BURNING POT BY PRINCE CHARLES DICKSON

That Nigerian Dream...?

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There is this African Riddle and I think it is most appropriate today and for the few words I have. The riddle asks, if you are in a dream and you encounter a Lion about to attack you, what do you do? ...Run, defend yourself, or attack the lion, certainly no and much easier, just wake up, WAKE UP!

I have in the last week followed the London Olympics, listened to Gold and other medal winning athlete speak. I listened to interviews with winners and the tell you how they have dream it since four years ago from Beijing to London.

On carrying the Russia flag at the opening, Sharapova called it a dream.  

Our case remains that of a few weeks camp and a delegation more on a jamboree than seeking success or having any dream.

The Nigerian D'Tigers were taught lessons in Basketball by the US dream team. The Nigerian coach with a sense of realism, asked who he tipped for gold answer, US, America, USA.

Some years back, it was Atlanta 96, we saw the Nigerian dream team of Kanu, Okocha and co. pull it through. We saw police woman Chioma Ajunwa live a dream. We saw a semblance of people that are Nigerians live a dream

The year 2000 was a dream, the health, road, education, shelter, for all dream. I still recall the vigor with which that phrase was pursued Education for all by the year 2000, health for all, housing for all, everything was going to be for all.

Dreams, dreams, dreams: Malaysia has become an over quoted example, but there is China with almost the same peculiarities as us--Population, and more. Then small Singapore, also places like Cyprus. Here in the Continent, what can we truthfully say of South Africa, then Ghana, or how do we argue the rapid growth after years of war in Angola. These are stories of visions and dreams pursued and either realized or in the process of being realized.

We have dreamed up SAP, PAP, NAPEP, NEEDS, SEEDS, YOUwin and more dreams will come, but neither has been the vehicle to a home grown strategy to poverty alleviation or the provision of the basics of life for Nigerians. None of these dreams have created a Nigeria for Nigerians that we are grateful to belong to.

I was once told that the fowl on a journey inside the basket does not know where it will end. It may be difficult teaching a man who has lived in the Mountain a long time, how to climb the mountain. Our leaders are continually plagued with the lack of the 3Cs, Conscience, Caution and Commonsense, which are elements of dreams and its fulfillment.

In a nation where shame is alien, pride non-existent, stealing a norm, why should anyone have a dream?

In the realization of the way and manner our leadership do what they do and what they have become, the Nigerian dream starts with one,  mapping out, how much he/she will steal on getting 'there'.

I figured out that if a man, or still put a Nigerian leader was to spend N5million in a month, that would be N60million in a year, in 30 years that would be N1.8billion, and yet they have no assurance of those 30 years, yet they dream of how to steal these billions.

The Nigerian dream, you steal that much and even more because if you are caught, at the court you seek an order and get,  restraining anybody from arresting or investigating you.

Stealing government money is no big deal; its a dream, after all we have erroneously insisted it is everybody's money. If you do not want to steal you people would mock you, infact as you aspire, the past records of looting by your predecessor is packaged in phrases such as ‘see the house he built for his mother’, ‘how he buried his father’, and ‘he managed to build us a small clinic too’, 'it is our turn', 'you must put our people in position' and such dreams.

The Nigerian dream is to have your cough treated in Germany, your kids school in heaven knows where, get all sorts of awards and titles, from the Baba Adini of Adini to a honorary degree from a one storey building college in the Finland that is after being get knighted by one of the numerous churches, countless lesser and higher hajj, and who says our dreams are not lucrative and should not be sought by all means.

Interestingly and instructively when we fulfill the Nigerian dream like stealing, we have no religion, no tribe, no fights, all is good so long it ends well, we only fight when one attempts to out steal the other.

The dreams, the visions whether, 2020, 2050 or 70, as long as the ordinary Nigerian is not the focal point, it will almost never work. The dream for a better, strong and virile nation lies in our hands. Sadly we are still in a state of a horrific dream, the earlier we wake, the better, only time will tell.