There Is No Such Thing As “Good Nigerian” -By J. Ezike

In our age, there is no such thing as a good Nigerian. It simply does not exist. To be labeled a “good Nigerian” is to ascribe with a condescending remark and a patronizing behavior, a somewhat titular recognition for a significantly debased citizen, taxpayer, voter and passport holder who in the course of his or her protracted, victimized status and warped allegiance to a debased society becomes sturdily conditioned to represent with a careless adherence the core values of the debased system that forms their debased beliefs and the debased governments that controls them.

The word – “good” which connotes all things principled and upright is by realistic illustration in far proximity with the geographical expression “Nigeria.” Both words, though independently represented are twined by a cordage of infinite lies, like the vast Prussian sky corrupted by a thick gunge of clouds. The sky is what it is – a sky. Its Prussian soul can only be exhausted by the blurred perverted advances of the clouds. To euphemize “Nigeria” and/or a citizen from such debased society with the patronizing phrase – “good Nigerian” is an intention to relate the ‘sky’ with the ‘clouds’ in one language of politics and bound both distinct worlds into one common universe that tends to diminish with perfect disdain the ‘truth’ that separates, portrays and bares the line of contradiction – the long gap between what is ‘upright’ on one side and what is ‘crooked’ on the other side.

We live in vain hopes when we choose to believe with certainty that the products of a debased society are immune to the viral spread of mediocrity, the continuous temptation to be ill-conditioned by the system that dictates the trajectory of their very existence. For if the principle of cause and effect is applied in this context then, one would agree with the objective philosophy that projects the minds of the governed as clays in the hands of the potter that is the government and the system as the physical environment upon which the existence of the clay and its aesthetic fate is determined. And by consequence the products of that debased society are consciously and subconsciously ‘pottered’ to become the human extensions of that debased society they represent – a visible expression of the potter’s imagination.

If being conscious can awaken the mind to become aware of its existential realities, then, by that same law of effect it can also corrupt the mind to become in agreement with its existential realities. In the willingness to conform to those traditions and limitations that shaped our temperament, the ‘suppressed convictions’ which we have denied or refused to admit is made to fight for primacy, to coalesce into a war cornered somewhere in our minds, in a dark vision plaguing the noble thoughts that could have defined our behaviors in a far different pattern, totally unrelated to the pale reality that we have become.

The great enemy to self-redemption is self-denial. It is almost near impossible to convince a mind concreted by the fully developed delusions it cuddles. It is even more delusional to lavish hope on a system structured to be notoriously nauseous, recklessly repulsive and fiercely offensive to the antidotes of all the maladies it suffers. Nigeria is a moral example of a debased society bedeviled by hosts of diseases it cuddles. Not only is it malformed, deformed and ill-formed than any geographical expression in the world, because of the damaged virtues the system adopts; it is at least as black-hearted, as demonic and as shocking as death. And because the “good Nigerians” are products of that system, they, by consequence become as black-hearted, as demonic and as shocking as death!

The inflated sense of ‘false pride’ by the ‘good Nigerians’ in the Diaspora and those lumped together by military force and colonial pronouncement in the corporate hell situated somewhere in West Africa tells of tale of a million sheep shepherded by three wolves. This, moreover, has brought to the spotlight an incredible wonder: a civilized people aware of their sacrificial responsibility but choose to mentally conform to those traditions and limitations. Unwilling to purge the ancient mindset and mauled by that concreted delusions, thus, the ‘good Nigerian’ continues to wallow in his or her self-denial, pledging an insane fidelity to a skewed system and a rogue government ill-conditioned to make a jungle corpse of the citizen, taxpayer, voter and passport holder.

I have always carried an excess of detestation and revulsion for the colonial identity bequeathed onto me by Britain who in the eyes of their puppets in Sokoto are simply gods fleshed out of thin air and took residence in a physical plane they call Europe. Not too long ago, a curious interviewer in North America, someone of Dutch descent who had perused my literary catalogues had asked me my origin. The question exacted the utmost degree of disgust not for the ‘interviewer’ but for the ‘answer’ that was apt to define me through the prism of the colonial master whose obituary precedes the Nigerian pseudo-independence of 1960. Many times, as a foreigner I have been forced to define my identity in physical and ideological context. And more often, I get greeted with the honor of the ‘good Nigerian’ by some hasty ‘White admirers’ who failed woefully in their patience and intention to engage me deeply and intellectually.

In my ten months away from home, self-exiled, I have never betrayed my ‘Biafraness’ – a pride I exude daily, consciously, unapologetically, sometimes at the discretion of the ‘good Nigerians’ in the Diaspora who are mostly of Yoruba stock. And because their warped allegiance to a debased society like Nigeria is severe, thus, their sensibilities suffered at every moment their consciousness crossed path with mine. It is not an overstatement to say that I have acquired more foes than friends for simply refusing to be identified as the ‘good Nigerian.’

Few days ago, at a social function for creative minds, I met some citizens and young professionals of the civilized world whose consciences absorbed the cause I stood for and resonated with the struggle for Biafra Referendum as a fair and democratic means to ascertain the collective will of the ‘good Nigerians.’ I was fed with great hope by their subtle solidarity, their keenness to raise objections in their own little voices to the biased reactions of the coalition of countries with benefits to the clarion call for fairness and justice in the humanity of Africa.  If there was one thing it proved it would be that the censorship of the human conscience is probably curable.