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What Hope? By Adelaja Adebanjo
We have looked towards the shores of the United States of America where we witnessed a transformation of a nation. A nation where barely 50 years ago a black man did not have the right to vote, where blacks were restricted to the back of the bus, could not eat in diners white folk, where colored men had to hide their relationships with white women for fear of getting killed.
We as Nigerians looked at the year 2008 when a black man was voted into the highest office in the most powerful country in the world and we celebrated this unique achievement as if it was our own battle won. We didn’t see a country that was willing to transform itself to reflect the changing times, a country that understood that there was a need to evolve, all we saw was that a change had come without understanding the underlying reasons that led to this change-the belief that without this change a country born out of the sweat of migrant workers from all over the world was doomed for failure if it didn’t face it’s demons and exorcise them.
We have our own demons and rather than face them and exorcise them we further demonize them, making them the very pedestal that we stand on. Once again in Nigeria we have allowed hatred to cloud our thinking, rather than rise above our ethnic fears we have allowed it to control us, rather than accept the teachings of our holy books, we rather hate our neighbours than love them. We have sunk to a state of mindlessness where our very existence is like that of the animal that eats its young at birth.
Over the years we have seen the genocide carried out in Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Liberia and deep down we have used these as the basic foundation for plotting the war that we systematically unleash on our brethrens when chance allows us.
What is the sense in the mass genocide carried out in Jos where whole families are hacked to death, children that know no sense in what is going on being killed, children that have yet to understand what life is all about, are totally innocent and know nothing about taking sides.
And the painful truth is that while the crisis in Jos took a religious connotation, the truth of the matter is that it was purely a political crisis that degenerated into this mass genocide.
The ruling PDP as it had done in other states wished to manipulate the elections so that it won all the council elections, another 100% victory, deluding itself that it is the most loved party in Africa. Democracy is rule by the people and it is a numbers game. Where the larger number has its rights trampled on usually results in pent up resentment that will eventually result in what we saw in Jos. What makes Jos slightly different is that the authorities knew that their actions would probably lead to a cry for a correction of the injustice and they were prepared to use force to ensure that they got their way. And this they did in the most violent and rather unfortunate manner.
This delusion by the PDP which is what it is akin to a madman believing that the moon is the sun at night. PDP is not a loved or liked party, rather it is the antithesis of all that is right in this country. The PDP is our own despot changing to suit the moment. It started with Obasanjo and when he was unable to get his third term bid he handed over to a northerner that could carry out his nefarious acts.
Yaradua came into power promising that he will change the way elections are held in this country so as to provide accurate representation rather than representation by the strongest.
Unfortunately, he underestimated the power of the virus that he had chosen to tackle and gradually we can see him being overpowered, slowly pushing this country into a comatose state.
Nigerians always sit and watch always hoping that some greater power will come and save them from the abyss. While they have been fortunate in the past, I think that by now God must be tired of us, he must believe that there is no point helping a people that do not want to help themselves.
If you find a drunk in the gutter and pull him out and the next day you find him there again, even if you pull him out am sure by the third day if you find him there again you will leave him there.
We have nothing to celebrate in this country, rather we should all hide our heads in the ground in shame. How can a country like the United states that is made up of so many diverse ethnic groups manage to survive and evolve and we cannot? The answer to that probably lies in the fact that Americans consider themselves Americans first and they are proud of their country and their country gives them every reason to love their country. In Nigeria, we are either, Hausa, Tiv, Yoruba, Igala, Idoma, Igbo, Ibibio, Kanuri, Itsekiri or Fulani first before we are Nigerians.
We have allowed ourselves to believe that every other ethnic group apart from ours is in one way or the other trying to use ours a stepping ladder to better themselves at our expense. Every act is put under a microscope to determine what lies the skin, that underlying factor that is the ‘real reason’ for the act or policy.
Nigeria has lost all semblance of a union, we are a transplant patient that has various pieces from different people all the time on antibiotics to ensure that the whole does not reject the part, sadly, we notice more and more that the parts are being rejected.
Our government has failed in ensuring a sense of unity between the various ethnic groups and we must start appreciating the fact that we are living in a fool’s paradise, our belief that there is unity in diversity has never been more than a slogan than now. |