some of the illiterate political officeholders in the same country. To ease their work and enable increased efficiency, these workers also seek functional modern equipments and improvement in their working conditions. These are all they asked for that brought their patriotism under question by politicians.

In what can only be described as a double standard though, government officers who always cry of lack of funds to pay workers salaries and allowances of several months owned them, live in an unimaginable affluence. They are paid all their unfairly disproportionate remunerations before the middle of each month, and they do not need their salaries and allowances to fuel their cars, pay house rent or even feed themselves and their families. Not even do some of them need to pay for their electricity and/or private phone calls, thanks to the recent exposure of our lawmakers by Dr. Haruna Yerima of the House of Representatives.

Despite not needing to touch their salaries and allowances to live their affluent life-styles, our Senators, who considered themselves more patriotic and hardworking than other Nigerians, recently proposed a bill for life-long payment for its members. For their warped sense of patriotism, however, the Senators got what they deserved, a total condemnation by the public, who rightly saw their proposal as promoting their personal interest.

The negative consequences of the double standard for patriotic acts by our political officeholders cannot be overemphasized. It has led to people who have previously been highly committed to their jobs to lose all interest and motivation, as they suffered from a situation described as burnout. Burnout, according to Herbert J Freudenberger, is “A state of fatigue or frustration brought about by devotion to a cause, way of life, or relationship that failed to produce the expected reward.” Burnout is extremely dangerous as it mainly strikes highly-committed, passionate, hardworking and successful people. These are the group of people that are needed to move the nation forward.

The result of the frustration of such highly-committed, passionate, hardworking and successful people are, among others, continuous brain-drain from the nation’s dilapidated healthcare, education and other sectors, poor teaching and research, dying in London and other Western capitals seeking health-care, loss of international glory to other nations due to change of nationality by our able athletes, National Political Reform Conference, PRONACO, to mention but a few.