Value of a Nation

By

Abdullah Musa

kigongabas@yahoo.com

 

Is it not an irony, that when I think of the United State of America, the word that seems to personify it for me is: ILLITERACY! You may correct me to say that I mean lack of education. You would be right. My discourse today is not on the character of the United States, but as you can read above, it is on the value of a nation; what makes a particular nation valuable. This value may be first and foremost to those who are its bona fide citizens, and those who interact with it in more ways than one.

If you build a house, and you let it out to tenants, or you accommodate all your grown up children therein, and they daily call for the destruction of that house, with the hope that a new and better one be built,; you do not need any other pointer that you made a poor job in constructing the house.

That however is not being fair or objective with you. The reality might have been that the house was splendidly built, all facilities perfectly provided in the most excellent condition, but with one simple and natural proviso: they must be maintained and upgraded according to the rise in the population of the house; which of course must occur since mature men and women reside therein.

It however due to indolence, the sewage is blocked, women cook with fire wood in enclosed area, more people are ensconced in small rooms causing a lot of discomfort; if above all the food budget of the house remains either stagnant, or a significant part goes to fund the feast of outsiders, emotional temperatures must naturally keep running so high, even to be beyond the calculative abilities of CELSIUS.

A basic fact emerges: a house may be more valuable to strangers than to the unfortunate occupants, if the superintendents of the house are more inclined to please strangers than the actual hereditary occupants. This situation is what the Hausa people make a metaphor with a brand of palm tree that abounds in their locality, that grows so tall such that its shadow is usually cast so far away from its trunk, such that if you are sitting by its trunk you would be deprived of the shade while the one who is far off is adequately provided for: inuwar giginya na nesa ka sha, na jikin ki bai sha ba!

If we want to be academic, or follow the lawyers to the place created exclusively for them to make mince meat out of lay men, that is the court, we may start to challenge the assumptions upon which we built our story this far: for instance, who built the house in the first instance?

To answer the question, we need to come to reality to talk on our hidden topic, our country, Nigeria. It is Nigeria we are talking about, because it is Nigeria that seems not to serve that aspiration of its occupants, so much such that they always call for its destruction. As a house is built upon a piece of land, so is a nation built upon let us say so many pieces of land, naturally pieced together: from Ogun to Bakassi, (oops, that had been amputated), from Dakin Gari to Bayelsa, and so forth.

We know from practice the various litigations that are heard in the courts whereby a plot owner had his plot built upon by another, with that other either occupying the structure, or letting it out and collecting the rent, or the proceeds of long term lease.

It is granted to us that we occupied the different parcels of land that later were amalgamated to form Nigeria. We know we did not do the amalgamation; someone did for the purposes he had in mind; and with hind sight, some later came to believe those who did it had their own economic interest upper most, our eventual benefit if any, coming as a complete surprise.

We were granted independence, we fought the civil war, and yet we always think that the house that nasara (English men) built is not suitable for us. Principally, what we fail to achieve is how to maintain the house, and if expansion is necessary, how to do it with proper planning. To expand a nation, does not mean occupying another; (per the attempt of late Saddam on Kuwait) but it means so per the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan by America. The success factor is simply dependent on the level of power that you have: the United State happens to control world trade, world financial institutions; and no nation is yet contemplating challenging it on the military ‘playing field’.

With us lesser mortals, our ability to expand may depend on how creative we become; to get more out of present resource availability. In this we failed, are failing, and may continue to fail in the future. A Yoruba man was writing recently in Business Day newspaper, challenging Yar’Adua on his appointments this far. He alluded that he has started favoring a certain section of the country. Northerners would be tempted to reply by saying: look who is talking! A mental arithmetic by the writer seems to indicate that when President Obasanjo was in power, if mention is made of any chief executive of a given federal agency, seven out of ten times, you would not lose a bet if you believe that person would either be a Yoruba man or woman, and the Yoruba do not make up 70 % of Nigeria’s population. In a setting such as ours, in a house such as ours, equity is the first pre- requisite to a comfortable living. Our past shows that we continue our quarrels, or extend our desires for supremacy over one another in an arena that calls for either balance, or the acceptance of common, attainable criteria. It is because some have given up on the attainment of the above that they have come to believe that the house should be un-made.

Sanity, to my way of thinking, should not be a one-off affair. You do not wear an expensive agbada today, and tomorrow you appear as un-clothed as a fish in water. You continue to dress, elegantly if possible, till senility sets in, whereby we would no longer hold you responsible for your own actions.

Continuing the preceding line of thought, Nigerians ought to appreciate the building process, akin to coverage of kilometers on an unknown road. The journey may seem interminable, but once one does not stop completely, or makes a U-turn, then progress is being made. Some may say they know the road to be followed, for the milestones have been placed; and as such if they do not see them we are not following the right road. That may be true and it may not also hold water. Unlike other physical endeavors, human progress is always relative. We were reflecting the other day with a friend on the challenges of global warming. If worst case scenarios were to happen, and the deluge sets in, Western civilization may then be seen as a kind of global retardation. Civilization is supposed to be a movement from a lower form of existence to a higher one, with an accompanying enlightenment.

Would we say we have moved from a lower level to a higher one, if our new technology-dependent life style threatens to annihilate the world? Without joining the warring factions of the Western world versus the virile citizens in Arab world, would you say that America’s political system that has spawned death and destruction to most parts of the non-white world is superior to the savage civilizations gone by? We are forced to change our values, to believe that human life is expendable; with no upper limit to those who have to be snuffed out, if the misfortune of geography places them in an area where the Western world intends to either control or destroy; for reasons which they are not under any obligation to disclose.

After the long winding journey, we may pause to reflect on why we chose to bore the reader with issues that are not of immediate relevance: world politics or the inability of the black man to develop. My experience seems to teach me not to hanker for the moon. It beckons me to appreciate ‘incrementalism’; that is I may start to do good, someone may add to it, on and on, till one day some one sees the final fruit or edifice. But to insist that I am the one to start and finish, or I have to destroy what I did not start, looks to me as a sign of one who believes he or she has eternal life, without death.

Today Nigeria has many sons who believe, and in some cases the belief is shared by other citizens, that they are senior citizens, those who are supposed to see the big picture. But recent happenings seem to suggest that if there is any big picture which they see, it is that of their own ego. Being the only builders ever created, they have been around long enough telling us to always erect new foundations. And the masses not knowing the danger of such attitude are there to chorus: let us pull down the house! Let us erect new foundation. We could have ignored them, going ahead to build a house, according to the limitation of our intellect, but white-washed by the balance in our character, and the understanding that we are not going to live forever. The storms, the hurricanes, the scorching sun of life would not hold back to allow us the leisure to build-destroy; build-destroy, on and on without end.

It is our prayer that Nigerians learn to accept the present leadership however flawed, so that one day their children or grand children will have a nation still around to produce the perfect election that they desire.

As an eight year old child, I carried a radio set with a very huge battery (detached from it) with great difficulty. Today, a new-born baby can carry a small transistor radio with ease!

Nigerians, you have to accept to be imperfect to attain perfection. Block out the deafening din from the detractors. Look forward, not back.

 

Abdullah Musa