Reflections on Nigerian Nationhood: Options for National Construction, By Abdulwarees Solanke

As Nigeria clocks 58 in a few days, I have put together some of my reflections on our nationhood in about 14 series. It is titled: Options for national construction.

The collection is also to mark my 30 years since graduating from the Department of Mass Communication of the University of Lagos and launching fully into journalism as a political correspondent with Concord Press of Nigeria which I left in 2000 as an editorial writer.

The collections are picked from my published works in all Nigerian newspapers especially since 2007 when I was a graduate student in public policy in Brunei Darussalam and had enough time to reflect on politics and governance in Nigeria.

Thanks to all the editors and op-ed editors in Nigerian newspapers, especially Mr. Femi Adesina, who regularly featured my works in The Sun; Mr. Kayode Komolafe of Thisday, Mr. Kunle Sanyaolu at The Guardian; and Mr. Sanya Oni at The Nation. Thanks too to Mr. Callistus Oke at the National Mirror as well as the editors at Gamji, Daily Trust, The Punch, Daily Independent and The Moment. The list is long, but I appreciate all for publishing my opinions.

Now, back to the moment, let us roll with these collections that may run for a few weeks hence. Please, receive them.

1. Caustic Pens And Toxic Voices

The average newspaper columnist in Nigeria seethes with bitterness; most anchor-men on radio and television are harsh and unsparing in leading discussions on air; the on-line media hands are in a world without borders lashing ferociously at what they consider bad governance in our land. All concerned with the stability of our polity are therefore pleading for the tempering of our caustic pens and sanitizing the toxic voices setting agenda in the media and shaping public opinion.

Sometimes in 1992 or 1993, as a political correspondent in the defunct National Concord, it was my turn to fill the week’s political searchlight page that normally appears on Thursdays. My topic was Eggheads in IBB’s Cabinet. Most Nigerians current with the military politics of the era can still remember it was a time professors of scholastic eminence had a strong presence in the government; there was a high visibility of the gowns in on the corridors of power government, manning strategic ministries, thinking and working for the gap-tooth general. Dodan Barracks and the Federal Secretariat, Alagbon, Ikoyi welcome the academia as ministerial superintendents.

From the Soyinkas to the Oyovbaires, the Jerry Ganas, the Jubril Aminus, the Humphrey Nwosus, to the Tam David Wests, IBB really exploited these names to fan his flame of passion to be remembered as a man of foresight. By the time I finished dissecting these names and their achievement/failures in governments, raising doubts if those achievements would stand the test of time and serve the national interest, a senior colleague who read the piece adjudged my submission too caustic and toxic, warning me against impugning public officials as I might one day be in need of them in my career.

Our mantra on the political desk, then headed by the irrepressible Tunji Bello was No friend, no foe. We needn’t meet you physically for any pre-arranged personality interview to profile you as a public official or politician. Your work, your antecedents, impressions from friends and foes, the decisions you took in the context you found yourself in the past, what you said or was reported of you before and the circle you moved before coming to public prominence were enough to sculpt you on our Politics on Sunday and Political Searchlight pages in an age of epileptic telephone.

That was in era with less developed transportation system; an era that email was a luxury and teleconferencing or video conferencing were yet to gain ground. New media or ICT that crashed information walls, for instance, GSM and all other info gadgets were not yet common place; portable gadgets  that put information right on our finger tips, on our table tops and on our plain wall without stepping out of our comfort zones and bedrooms, information   that ordinarily would have taken thousands of miles of travel, hundred thousands of naira in pocket and millions of naira worth of heavy broadcast equipment with unquantifiable man-hours of toil and hardship. So, interviewing public officials to be featured in newspapers at short deadlines could be quite herculean.

When we therefore have an opportunity of meeting you one on one, it was just to confirm the details  already on our palms, details you would never know anybody has of you, details you might even have forgotten or you consider inconsequential; details you would think a soothsayer revealed to us. Ours was a political desk with fidelity to research and history for objectivity and details, profound intellectual convictions and critical and questioning minds.

In our character on that desk peopled by  Bello and his fire spitting lieutenants like the sparkling  Sam Omatseye, rigorous Victor Ifijeh, bohemian Louis  Odion, easy going Gboyega Amobonye, silent but hard knocking Felix Oboagwina, the ever-smiling historian on our desk, Jonas Agu, now a top brass in the FRSC and my humble self, our pens were understandably caustic and our voices toxic, especially during the rituals of weekly meetings to discuss the contents of our political pages and distribute assignments..

It was a honour to be a member of the desk; it was also an honour to be an associate of the desk as we also often invite some very good hands in the house like Lanre Arogundade, Yomi Idowu, Waheed Odusile and Dan Aggbofode from the features, foreign and business desks when we needed to treat specialized issues on the political pages. Each week Thursday and Sunday, therefore, our pages were collectors’ items, feared and revered for there fearlessness and objectivity.

We were, indeed, caustic and toxic, but it was genuinely not to destroy. It was our own way of holding public officials and those angling to enter the political arena, responsible and accountable, not beholding to any special interest.  After all, it was in the era of the military preaching level playing ground for the new breed, a time we wanted a clean break from the politics of wetie and penkelemeesi, haraba and other dysfunctional dispositions that sounded the death knell for the first and second republics.

However, since the late ’80s that efforts were initiated, albeit hypocritically, to build the truncated third republic to the present  that we are managing  the fourth republic, actions and conducts of many political office holders, their utterances  and machinations continue to fertilize the grounds for disturbing writings  on paper and online,  and  destabilizing discussions  on air.

It is a difficult task asking a writer confronted with grim abuses by unpatriotic Nigerians not to see or hear evil committed by enemies of Nigeria . It is difficult to pretend that we are on track to meeting and delivering on the UN eight millennium development goals when some public officials are ripping off the nation, difficult to assume that every stakeholder is faithful to the implementation of the Vision 20:2020, that corruption has been eliminated in our public life; it is difficult to keep silent on the enemies of the state who,  while sitting in the state houses sponsor state terrorism as events now unfold, really difficult not to condemn criminals in power who appropriated  the commonwealth to build  empires on quicksand as evidenced by former governors featuring as regular guests of EFCC. These are the pains of the caustic pen-wielders and the virulent critics on air. Otherwise, men and women with hollow moral fibres will continue to have excuse for smooth ride to power.

The challenge of governance today requires that whistle –blowing becomes a strong pillar of deterring corruption in public life; it also demands fearless but dispassionate criticism of public policies as a tool of evaluating programme and projects cost and impacts; it necessitates robust and incisive discourses and analyses to assist government appreciate the concerns of all interest groups and stakeholders in order to mainstream such views in delivering public service.  I believe we will soon have very good reasons to temper our caustic pens and toxic voices.

Our columnists and anchormen are patriots whose tongues were broken in the past by leaders who did not fulfil their electoral promises and mandates. They are straining to keep their voices of reason in the interest of the nation, to keep in touch so that the New Republic will survive.  But we also have honour and integrity to protect as builders whose concern for perfection must not result in throwing away the baby with the birth water. There must also be something good to tell about our nation, discoveries to be made, hope to be given; praises and adulation to be showered to give encouragement and motivation for good performance.

It is therefore gratifying that we are subjecting our caustic pens and toxic voices to the test of honour by allowing for ombudsmen in our operations, rights of reply to views we canvass, corrigendum on errors we commit and code of ethics we now openly proclaim. Check out The Guardian, Thisday, Nigerian Tribune, The Trust, the Punch and other newspapers who have openly declared their policies on ethics and advertorials, check out our codes of reporting and editorial guideline; check out the national broadcasting codes that our radio and television stations subscribe and you will now that there is in-built mechanism in our field to temper our caustic pens in while mirroring the nation.

2. When is a nation a nation?

As a new dawn rises, we will reach another milestone on our journey to nationhood. As auspicious as the day marking 58 of our political independence is, we need to do a critical evaluation of our progress so as to remind ourselves that the Nigerian Project is yet to mature. Certain schools of thought believe Nigeria is not a nation. Some think we are a failed nation. But I see prospects in our being as a nation. After all, a nation remains a nation when it is able to sustain its existence or being in terms of sovereignty and identity, and when it is able to meet the existential needs of its citizens and constituents.  A nation will only be able to maintain its respect and position in the comity of other nations when it has a guarantee of prosperity and stability that gives room for growth and development (in human and material assets /capital). Furthermore, a nation can only be considered developed when it possesses all the indices, the instruments and frameworks that suggest decent and quality standard of living of the citizenry, in which case, they are not threatened by poverty, disease and other features associated with underdevelopment such as illiteracy and poor access to water and health facilities, corruption and political instability.

Where do we stand in Nigeria today? Where do we want to be in the future? Can we sustain or improve our present status? What are our strengths and opportunities? What are the weaknesses and challenges of Nigeria of the future? The Millennium Development Goals, a framework of eight goals (signed in 2000) that all the 192 UN member states agreed to achieve by Year 2015 should serve as our frame of reference, even if we are yet to score excellently. These goals serve as a benchmark for development policy for all countries, especially those of the Third World and other societies in transition who are still grappling with poverty, disease, illiteracy, and high maternal and child mortality, gender disparities in education and employment, intense environmental degradation and are also substantially de-linked from global economic opportunities.

Despite our limitless potentials and opportunities, our tragedy in Nigeria is that we are still constrained by political immaturity and corruption. Our diversity of peoples, culture ethnicity and religion which should have been converted to opportunities for development, celebration and international recognition is now mostly used as weapon of destabilization. Democracy, which is succeeding as a working system of government in many other countries, is unfortunately still crude and exploitative in Nigeria. Not just the structure or system of government is weakened in Nigeria by this national malaise, the public service, the economy and the value system are also suffering this compromise. So the insecurity and erosion of public morality that are pervasive in Nigeria calls for concern because commitment to national ideals and integrity are of secondary consideration to the average citizen who views the nation with desperation. In this national misfortune, we often come up with different elaborate and ambitious plans and agenda, which in most instances never went beyond the short-term implementation stage before we introduce a fresh one to rubbish whatever progress we have made. So, we are often derided, even by less endowed nation, as a country of abandoned projects and unattained vision and goals.

If our currents efforts at reform and restructuring must lead us to an Eldorado, we must get to terms with some realities, the first of which is a guarantee of visionary leadership in our leadership recruitment process and the production of committed professional and dynamic successor-generation our public sector. Secondly, there is the need for national re-orientation and awareness that the seemingly free national wealth of oil cannot last forever, so the need for us to unlock ourselves from the oil dependence syndrome. Thirdly, we must guard against the cultural disorientation and conflict that globalization, modernization and technology are inflicting on our mentality. Finally, we must intensify efforts at crafting and sustaining a national philosophy built on integrity, justice and public welfare.

The thrust in all these is that Nigeria of the future must have transparency, accountability, responsibility and integrity in leadership as our national core values. There is also the need to inject dynamism and competition in our public domain now festering with crass political and economic opportunism. There is also a demand for more public deliberation and stakeholders’ involvement and participation in our public policy processes.  Certainly, every nation desirous of development has a responsibility to preserve the values which gives it vitality and essence of existence. But it must also be able to re-invent those cultural elements and practices that are capable of holding it down from global relevance and competitiveness.

There is an imperative for Nigeria today to examine the various dimensions of her national cultural practices that are dysfunctional to the attainment of the lofty vision of nationhood as the nation clocks 58 and marches further in her development strides. Despite her internal crises, beauty is that so many stakeholders in the Nigerian project are working assiduously to sustain the spirit of the Nigerian nation. In these efforts are hopes of our being a true nation.

3. Evolution of our perversion

There is a general concern in the land about moral depravity, intellectual fraud and mindless pursuit of fame and fortune that have perverted our values so much that we are now crying for a new beginning. Sometimes in 1976 as a pupil at Abadina School, University of Ibadan, I remember my mother excoriating me for bringing home a football, which a colleague left in my care. I wept for her use of harsh words. Her standpoint I jealously observe till now. Today, many parents care not how their daughters come about the necklace and fanciful earrings they adorn, nor the designers wears with which they paint the town red.

I wonder where we now consign aphorisms like ‘the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom’, ‘honesty is the best policy’ or ‘only the patient milks a lion’. Many people have no sense of discretion in deciding between ‘halaal’ and ‘haram’ (the lawful and the unlawful in Islamic law and ethics). Carelessly, you hear some people justifying their moral hollowness thus: If you choose to close your eyes to ‘haram’, you won’t know when ‘halaal’ will escape you, or you say, want to wait for ‘halaal’ when others have finished even the ‘haram’? In fact, they would tell you, he who misses out on the sharing loot calls it unlawful.

Many parents hardly remind their wards to ‘remember the son of whom you are’, nor would they advise them when leaving home with sayings like ‘good name is more precious than gold or silver’. Smartness has become the euphemism for corruption in our system. Indeed, some glibly declare, we are all thieves; it is the one that is caught in the act that becomes a criminal. In giving up on fidelity, some will say, ‘if you can’t beat them, you join them.’ Whoever exhibits some modicum of trustworthiness is branded the stupid.

In defence of the unbridled quest for cutting corners, sometimes requiring aggression and assault on perceived opponents, you hear some of us uttering statements like, ‘the coward covers his weakness with excuse of this is not my father’s property’, or ‘what you cannot win, you waste it’. Hard and conscientious work is hardly applauded by colleagues. Rather, the one who works according to rule is derisively and derogatorily labeled ‘effico’ or Mr. Clean’, with an injection, ‘the office outlives the conscientious worker.’

This is an era in which public treasury looters and armed robbers openly give testimonies of success, doing thanksgiving before bishops, general overseers, sheikhs and large congregations for more ’grace’. It is an age of drug pushers and money launderers seeking spiritual fortification from ‘prophets’, ‘shepherds’ and ‘oluso’, who are supposed to cater to the spiritual and moral health of the flock. Don’t be surprised that 419 kingpins pay tithes and ‘zakats’ in big ways; because mostly, the archbishop or the chief imam to whom they pay hardly probe their source of wealth.

What becomes of our nation when ‘area fathers’ are the godfathers of public office seekers? It is a pathetic situation of people who spell leaders as lidas taking on mantle of leadership in our land, people averse to Christ-like conduct presenting themselves as ‘messiahs’ and ‘jeun saya’ . Have we not been witnesses to chiefs being guardians and protectors of thieves? Have we not heard stories of village heads being patrons of armed robberies? There have also being instances military men brazenly collaborating with pipeline vandals and oil bunkerers, when they should be protecting oil facilities?

The corruption and perversion in our system can be located in the lack of trust and consciousness in God and faith and commitment to the continued existence of the nation by those who assumed leadership of the country just for fame and fortune. Rather than work for her peace and progress, they busied themselves with perpetuating themselves in power through the ‘settlement syndrome’ and creation of bands of hero worshippers and praise singers. They blurred the thin line between ‘haram’ and ‘halal’, redefined corruption and set new criteria for public office, criteria that compromise integrity and merit.

Truly, we are urgently in need of a new beginning, a beginning that will reflect our national credo of unity and faith, peace and progress. But the pace will have to be dictated by leaderships at various levels of our national life. We cannot embark on the journey to a better Nigeria if public office holders or seekers cannot dance nakedly in our market place so we know who they are and where they come from.

Happily, recent developments in the country suggest that we have gone a whole cycle and are indeed prepared for the journey. The good news is that Nigerians are now challenging miscarriage of justice.

(To be continued).

• Abdulwarees Solanke is an Assistant Director, Strategic Planning & Corporate Development, Voice of Nigeria. He can be reached on: +234 809 058 5723