Nigeria: Nation In Dire Need Of Salvation

AGBONSUREMI AUGUSTINE OKHIRIA

Nigerians are so benevolent that they will not lift a finger if they are all offered for sale by their leaders. They have had leaders over the years who have not gone that far. General Sani Abacha fits the bill, but he died suddenly, terminating what could have been wholesale mis-governance, considering the massive looting he was involved in.

 

The citizens exhibit all the traits of a conquered people. The more educated they are, the more subservient they have become, the more cowards you find among them. It’s just by God-heartedness that the leaders have just been mismanaging our resources only. Our past time is to share our collective misery and complaints on the social media like I also do quite often.

I thought there should be some peaceful protests and attempts to recall our representatives. Just some meaningful efforts to say no to the years of mis-governance. The struggle at the doors in Nigeria is the struggle to “join them inside”, not the struggle to change the narratives. And so many educated citizens have joined them inside. They gave up.

Many citizens have also largely given up in absolute helplessness. They have had the opportunity to vote, and vote rightly, but no, more numbers did not. Out of 84, 004,084 registered voters in 2019, only 74 million picked up their Permanent Voter Cards, PVC. Of this number, just about 29 million citizens came out to vote.

Young Nigerians, 35 years and below, constituted 51 percent of the registered voters. They were nowhere to be found. They have largely been pauperised and they gave up. Many found deadly jobs in elections violence. And just 15 million citizens, in a 201 million population, elected the president. Unbelievably true.

Nothing moves us to participate in governance before, during and after elections. We are happy to be allowed to breathe, just to breathe. We rationalise and enjoy the collective poverty. We enjoy and make babies gladly. Champagne sells highest in Nigeria and the beer industry booms in Nigeria more than in any other country on earth. What a people.

 

We all drift to the villages through terrible roads for holidays and festivities, no questions. Corruption is at an unbearable stage, we bear it. Appointments are made with doses of nepotism, inflated contracts announced daily, budget padding is the norm. We are simply numb.

Unemployment is devilishly high with the weather-beaten youths recoiling hopelessly. It appears you commit suicide for nothing if you stand up for a people who are content in absolute slavery and misery. So the few who raised their voices are undergoing trials for treason and or detained without trial.

The citizens don’t bat an eyelid. Many who have been made poor by the system are the praise singers themselves. What a country. But the gang up by a few elite and their civil servants collaborators will collapse one day, not because the people will move from their current docile state but because the time will simply come for a change.

The much needed salvation for the Nigerian nation will not come from outside. It will come from within. The growing level of awareness will soon be advantageous to the nation. The salvation when it comes will not break Nigeria. It will unite everyone, just as poverty has united all parts of the country. My optimism rests on the fact that Nigeria cannot continue like this forever. Something will give in.

Between Europe, America, Canada and around the world, millions of hardworking Nigerian professionals have sought and found abode. They desire and pray every day for a good home base. Young Nigerians out there don’t have the plans to return home under the current situation in Nigeria. Many are in some sort of slavery and are deprived, yet coming back to Nigeria, even after graduation is not an alternative.

The road to Nigeria’s salvation will ironically still lie in the same benevolence of her leaders. The benevolence to do good, a detour from this current negatives along the deadly path of corruption, greed, incompetence, nepotism, ethnic religious wickedness and obduracy. It will most likely happen in error.

The revolution that is urgently needed in Nigeria will likely be led by the president and commander-in-chief. He must be a true Nigerian, honest, intelligent, smart, strong and detribalised. He must have, at least a 50-year vision for Nigeria, ready to plant the trees under which he will not live long enough to find a cover. He must be a great mobiliser.

He will not be vindictive and will have no time for sentiments of ethnic and religious nature. He will punish corruption and take back all that belongs to the people. His criteria for selecting his team must be competence, broad mindedness and integrity. He must be clear what he wants to do from day one, every day, every week and all the time.

He must take back Nigeria and make it the envy of the world. He will rescue the helpless citizens and restore their hopes and confidence. The people will be his cover and strength. Those in the diaspora will joyfully come back home with their world class skills. This is my dream. This will happen one day.