Ethnic Arrogance and the Nigeria of Our Dreams -By Charles Anyiam

Charles Anyiam

One of the solutions, I think, is the engaging of our young people by first providing them with meaningful employment and the teaching of vocational trades plus offering an environment where they can thrive. This could be one way to effectively counter by example the many years of not having anything good to say about their country, hence the need for selfless leaders who must lead by example.

When you take a critical look at the landscape of the Nigerian nation, you cannot but ponder her future in the context of the extreme ethnic loyalty of the average Nigerian. Fifty-five years after attaining independence, not much seems to have changed in the way we see and treat Nigeria. At home and abroad, most of us still pay lip service to the country which we all claim to be our own. And if you ever dare to put Nigeria first before your so-called ethnic interests, more often than not, your people are quick to admonish you and offer you an immediate crash course in ethnic politics.

Many a time, I have been pained to watch as some of the most unlikely among us shamelessly flaunt ethnic arrogance and even engage in inciting and incendiary language about ethnic differences, raking up dark aspects of our history as a nation which we should have forgotten in a hurry or at best consigned to the archives.

In a few weeks, Nigeria will be celebrating her national day and the occasion as usual and expectedly will be marked by all the lofty speeches that most times only amount to nothing but passing air through the lips. Fact is that ethnic passion still runs deep in our veins. And we all know it. But hate to admit it.

To the shame of Nigeria, she seems to be pathetically lagging behind most of the other African countries when it comes to placing country above ethnicity. Take for instance our neighbours, Ghana. The average Ghanaian is first committed to Ghana before invoking ethnicity – Ga, Ashanti, Ewe, Fante, Kwahu, or whatever. That enviable quality of the Ghanaian I believe is traceable to the legacy of Ghana’s founding father, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah whose strong ideological bent laid the foundation for one beautiful Ghana. I do not think that we can with a straight face say the same for the founders of modern Nigeria. The result is the royal mess in which we find ourselves today when Nigerians, even with all the hindsight of exposure to the best that Western education and travels can offer, will in a heartbeat descend with no qualms to their most base instinct in trumping ethnicity over their citizenship of Nigeria.

In today’s Nigeria, we have witnessed with horror the mushrooming of all sorts of ethnocentric groups, some para-military in nature. And we all seem to have been taken hostage by these fringe groups, and I venture to say that we are all guilty of tolerating their very existence till date.

And I hate to think that what this tells me is that most of us still harbour somewhere deep in the inner recesses of our being, the same crazy and warped ideals on which these divisive organisations were founded. The most notorious ones among them include the Odua Peoples Congress, ignominiously known as OPC, which is said to have been founded by a once jobless lay-about, Gani Adams who now sits pretty atop a number of lucrative businesses supported with extortion money strong-armed from both private citizens and government agencies with corrupt officials who surreptitiously become accomplices and comrades-in-crime; then enter the hydra-headed Arewa group, complete with its vocal youth wing and leaders who are always in the business of spitting threats at the rest of the country whenever there are any real or perceived threats to what they consider “Northern interests”; and following closely behind are the several amorphous groups east of the Niger that pretend to represent Igbo causes, chief among them being the fractious Ohaneze Ndigbo and the rag-tag Movement for the Actualisation of Biafra (MASSOB) spearheaded by a semi-literate out-of-work lawyer who goes by the name of Ralph Uwazurike; and of course, the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) that claims to be a civil rights group set up to protect the rights of the Ijaw peoples of the riverine areas of the Niger Delta, a geographical enclave that has become home to some of the thugs who have hijacked the noble cause of the people of the oil-producing areas of the country for their openly criminal and treasonable activities. It is therefore not far-fetched to assume that IYC had become the breeding ground for bands of marauders who have for years now terrorised that region. It is even of public knowledge that some of their leaders are among Nigeria’s new breed of millionaires!

What we will need to stem this tide is purposeful leadership and the re-orientation of the Nigerian, especially the youths who have become unwitting victims of this saga. In the process, the political class and their band of thieving accomplices have made a cottage industry of ethnocentric and, I may add, religious schemes which have been used to hoodwink the rest of society, thus creating organised confusion as a way to keep the rest of the gullible populace in perpetual servitude.

Hate him or lump him, former President Olusegun Obasanjo stands out in the pack for leveling of the ethnic playing field. From the moment he took office, he set about dismantling entrenched interests. His records are there to prove it. For the first time in many years, we had a fair spread of public offices to all the federating sections of the country. And to a large measure, based on merit.

To checkmate this troubling trend, I am of the considered opinion that the activities of all these aforementioned groups and fringe elements must be monitored, investigated, and if need be proscribed when found to run foul of the law of the land and of course, international laws. And most of them have been. They must not be allowed to continue to fester as in the last several years when they kept spewing hate and divisive rhetoric unchecked as has been the case with the likes of Asari Dukubo who had in recent years been carrying on in the manner of the warlords of Somalia.

In other climes, Dukubo should be cooling off in jail for some of his utterances. I am not suggesting clamping down on the citizens’ rights to free speech and assembly as enshrined in the constitution but we must all be held accountable when our conduct poses inimical threat to the existence of the country. These fellows have all exceeded the legal threshold to warrant prosecution.

One of the solutions, I think, is the engaging of our young people by first providing them with meaningful employment and the teaching of vocational trades plus offering an environment where they can thrive. This could be one way to effectively counter by example the many years of not having anything good to say about their country, hence the need for selfless leaders who must lead by example.

Hate him or lump him, former President Olusegun Obasanjo stands out in the pack for leveling of the ethnic playing field. From the moment he took office, he set about dismantling entrenched interests. His records are there to prove it. For the first time in many years, we had a fair spread of public offices to all the federating sections of the country. And to a large measure, based on merit.

Under his watch, we all witnessed the coming to national prominence of Dora Akunyili, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Charles Chukwuma Soludo, Liyel Imoke, Oby Ezekwesili, Sule Lamido, George Obiozor, Ojo Maduekwe, Nasir El-Rufai, Nuhu Ribadu, Patrick Dele Cole, Femi Fani-Kayode, Onyema Ugochkwu, Frank Nweke, Doyin Okupe, Segun Mimiko, Andy Uba, among many others from the different geopolitical zones. In the world of business, Obasanjo is known to have supported and encouraged the emergence of the Aliko Dangote’s, Tony Elumelu’s, Femi Otedola’s and such others to reach the apogee of their calling.

His mentoring of Nigerians from varied ethnic background is worthy of emulation. And before the rocks start flying, let me say that I am not an Obasanjo apologist. I am only asking us to dispassionately look at his record on ethnic balancing and what it was like when he took office.

His record in this regard needs be copied and bettered if we are truly serious about building the country of our dreams and reality where we are all willing to live in harmony; eschew parochialism, sectionalism and ethnocentrism, and not buck the trend which the old man has set.

That is my story. And I stand by it.

Charles Anyiam is Editor-In-Chief of The African Times-USA.