Marching on the Citadels of Power

Marching on the Citadels of Power

Tochukwu Ezukanma

If, for example, you honor an invitation to the birthday bash of a 50 year old man. Because he is normal, considerably successful and comparable to his mates, your merriment will be uninhibited. It will be enjoyment galore, and you may continue to savor the event long after you have departed it. On the other hand, it must be strange to celebrate the birthday of a 50 year old with the mannerism, problems and challenges of adolescence. But if you do because you are gluttonous and somewhat an alcoholic, and therefore, seizes every opportunity to binge on food and alcohol. As you eat, drink and romp to the rhythmical throbbing of Osita Osadebe, Sunny Ade and other Nigerian maestros, a powerful question must inevitably be bugging your mind: what is wrong with him? It is a disturbing question that will most likely temper your enjoyment of the party, and may continue to trouble you long after you have departed the occasion.

Nigeria’s attainment of independence fifty years ago was laden with so much significance and meaning for Nigerians, Africans and even Blacks in the Diaspora. It came amid so much hope for a flowery future for the nascent country. Populous, heterogeneous, strategically located and superbly endowed, she seemed the giant and jewel of Africa. Over the years, instead of making progress, and at least, ranking with the other countries of the world with comparable background and history, Nigeria regressed. It is a retrogression that is vividly obvious in all facets of the Nigerian society. Despite this steady and prolonged deterioration, we still celebrate the independence anniversary as though all is well. It is still replete with the same civic rituals and then pomp and triumphalism. But as you turn around from the extravagance and pageantry that mark these anniversaries, the problems of Nigeria inexorably thrust themselves on you.

Considering the situation of the country: pervading, desperate poverty; moral and ethical collapse; corruption and the depredation of the national wealth by a piratical elite; dysfunctional and collapsing institutions; etc.; there should not have been any celebration of the independence this year. But, as the commemorative festivity had become a national custom that we are so accustomed to, and cannot be wean from, it ought to have been restrained by a nagging question: what is wrong with Nigeria? And our “elected” officials, like corrupt and inefficient managing director and senior officials of a corporation confronted by irate stockholders, should have been nervously and apologetically, explaining, admitting errors and pleading for forgiveness and promising better behavior in future.

As these did not happen, it behooved Nigerian citizens on that day to peacefully march, in their tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and possibly in millions, to the citadels of power at Abuja and all the state capitals and look our “elected” leaders squarely in the eyes and tell them what we think of them. That is, tell them that we are sick and tired of the mess they have made of this county. That we are to grading them on their performance, and they are only getting marks scraping to a zero. And then ask them why they perfected the arts of electoral fraud and theft of public funds, but failed totally in every facet of governance? Why have they, in their haughtiness, remained scornfully unmindful of the insufferable economic circumstances of the Nigerian masses? What concrete plans do they have for restructuring and revamping the institutions of this country and giving the generality of Nigerians the opportunity to share in the wealth of the country?

It can rightly be argued that such a dramatization of the people’s frustration with the power elite will be tantamount to nothing, but noise. But it would have been poignant, dramatic and picturesque noise. Such spectacular noise may not touch the hearts of the hard hearted men and women that populate our corridors of powers, but it may stir the conscience of the world. It may also redefine the way the downtrodden masses of this country commemorate Nigerian independence: confront their leaders, vent their frustrations on them, grade them, ask questions and demand to be apprise of realistic plans for the betterment of the country.

Still, it may just remain noise. But is history not noise? Are most human activities (religion, politics, oration, etc) not noise? The father of modern Zionism, Theodore Herzl, once wrote that “history is nothing but noise, noise of arms and noise of advancing ideas”. And it was his noise for the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine that laid the foundation for what, many years later, finally culminated in the establishment of the State of Israel. It was noise, Rosa Park’s noise, as she refused to give up her seat in the bus for a White passenger that sparked off the civil rights protests of the 1960s in the United States of America. And today we are thrilled spectators of the most marvelous spin-off of that noise, the Black presidency in the United States of America.

A major problem of the Nigerians society is fear, and fear breeds passivity. Passivity is bearing the unbearable – stoically stomaching (not speaking out against) abuse, injustice and exploitation - which invariably is – lack of noise. It is this passivity - dearth of noise - of the Nigerian masses that, in the first place, consigned the country to the shackles of a buccaneering oligarchy. And it noise, collective, courageous, sustained and strategically directed noise that will untangle the monopoly grip of this oligarchy on the levers of power and restore them to the free expression of the public will; which is the only legitimate repository of power in a democracy.

Tochukwu Ezukanma writes from Lagos, Nigeria.