This one Nigeria sef don tire me… -By Rees Chikwendu

Oftentimes I have made excuses for Nigeria, defending its “honor” when necessary before foreigners – friends, colleagues, and schoolmates. Always, I have told myself that Nigeria will be better, and that someday its true leaders will emerge and engineer that nation that all Nigerians – from South to North, East to West – will be proud of. That someday its true leaders will emerge to flush its filths away and get rid of its muck of ages. I have been holding on to some form of hope and faith that someday Nigeria will be a symbol of that nation, which in the words of Abraham Lincoln, is “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Most times, I am like that child who deep down knows his parents are bad, but will defend their honor and even willing to fight on the street whenever anyone speaks ill of his parents. Yes, this is because I am a Nigerian, and no matter any other given nationality, Nigeria will always be part of me. Yet, inside of me, it always feels like I am living a lie – or more like forming biased opinion of a country that has refused to grow up. Sadly, that Nigeria, which I constantly defend before foreigners, when my reality creeps in, was just a figment of my imagination. I have become so miserable carrying this burden of a nation that has refused to evolve. But I know I am not alone in this. There are many others carrying the Nigerian plague. We deserve to be pitied.

Sometimes I have asked myself this question: What is it I can point out that is really good about Nigeria? Obviously, there is almost nothing good I can think of about Nigeria, except the never say die spirit of its people, especially its youths. The few good things known about Nigeria outside Nigeria emanate from the individual efforts of its teeming young people, despite the suffocating environment due to lack of leadership in the country. For example, the entrepreneurial spirit of young Nigerians is worthy of emulation and equals those of any advanced nation, despite the fact that their government has refused to provide the enabling platforms for them to succeed. Such spirit and efforts can be found in the countries entertainment and ICT industries.

Mind you: They are mainly individual efforts; the government is adding no value to the efforts of young Nigerians who want to succeed. Every other thing about Nigeria is a sham, make-believe, and fraudulent. Gosh! It feels good to say the truth sometimes. It takes some weight off your chest. I have to say it as it is – Nigeria is sliding into a failed state. Others would even argue that it is already a failed state. So you can see that I am being a bit mild here in my choice of words in describing Nigeria.

All the while, knowing this, I still unselfishly defend the country…

Nigeria is that country that you cannot confidently point your finger and say, this is what is working fine in it. I am not talking about the nature of the people, their kindheartedness or their suffering and smiling skulls. But I am talking about the state, its structures, the society and its institutions. I think most Nigerians would agree that Nigeria’s dysfunctional. Some zealots, though, and those who would pretend to be nationalists would disagree, but facts on ground will at the end make a fool of them. In fact, some Nigerians have even labeled the country a zoo. It wasn’t me that gave it that label. The true condition of Nigeria is not far from that label. We can call those who gave it that label deviants and rebels, but prove them wrong with facts and let’s examine it. A nation that has no functional institutions, where its leaders disregard rule of law, cannot be better than a zoo. I will challenge anyone to mention one properly functioning institution in Nigeria.

Which one will it be? Let’s just mention few of them…

Health sector:

At least, if this sector is functioning the country’s president will not currently be in another man’s country receiving treatment. All Nigerian politicians and elites travel abroad for medical treatments. Is that not a vote-of-no-confidence to the country’s health sector? I wonder what other evidence anyone will be looking for.

Education sector:

Now, which Nigerian universities can be found among the top one thousand universities in the world? I don’t think any comes close to that rank. Again, most Nigerian politicians send their children to other countries to study. They have killed the country’s education sector through corruption and use the money to fund their children’s tuition fees abroad. There is no faith in Nigeria’s education sector, which is why other countries question Nigerian degrees when you travel abroad for study or jobs. If you doubt me, please take your best Nigerian university degree to any European country and see if they recognize it or if they will not question it. Nigeria is a place where students willingly offer bribes to pass exams and some lecturers make it compulsory for students to offer their body or their money to pass their courses. There are more but I don’t have time to go on… At least your bullshit detector will alert you if I’m telling lies.

Infrastructures:

Good roads and power supplies – these do not exist in the sense of what ought to be good. Accidents on Nigerian roads due to bad roads claim more lives than Boko Haram – one of the deadliest terrorist organizations in the world.

Most government projects are white elephants and a conduit for siphoning public funds, or are in comatose. Nigeria is that place where different governments – federal, state, and local – use the same project to campaign for votes during elections every four years. I often wonder why such projects never get completed, but keep reappearing in every campaign promises.

The quest for stable electricity in Nigeria is a national anthem of successive governments, and even though it is key to the country’s economic growth, no government has been able to fix its decades’ problem of frequent power outage. So far, successive Nigerian governments have failed the electricity exam. No doubt the hope of Nigeria achieving its economic potential has remained a dream.

Nigerian so-called international airports are hellpoint. They are not worthy to be called international airports. Even train stations and some bus stations in some European countries are better than what is called international airports in Nigeria. And they have become caves for beggars, where airport staff would shamelessly beg every arriving and departing passenger for money. Sometimes, airport staff would deliberately create problem for passengers in order to extort them. This attitude is found in all Nigerian public institutions.

The police and military:

Nigerian police and the military are birds of a feather. They are very corrupt. They are brutes. They help to solidify the devilry of the elites. In fact, their mission statement is “to obey and faithfully serve in corruption and oppression.” And they have no shame carrying out this mission.

The list is endless…

There is no Nigerian institution – horizontally and vertically – which is not sodden in corruption. The decay is everywhere. And it seems Nigeria has refused to grow, which feels like it does not make any more sense trying to save it from its precipice of collapse.

Although many of its so-called elder statesmen believe in keeping one dysfunctional Nigeria, and they have deliberately refused to work for its unity. They occasionally preach oneness and unity only with their lips, but their actions and inactions betray everything called unity and oneness.

What exactly is my point with all the bullshit?

My point is: Nigeria has a structural problem – economic and political, which has existed from the founding of the nation. Therefore, it is time to unbundle Nigeria and correct its structural anomalies. Otherwise, if the will does not exist, Nigeria should be dismantled so that each ethnic nation that comprised the country will go their separate ways as individual nations, in the manner of the Soviet Union. It does not make sense to continue in this way at the expense of the innocent lives of Nigerians.

We cannot continue to claim the giant of Africa without limbs. If dismantling Nigeria into smaller nations achieves effectiveness and efficiency of governance, so be it. If Nigeria’s unity and oneness talked about by its criminal elites is this purulent nation, they should please give me war. We cannot continue to sacrifice innocent lives of the people for oneness and the unquenchable greed of the elites.