By Msonter Anzaa
My mind is blank. I don’t seem to be aware of anything else than the fact that I am not satisfied. There is something I would like to happen but I only wonder what it is. If I pick up a pen, I can complain about almost everything. To complain about a country where nothing works or at least, nothing good works requires a separate opinion article. I can take my time for instance, to criticize a leadership that is weak and irresponsible, if not completely bad. With this little pen, I can then begin to urge saintly Nigerians to rise and sanitize the public space, mopping up its rot and curbing its excesses. In order to draw inspiration and substance, I can reflect on a recent outrageous misbehavior on the part of a leader. This can take me to questioning the legitimacy of the process that threw up this leader in the first place. I can hit hard at corruption and blame it entirely on the big men and women here or the nation’s “owners”. Mine would not be something new as the issues raised are popular.
This moment, faced with all the reasons to complain and severely criticize, I have chosen to talk softly. This is in spite of my depressed mood and a weak inspiration. At other moments, I easily confessed my love for this country. However choosing this confession as a title for my opinion at a time like this when Abdulmatallab is still in the mind requires extra effort. I love Nigeria. But there is not much to love in or even about Nigeria. Love does not go easily to a nation whose leaders oppose the aspirations of their own people. Love cannot go to a nation that is ignorant of and unconcerned about the welfare of its citizens. This nation; a battleground where leaders and followers are at war with each other; a nation where a “sitting governor” can bump his car into an innocent lady’s car and expect her to apologize in addition, for not getting off the road quickly. It is this nation that I love.
I have all the reasons to bear grudges against this nation; my own country that does not know that for the past nineteen years, a little creature has been growing and living in a land called Nigeria. This Nigeria is where government does not know how many citizens there are; how many of them die daily, and for what reasons. I can go on and on lampooning a fatherland that has lost relevance in the lives of its people. I love this area around the Niger, and the people who live here. I don’t care what their government is. I love the people who in spite of the many obstacles, are striving to earn a decent living. These people are welcoming, accommodating and nice to be with. Nigerians are friendly people. Tribalism or ethnicity does not exist among the ordinary people. It is their leaders who run to them, whipping up sentiments whenever they are less-favored at the national level. The people who are “marginalized” are not the ordinary Nigerians. It is the country’s “owners” who feel sidelined in the game of treasury looting who say they are marginalized. They only try selling this idea to Nigerians to gain cheap legitimacy. For the ordinary Nigerian it makes no difference whether he is marginalized or not. He is always on his own.
Anyone can emerge from anywhere and claim to speak for a section of the people. He can then lay out personal preferences in the name of his “people’ and begin to cause trouble. The trouble makers, crises instigators; the rebels, and assassins are not ordinary Nigerians. They are the “educated” men at the top who are masters of this jungle. They can silent opposition voices without traces. Some of them can kill and go. No shaking! Nothing dey happen.
My love for this nation goes exclusively to the ordinary Nigerian who is constantly the victim of fire fall-outs from power struggles at the top; this ordinary Nigerian who some times is even unaware of the existence of a body of people called “government” in English. I love Nigeria because of this naive, innocent and suffering fellow. I love Nigeria.
