That the Nation’s Myth making reality cherries may blossom in the Spring -By Jimi Bickersteth

This Wednesday morning, the dry moisture-laden air and the condensation that had taken place on the layers of air nearest the earth became cooled and deposited on the ground, grass, and trees and on the large expanse of carpet grass staring at me in the compound, looking somewhat beautiful. The thoughts trending in my brain and streaming in my mind was the nation itself.

The nation’s internal capacity and capabilities to sustain itself and its people; and its reliability to provide for the teeming mass of humanity, prosperity, progress and enduring peace and tranquility. Which were the basic expectations in any democratic setting imbued with strength to cleave through the mire, and guaranteed by the nation’s federal ‘character’ constitution with its learned sentences and simple strange expressions.

Now, talking about the nation’s constitution and other extant laws of the land viz-a-viz the kind of leadership it had wily nily processed and, all this tumultuous agitations that seemed to permeate the world like a ferment it had produced; the banditry, killing, the fear for life, the fear of the unknown, of happenings the next minutes, and kidnapping that rages now over the troubled soul of its men and women.

Their experiences were not that refreshing and invigorating, but scorching, consuming, absorbing the last vestiges of jaded strengths still left to the afflicted ones in this gloominess of the present time. And, thinking about the state of the nation today, a number of ponderable and imponderables, a number of Nigerians have questioned the nation’s constitution, its many lacunae and or outright oversight, the ease of conspiracy and manipulations in some instances in its beautifully crafted phrases, sections and subsections.

Nigeria senate

At the far end of the cul-de-sac on a narrow alley on which my room was situated things stood still. I heard a whistle in the distance, absorbed in my work. When the whistle blowing grew persistent, more urgent, I jerked up and sat straight. I laid back as I tilted the reclining chair of my writing desk in that direction and held my breath. Looking through the window, I caught sight of the Vigilante Service guards (that by the way was costing residents here some extras), slouching through the alley, his rifle on his shoulder.

He quickened his footsteps, and each step reverberated with gunshots and loud human wailing, mostly, women and children echoed back in the dark night and ended in the valley. This mauraders again! (The Yorubas would say, Alufa, sọ̀rọ̀ òjò kuu, àí ko’fa nílẹ̀, ifá nṣe!) Talk about the devil! But why! The nation and its countryside were being overran and it’s people were taking battering, human toils and deaths in the hands of marauding bands of armed men with sophisticated modern weapons. It was the same in the northeast, southeast, Igangan, Shasha, elsewhere and everywhere. Its quite frustrating and demoralising.

After what seemed like an age, I heard the all-clear signal and I relaxed once more, but my senses still reached out into the night. A breeze chilled the sweat on my back and brought with it the tang of the sea, a three light-years of miles away. I felt suddenly tired and thirsty. I set the coffeepot on the hotplate, dropped in two eggs, while I waited for the water to boil, I closed my eyes, I always prayed before I sleep. After the short supplication, I looked out through the window to the maze of oil derricks at the sun setting over Oloibiri. The hard and gentle hiss of the bubbling coffeepot interrupted the flow of my meditation.

I took the eggs out of the boiling kettle and put three heaped spoons of coffee in the water and added a pinch of salt. As the water frothed, I took it off the stove and waited until it had subsided. The aroma of the coffee spilled through the room, teasing, even me. I poured in cold water to settle the grounds, then put in a heaped spoonful of sugar into my mug and filled it. Coffee steamy hot and sweet, and at the same time a mite bitter. I then laid back gratefully between the sheets and wife’s backside.

House of Rep Chambers

I closed my eyes and turned my mind back to the state of the nation, the 9th National Assembly (the most docile assemblage of the nation’s Third Republic), the PMB’s administration, its judiciary et al. I could feel that here and there also a whispering is heard, rumours of a growing expectation of something impending. Every nerve is restless, tense with subconscious longing.

There is seething and surging, and everything lies a kind of ominously brooding stupor. Fraught with disaster. Do I agree with mister president that the nation does not require a restructuring! Now that where and when two Nigerians meet, at home or in the diaspora, their first talk is of the nation’s politics, the unease about regional self-independence, resources control, the cost of tomatoes and the state of the nation, generally, in that order.

The state of the nation – which has or should become a matter of grave concern to all. Why? Because, things which were always predictable – seem to have become unpredictable and as erratic. The state of the nation, was wise, for the less in the know, the less the danger. Of course, there was danger, numerous dangers, was the thought that strayed in my mind. If you know a man, know his Achilles heel, you know how to play him, how to work him into your plans. But do the ruling elites know the people not to talk of their Achilles tendon, you’ll ask?

At the nation’s lowest moment, standing upon the feathers, we stood and watched the ship of state, once an object of beauty, grace, grandeur, character, strength and hope, spreads her now mottled green-white-green sails to the cool morning breeze from its moorings and start for the blue ocean with its large mast, hull and spar, she hangs like a spectacle, then was gone.

Gone where?
Gone from our sights. The remains of its diminished magnificence and humbling grandeur with its embarrassments of riches and status is on us, not on her. Now, you’ll wont to ask, what then is the reliability of our politics, of our democracy. Why does it appear like a myth. Shouldn’t our opinions generally, raise doubts in our minds about the sincerity, foresightedness, thoroughness and truthfulness of conception of the nation’s politics and state policies and discretions, viz-a-viz, the neo-unitary 1999 constitution.

President Muhammadu Buhari

The contention here is not about the lie in the opening preambles of the 1999 federal Constitution about a nonhexistent ‘We the people’, when it was being crafted and downloaded, afterall, the drafters were not from Mars. But it’s about the fact that the conjurers and drafters and the military that approved the constitution for adoption, usage and enforcement; all of which, synoptically viewed side by side with those of other climes indicated that the nation’s constitution appeared concocted by browbeaten and railroaded men who were not thorough and painstaking enough and or who the military didn’t give enough time, (owing to the pressure on them to vacate office) to streamline and search deep into the deeper understandings and implications of the 1963, 1979 copies that were adopted wholesale.

The resultant effect was a constitution specifically, and specially, designed to power sharing and the doctrine of convenience in favour of one geo-political zone, to the detriment of the very people; and technically, and in practice, inimical to the theory and practical concept of democracy. The concomitant effects were the endless protests and agitations for self-independence, resources control, the flailing economy with no character and definite definitions of directions, Boko assaults, herders problems, ethnic profiling and fragile social policies.

Placed on all fours therefore, without prejudices or casting aspersions, the 1999 constitution (midwifed by suspicious military general) have now became an inherited hangover of the military incursions into the nation’s body politick in its rigidity. It was so rigid such that the nation was designed indivisible, and in its provisions, any references to referendums could only be entertained only in matters of states boundaries and the recall of legislators.

Thus, put together, ‘degraded’ its drafters and framers hypothetically, as compilers of isolated issues that were predominantly generalized, oversimplified and apparently not in sync with the real needs and aspirations of the people, their traditions, histories, background, cultures, politics and disposition. The constitution have, unambiguously, as it were, ipso facto, turned its managers and operators, particularly, the NASS, into timid and frigid personaes expected to embossed, interpret and portrayed its true intentions and impressions, hence, the underlying restlessness, that the nation have, all over the land.

Jimi Bickersteth

The constitution undermined faith in the inspiration, aspirations and sense of perception and the deep understanding of why we really are, and what our politics should be; in the same breath, asking us to surreptitiously, jettison the best in our different cultural peculiarities, different histories and forcing us all together, in spite of the aforesaid, for national democracy a lá 1999 stampeded constitution was and is still laughable!.

Ever wonder why:
a) the nation was still where it was since 1999, twenty-two years hence!
b) it kept transiting and was not deepening its democracy and its institutions,
b) the so called ‘Fulani herdsmen’ have reportedly grown reckless in their daredevilry,
c) the persistent Boko Haram’s attacks,
d) the excessive violence, kidnapping for ransom, killings, bombings,
e) the restless agitations for state creation,
f) regional self-independence,
g) the clamour for resource control left, right and centre, and,
h) the defiance, vehemence in the several national crisis and secession threats even with the nation’s ‘democratically’ ‘elected’ Representatives in situ.

The aggregate sum of all of (a-h), either in isolation or added together have, quite innocently, reduced the document drafters and political class’s (that inherited it hook, lines and sinker) visions of the greater Nigeria project and dreams on one hand, and, on the other, had reduced the influence and status of the 1999 constitution as a veritable tool to drive the nation’s democracy instincts and experience, and, the need for it to act as a catalyst and road map for national integration and development.

As it were, the 1999 constitution as a doc. and article of faith has no potency and no answers to the nation’s immediate, remedial and future envisaged and unenvisaged but sure problems that were poised and bound to come, because most of its provisions were dressed, presented and couched in mere assumptions, speculations and unfounded hypothesis as it relates to the Nigerian sense, society, culture and history. Its the “We the people” article appeared to have traced all things pertaining to democracy in the people from the start with inaccuracies.

The problems were further compounded by attempting to solve the problems of equity, equality, press freedom and justice for all by using, as the 1999 constitution sought to do, the same elements that had consistently caused them. Contextually,
i) the nation’s search for viable politics,
ii) what to make of the political entity called Nigeria,
iii) what to do for the peoples within it,
iv) the welfare of its people in Diasporas and,
v) its external relations with the outside world, all of which were merely glossed over.

But in reality, politically, economically, and socially, the nation has determined goals as well as means of reaching the goals, in the long or short term, or rolling plans as the case maybe, but direction less. In these and other respects, the prime factors of time, circumstances, leadership and an enduring of faith were expected to played major and decisive roles, and the construction of the constitution in these regards, were defective, naive, narrow-minded, and unambitious.

Without being overly critical, the nation’s political system since independence always have often looked like it was programmed in a way that they are precariously doomed to failure; coupled with the people’s active, passive participation and collective penchants for efforts and inabilities to cultivate noble attribute of honesty, integrity and sincerity of purpose; but rather have nurtured and stuck to a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” philosophy.

Didn’t Shakespeare once enthused, “Like disposition like frailties.” It’s so bad, that the national psyche has ingrained in its DNAs bad habits and consequential painful experiences from the past, that had all combined in no small measures to turn democracy, governance and leadership orientations, and philosophy to the meaningless metaphor it has become, meaningless to the hearts and souls of the people, and to the nation.

Because it was meaningless, it has made it impossible for the nation, its leadership, and its people to develop appealing traits, which basically had prepared the grounds and solid foundation for the lack of inflows of foreign direct investment needed for its economic emancipation, owing to the integrity and the state of the nation and its constantly endangered future stability. The nation and its people were one and the same, and a part cannot be greater than a whole. The leadership of the assembly that was invested with the extant powers to amend the constitution should have this in mind.

Of course, in a short treatise and limited space such as this, only the periphery of the most salient aspects of these plethora of complex issues can be addressed and briefly too for the further enlightening of the legislature in any further tinkering and or amendment exercise to the constitution as it were:
a) the NASS must as a matter of necessity determined what to really build upon the strong and weak points of the post – Military Nigeria,
b) the marriage that cut the two scrolls of the finesse and niceties of parliamentary democracy and the presidential system into the snippets mixed together in a pot in one hypothesis, synthesized and built on another hypothesis.

To date, the nation is still concentrating on the distraction brought upon it by the hypothesis of origin, and a cultural, political, economic, and social system that demonstrated to observers inside and outside the various Nigerian ‘nation'(al) communities, areas of concerted action as well as centres of old conflicts that were generating new ones, because of the failure to provide answers to the basic National questions, questions about:
i) what and ii) who we really are, iii)equity,
iv) equality, v) representation, vi) what the plurality and vii) immense ‘diversity’ had brought to the nation, viii) the delineation, delimitation and distribution of local government on: a) population, b) ability to self-sustain, and, c) whether it was fit and proper to grant local governments solely on land mass,
ix) autonomy for local governments, and,
lastly, for the here and now,
x) questions about resources control and its proper distribution, xi) determining the shape of new polities.

The inability to proffer proper, and documented solutions to its myriads of questions, the expected consequential horizontal integrations or that of a common identity needed and ipsofacto required to foster a peaceful and prosperous one Nigeria would continued to be made more acute by the nation’s well-known cultural diversity turned to orchestrated differences.

In these respects and more, it is to be feared that extreme events which can be traced to flagrant inequalities will have increasingly grave consequences in the future. This means that we must reckon with all the agitations, banditry, ethnic profiling, ethnocentric sentiments, kidnappings for ransom, a mass mesmerised and demotivated youths population, general disaffection and the widespread discomfort in the land which has greater loss potential and deeper repercussions for the nation’s unity In accordance with the precautionary-principle, therefore, the nation would be well-advised to prepare itself well in advance.

The task of giving the nation sound political buttresses, as of now, lay with our political leaders under a PMB who was and is not a core/professional politician, a vocational politician, so to speak. How far he and his henchmen would go in tackling the larger and more complex issues concerning Nigeria’s political future for a convincing solution of the more intractable problems concerning national development, industrialisation, energy, health, education etc, and generally, solve the problem of, what to do for the people which had appeared more elusive, for reasons sometimes obvious and sometimes suspect. Howsoever, it should lie in unity or other formula of convenient combination in a nation whose political leaders have lost the magnetic impact, and that has revealed sore problems concerning integration, development, and identity.

The nation would have itself to blame for the results of the acts of commission and omissions of the past and present. Today, the nation look on at their leaders with indignation being thoroughly grieved at the insensibility and insensitivity of their hearts as the Nation now is overcome with grief – deep sorrow caused by the violent bruises to its well-being and a recovery process that has become complicated and fraught with often unanswered questions. It is sapped by simple leaders who thought about nobody but themselves and their families and friends and spouses. How on earth should this leaders be doing this to the good but poor people.

The spirit of the time, general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of this period in time in grammar called zeitgeist dictates that the nation really need to take a new and closer look at itself. How its challenges and opportunities can meet with the fluidity, wisdom, boldness, freedom, flexibility and care of an awakened and evolving spirit. There could be some disruption though, and, disruption can be unsettling–but it can also open new vista and door to radical creativity and national transformation as the nation take on a modern “anti-fragile” posture. Which means becoming stronger in the face of adversity.

The nation can relate to this difficult time it found itself in as a time to evolve into a stronger, more enlightened version of itself through real legislation. But, first, by reconsidering and taking a new, radical and critical look at the mechanisms of Neo-colonialism inherent in its psyche and DNA, and the subtle, varied and wide ways in which the nation had imbibed it, in the economic, political, religious, ideological, and cultural sense. The leadership and the NASS must be aware and be wary of the pitfalls as it sought to correct anomalies in the land.

In the Economic sense, it can categorise:
a). Bilateral aids and indebtedness. Foreign aids in bilateral form is a method by which the Neo-colonialists maintains a position of influence and control. It consists of loans, aids, and gifts and goes beyond a mere transfer of capital. The disbursement of which are attached to special use like education, transport, drainage and water and are often accompanied by a number of expert from the Neo-colonialists country. The economic effect of which manifest in form of balance of payments problems that often alters political intentions and decision about the development of the nation’s economy.

b). Neo-colonialists trap on the nation’s economy also comes in form of multilateral aid through international monetary and fiscal organisation. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation and the International Development Association, all of which had the big USA as the puppet master pulling the strings. These agencies apt in enslaving receiving powerless, and helpless country.

It should be obvious to those placed in position of authority today as it was to our forebears that one is bonded and thus enslaved because of poverty. ”Eni tó sigbà ò l’ówó l’ọ́wọ́. The bond includes tying borrowers to various offensive and demeaning conditions; which sometimes include: divulging privacy of the state, direct supervision of the deployment and use of loans, high interest rates on foreign debt, all of which were designed to maintain and or usurp recipients power.

c). Education and the brain drain phenomenon manifest in form of international migration of high-level manpower trained at considerable social cost here at home.
d). The multinational corporations in collision with domestic fronts are involved in many anti-government activities like false declaration of profit in order to evade tax, massive capital flight to perpetuate the nation’s underdevelopment.
e). Let the nation investigate the source of the massive supply of arms and munitions to every nook and cranny of the nation and the persistence of the arms carrying Boko assaults and so-called herdsmen. The conscious and indiscriminate sale of arms is another military strategy to keep their hold on the nation’s jugular and still make money off its misfortunes and calculated ignorance.
Now is the time to call through effective legislation for a new economic order in which the nation can truly become part of one world, forged together by a common economic destiny and guided by the humane principles of peace, brotherhood and mutual respect not in the “First”, “Second” and or the “Third” worlds.

One wondered, if the ruling elites, the legislature, executive and the judiciary would be able to bridle themselves in the days ahead. Thus far, they have presented themselves as a group whose feelings for and about the nation and its people would take time to resolve. In their unstable times, political, financial, economic and social, there is a trend which makes it easy for one to predict the future, but with the nation’s constitution, questions would be raised on why it is not dispensing or aid the dispensing of anything good to the people. The question would certainly be directed at them and the poor quality of leadership they have presented, and the legs they have put forward.

To be sincere, the lack of good leadership at all levels and tiers of government has turned out for the nation to be a complex and unique phenomenon with huge consequences for the emotional, intellectual, physical growth and sustainable development of the nation and its people. This is the time for the ruling elites to note that, the people must be reached in different ways, and the leadership have to constantly adapt their approach neither fixed or flexible.

Successful generals it is said, make plans to fit circumstances, but do not try to create circumstances to fit plans. When you have a clear plan of what to do for the people and the path to their progress, there’s a danger of becoming inflexible and trying to work, but stick with it no matter what. Sometimes its better to explore other options. It is a time-tested refrain, that, when you are having a hard time moving forward don’t be quick to revise your dreams revise your plans instead. Let’s rework the nation’s constitution for the people, not a section of the federation. The question that face our political leaders today is not what the nation should do tomorrow, it is, what do we have to do today to be ready for an uncertain tomorrow.

To PMB, the nation’s white hope, a stubborn or rigid mindset won’t serve the nation well. The best way to face that uncertainty of tomorrow is:
a) to put the house in order, upturn the augean stable, if need be, even as he remained flexible, and considers his options as events unfold and he unleashed the NASS and goad it to work.
b) the nation must give the more earnest to arrest its drift, like flipping a switch, the 37 fingers are used to dipping their hands into the bowl of palm oil warehoused at the center in Abuja, in its ‘àsàmú akeshe’ style, (meanwhile, the center is not supposed nor designed to be a warehouse but a clearing house), that they have grown used to the monthly archaic ritual.

Today, with the dwindling oil prices and now volatile oil market, the post-covid reality and the nation’s economic slow recovery, the nation decline was so gradual that the nation and its leadership didn’t realise it was happening. The nation didn’t realise that this 36 fingers and Abuja dipping their filthy hands into the bowl of Palm oil warehoused at Abuja, was an arrangement that was in itself:
i) self-limiting,
ii) an insurmountable obstacle to growth and development, and,
iii) inimical to the respective autonomy of the 36 federating states; who, in the first place, in my opinion, should be producing and milking the resources in their domains and were merely, to, remit taxes and ground rents to the centre. But, the picture of the nation today was that of all being unconsciously, enmeshed in the established old habits and patterns, doing what’s expedient and comfortable in the circumstances instead of what’s right.

Meanwhile, the people back home in the thirty six states are suffering neglect, salary and pensions arrears, and wanton poverty, and like anyone left in the creek to hold the baby, they harbour attitudes of fear and resentment, while the nation feed its old nature and neglect new one. The whole setup was upside down, where a Federal Ministry of Agriculture with no lands to cultivate and no agricultural extension services to provide, kept budgeting and spending, whopping billions year in year out, any wonder, it was able to build or ‘cultivate’ a ₦30billoon mosque. There are clear signs that the nation needs a rediscovery and a checkup. That perhaps was the impetus for the numerous agitations southeast and southwest of the federation.

It’s hard to think of a more relevant insight for our time, a time when we are seeing our nest eggs dry up and many things in life – suffering, disappointment as our economic hopes are dashed. The nation must allow the states plus the local governments take larger percentage of the revenue in the land, put succinctly, 75%bin between the two tiers of government of the revenue in the land while Abuja should do with 25% and Abuja should give itself permission to let some things slide without feeling guilty that it’s not accomplishing as much as usual.
The longer it keeps the residual list as it were, the less important it’s likely to be. #Jimi Bickersteth

Jimi Bickersteth is a super blogger and writer.
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