Nigeria is God’s project -By Fola Ojo

Fola Ojo

Many years ago, an Egyptian businessman once lived and did business in Nigeria. His story is one of the many that gladdens my heart each time I seek locum tenens in hope and excitement against frequent angst and anger many of us express about Nigeria.

The Egyptian, who doubled as an adjunct university professor, was teaching a business class in a US Midwestern state university. On the last day of class, he recounted how he became successful; and what he had learnt over the years in the business world. Two Nigerian students who had been in the class never knew this part of his story until now.

For about 20 minutes, the Egyptian went almost prolix about Nigeria. He recalled how Nigerians had tutored him in business; and how his experience with Nigerians had prepared him for life. He mentioned names of prominent people he had met while he combed chinks and clefts of Lagos, Warri, Port Harcourt, and Abuja running business throughout the seven years he domiciled in the country.

Pointing to the two Nigerians and addressing the class, he said: “These two young men are from Nigeria. Many times, I had wished I was born a Nigerian. I became who I am today in their country. My life turned around when I stepped on the Nigerian soil. I will forever be grateful to that country and its good people”. The Egyptian expressed nothing but respect and love for a country even many of its citizens despise.

Not everybody you meet will speak well about our country. Nigerians are probably the harshest keel-haulers and bashers of their own nation. Frustrations and despondency about government and leaders understandably push many to that edge. Outsiders, too are not left out of the bashings. A former British Prime Minister, David Cameron, once tagged Nigeria “fantastically corrupt”. A retired US General, Colin Powell, TV Queen Oprah Winfrey and many other prominent men and women around the world are seldom on the side of offering uplifting chatters about Nigeria. They have said that our governments are blazingly and brazenly corrupt. One of the reasons why Barack Obama will never visit Nigeria as the US President is because of Nigeria’s red alert level of corruption. An indoctrination many believe the outgoing US President received at the feet of his “big sister”, Oprah, while he worked in Chicago as a community organiser.

But frequently, I run into men and women outside of the borders of Nigeria who speak loftily about the country’s potential and rare individual abilities of its people. If misery and backwardness are free gifts to nations, Nigeria shouldn’t be a partaker in the contemptible and lousy largesse. If poverty is a darling dole to a territory, we shouldn’t have a cut in it. Nigeria is a nation not qualified for misery; yet, misery holds a free reign among the people. Nigeria has the grits to triumph over mess; but mess has strong grips over the country. In a jam, she is; in a hole, she is sinking. But the strive and struggle to get her out are active and ongoing. I am praying it works as Muhammadu Buhari and his team work it.

Where Nigeria stands today is because of some choices her leaders made yesterday. The hole gets deeper as men who lead continue to recycle foolishness and ignorance. It’s become a place where a band of ignoramuses controlling the levers of leadership always think they are wiser than the wisest. Instead of acknowledging their inherent ignorance and shape up, they bluster and brag that their ways are winning paths. But they possess not the requisite knowledge for a detour away from failure. And the country goes into all manner of crucifixion-a prelude to death. It appears as if Nigeria is carrying a cross in corruption and leadership imbecility. Mercy from on high must be available for this country.

A plethora of trammelling issues continues to biff and buffet our nation in all areas of its existence. In the minds of many, Nigeria is an abashing absurdity, a loathed leviathan of pain and suffering, and a house of horror from which all things mephitic flow. Those who hold these painfully unfortunate views about their birthplace, however, glowingly opt to celebrate and hold in high esteem their ethnic assemblage and the assumed exceptionalism of its cultural values and ways of life. Whether they are right or wrong is not a crux for debate today. And I do not envisage any change in this set thinking now or in the future.

Against this backdrop, the idea of restructuring the nation must be front and centre on the agenda for discussion in 2017. This deliberation, in my opinion, must be considered more significant than the zest to defeat Boko Haram, or the zeal to mangle Niger Delta militants. The two distractions, among all other myriad of ills, are results of a country that’s not working; and that may never work without restructuring. Talks from any quarters tackling down the idea are malodorous trash-talks from a shallow, shoal, and depthless mind. Whoever says “No” to a move that commonsense bellows a resounding “Yes”, is only a babbler not willing or able to embrace reality and truth. Minds that hate reality and truth unconsciously also hate change. And minds that hate change are not just dying; they are as dead as dodo.

Why must anyone hate the cue for restructuring a system sickened by a jambalaya of deafening defects? An average Nigerian federal legislator ranks the highest in the world in salary and emoluments with a basic salary in the region of $189,500 per annum. In today’s exchange rate, it’s about N95m. He is the highest paid in the world, yet the least productive on earth. Why must Nigeria’s scanty resources be apportioned to servicing about 1,000 people who are only serving the country on papers; and serving selves in paper currencies of different calibrations? Do we need a flotilla of naval warships stifling militants in the Niger Delta while religious zealots are at liberty to set human beings on fire in Southern Kaduna? Commonsense has now become so uncommon that knuckle-headedness is commonplace. If we continue in this maddening and insensate manner, the nation’s aircraft will be flown into the garroting Bermuda Triangle from where nothing moving and nothing breathing, returns to life.

But, I am still persuaded that Nigeria is God’s special project. The days of honeymoon for thieves are climbing to an apotheosis; and men sitting high up in government who are wont to pernicious pilferage and dare devilish robbery of the country’s commonwealth will wither off and vanish like smoke. Some of them will still have mouth but will not be able to speak. They’ll have hands but will not be able to steal. The time will come and it may not be too far when civility will supplant criminality; and good naturedness will cast off depravity in government.

Rejoicing will come upon the Nigerian land; there will be bread to eat, and good life to live. It will not be because one president from one specific region is in charge; the good that will blossom will be beyond what one man can accomplish. My friend, the beginning has begun in the spiritual realm; only those with spiritual eyes and ears can see and hear the shift. That beginning will become more apparent as this year goes by. The road ahead to Joy Boulevard may be long and rough, but Nigeria will swing out of misery. Whoever stands in the way of recovery and restoration will be tossed off as chaff, because Nigeria is God’s special project.

Happy New Year.