Sayo Aluko
"ARISE, O COMPATRIOTS" (1978-PRESENT)
Arise, O compatriots, Nigeria's call obey
To serve our Fatherland, With love and strength and faith.
The labour of our heroes past, Shall never be in vain,
To serve with heart and might,
One nation bound in freedom, peace and unity.
O God of creation, direct our noble cause;
Guide our Leaders right, help our Youth the truth to know,
In love and honesty to grow, and living just and true,
Great lofty heights attain,
To build a nation where peace and justice shall reign.
"NIGERIA WE HAIL THEE" (1960-1978)
Nigeria we hail thee, Our own dear native land,
Though tribes and tongues may differ,
In brotherhood we stand,
Nigerians all are proud to serve Our sovereign Motherland.
Our flag shall be a symbol, That truth and justice reign,
In peace or battle honour'd,and this we count as gain,
To hand on to our children, a banner without stain.
O God of all creation, grant this our one request,
Help us to build a nation where no man is oppressed,
And so with peace and plenty
Nigeria may be blessed.
Written above are the stanzas of the Nigerian national anthem, both the old and present; and over the years, I have personally had varying definitive and somewhat emotional attachments as to what they really embody.
At times, I ooze with Pride, some other times, I get beset with a conundrum of contrast, while most times, I simply console my permissible faithlessness with Hope. The Pride, I attach to Nigeria’s early Past, I gaze through her Present with this whole of contrast as against what the anthems really portend, and then, my peep at her Future hangs haplessly on the ever-enabling wings of Hope. Yes, Hope.
While these emblematic stanzas are replete with words that will surely confer responsibility for betterness on any soul (or even, on a mammon), it is rather evident that no commensurate values have been sustained over the years, and all we’ve got for the Present Nigeria are lethal doses of recurring bitterness.
Nigeria, a thoroughly blessed and daring nation of worth and wits, will be fifty (50) years old as an independent state on the 1st of October, 2010; and I nonetheless say or better still, whisper, “HURRAY!”. But, as this jubilee is being planned to be celebrated as golden in some coffers of power, the shreds of an inglorious, mismanaged and misruled Past, that now chronically plagues her Present with a plethora of avoidable anomalies, have succeeded in making the 50-year celebration anything but golden. Rather, for most of her 158,259,000 miraculously-enduring citizens and wailing parastatals, it is going to be a rotten jubilee of sorts, or somewhat brazen, to say the most, and definitely not golden.
As the major of all the events in Nigeria’s Past are nothing near laudable, but rather laughable, the woes of her Present, though nearly beyond endurance, shouldn’t be unto us a lingering surprise, instead, it is glaring that they are outcomes of such a dillydallying Past, which always present this Present as a hapless situation, culminating into almost making a foray into her Future a hopeless assay; but, I say we have HOPE!
Our dear country birthed into independence with so much enviable bandwidth of strength and tribe-breadth of unity, such that, the common goal and uniform motive that characterized the efforts towards independence were positively acute in their response. It is figuratively acceptable that it took (just) twenty-four (24) years of perspicacious approaches to attain the much-deserved liberation in the year 1960, as it reckons that slavery was finally outlawed in Nigeria in 1936, paving way for the right to task and thirst for independence.
Then, the unabashed sincerity in the hearts of our fore-leaders was what blinded their ego and also paralyzed their cynicism; clearly as it were during the proactive struggle, Dr.Nnamdi Azikiwe was not considering the tribal marks that adorned the cheeks of Sir Ladoke Akintola as a patch for disregard, neither was Chief Obafemi Awolowo measuring Sir Ahmadu Bello’s usefulness based on the latter’s bluntness in speech or elocution, rather, the fire of their harmony was (or probably, seemed) unquenchable.
These above was how it all thankfully begun, the nostalgia about the Past is “sweet”, but this reminiscence is not complete without stating the unpleasant fact. It all went well until the viral machinery of insincerity acquired every arm and will of our government. Under normal circumstances, the events of Nigeria’s Past should be a mirror through which the Present is reflected, either soberly or otherwise, but the opposite is the case, no thanks to the scions of Insincerity that waged and which still wage against our long-awaited progress.
These scions, vis as vis corruption (which chronicled into our existence during the Oil boom), egocentric politicizing (which led to use of spurious political calculations that continue to throw up characters who are best fit for the zoo, or better still, a psychiatric center), and compromised electoral standards (which itself peaked during the June, 1993 general elections and which still makes our politics banal), are the unswerving mafias that untimely butchered our Past that started promisingly, they strongly represent the challenges of our Present, and are bold threats to a deserved Future. I then ask, doesn't this Present moment also represent a much awaited Future?
Insincerity, oh Insincerity, the bane of all Nigeria’s woes.
Nigeria’s Human Development index, according to the figures provided by the United Nations Development Programme is anything but positive. The country’s ratings were abysmally dismay in the 2009 HDI report which looks at human development from three dimensions, including : (A) living a long and healthy life; (B) education; (C) decent standard of living.In life expectancy, Nigeria is rated 167 out of the 180 countries, with an average of 47.7 years. In adult literacy, Nigeria is rated 117 while its combined gross enrollment is put at 53.0 percent, making it sit on the 150th spot, and 114th with just 36.2 percent in human poverty index.
While thinking aloud, my sequential pulses beat out these rhythms of a soliloquy, my soliloquy;
“My Name is Nigeria, I Need Re-building and NOT Re-Branding!
I am Nigeria!!. I am divided into 36 unequal states, plus my capital territory, christened ABUJA. I have millions of acres of arable land and billions of cubic litres of water, but I cannot feed myself. So I spend $1 billion to import rice and another $2 billion to import milk. I produce rice, but don't eat it. I have 60 million cattle but no milk. I have the capacity to feed the whole of Africa but I import most food instead.I am hungry.
I drive the latest car in the world but have no roads, neither can I boast of manufacturing a bicycle's Tyre. I lose family and friends everyday on my roads for which funds have been allocated to build and rehabilitate but the fund has been looted. I lose my young, my old, and my most brainy and productive people to the potholes, craters and crevasses they travel on everyday. I am in permanent mourning.
Malaria, typhoid and many other preventable diseases send me to hospitals which have no doctors, no medicines and no electric power. So my wife gives birth by candle light and surgery is performed by quacks. All the nurses have gone abroad and the rest are also waiting to go. I have the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world and future generations are dying before me. I am hopeless, hapless and helpless.
I wanted change so I stood all day long to cast my vote. But even before I could vote, the results had been announced. When I dared to speak out, silence was enthroned by bullets. My rulers are my oppressors, and my policemen are my terrors. I am ruled by men in mufti, but I am not a democracy. I have no verve, no vote, no voice.
My people cannot sleep at night and cannot relax by day. My children sleep through the staccato of AK 47's, see through the mist of tear gas, while we all inhale poisonous Carbon Monoxide from popular 'I better pass my neighbor' (portable generators) and 'Okada' (motorbike taxis). The leaders have looted everything on ground and below. They walk the land with haughty strides and fly the skies with private jets (28 of which were bought in the last 12 months). They have stolen the future of generations yet unborn and have money they cannot spend in several lifetimes, but their brothers die of hunger. I want justice.
I can produce anything, but import everything. So my toothpick is made in China; my toothpaste is made in South Africa; my salt is made in Ghana; my butter is made in Ireland; my milk is made in Holland; my shoe is made in Italy; my vegetable oil is made in Malaysia; my biscuit is made in Indonesia; my chocolate is made in Turkey and my table water made in France. My people are cancerous from the greed of their friends who bleach palm oil with chemicals; my children died because they drank 'My Pikin' with NAFDAC numbers; my poor die because kerosene explodes in their faces; my land is dead because all the trees have been cut down; flood kills my people yearly because the drainage is clogged; my fish are dead because the oil companies dump waste in my rivers; my communities are vanishing into the huge yawns of gully erosion, and nothing is being done. My livelihood is in jeopardy, and I am in the uttermost depths of despondence.
I have genuine leather but choose to eat it. So I spend a billion dollars to import fake leather. I have four (4) refineries, but prefer to import fuel, so I waste more billions to import petrol and diesel. I have no security in my country, but would rather send troops to keep the peace in another man's land. I have 160 dams, but cannot get water to drink, so I buy 'pure' water that broils my inwards. I have a million children waiting to enter universities, but my ivory dungeons can only take a tenth (10 %). I have no power (electricity) , but choose to flare gas, and vote billion of dollars every year to generate electricity but not a single watt has come from it. So, my people have learnt to see in the dark and stare at the glare of naked flares. I have no direction.
My people pray to God every morning and every night, but commit every crime known to man because re-branded identities will never alter the tunes of inbred rhythms. Just as the drums of heritage heralds the frenzied jingles, remember the Nigerian soul can only be fighting free from the cold embrace of a government that has no spring, no sense, no shame. So we watch the possessed, frenzied dance, drenched in silent tears as freedom is locked up in democracy's empty cellars. I need guidance.
But then, why can I not simply be me, without being re-branded? Or does my complexion cloud the colour of my character? Does my location limit the lengths of my liberty? Does the spirit of my conviction shackle my soul? Does my mien maim the mine of my mind? And is this life worth re-branding? Is it re-branding that I need or complete re-building? Others blame my calamities on the colonial master that has left my shore some 49 years ago. Without deceiving myself, I know I have problems, who will deliver me? May be what I need is to be re-born, Christians call it being born-again. Turning to a higher authority or changing direction. I mean to sincerely own up and turn to the man up-stairs, may be, just maybe solution will come from there. To re-build a wobbling structure, there is need for the dismantling of an existing one (remember, if the foundation be destroyed, what can the righteous do?). Shall I then consider the idea muted by some of my own who have fled abroad? Some call for 'Separation for Co-operation' , others call for true Federalism - while others are yet asking for the return to Parliamentary system. Which way do I go? On October 1, 2010, I celebrated my 50th birthday. I do not want to proceed in my golden age without direction,... so, please, help me God. Re-mould and Re-Build me.”
In writing this piece, there is a sole prayer I have in my mind; that it (that is, this piece itself) will stir a choleric outburst in the hearts and minds of our leaders, making them responsibly appreciate how Nigeria’s Independence was expensively secured, and also deeply rue how it was cheaply lost to the thorny whims of a 33-year 'militancy' and the spiky caprices of a clueless democracy; and to finally acknowledge that it is high time that we credibly got it back with due sincerity in service, thus, rescuing our dear Nigeria from self-inflicting neo-colonialism.
Then as Nigerians, for us to achieve an enabling Future, we have to learn as a people of great resilience, how not to shift the woes of our Present on the regrettable errors of the Past. In our hopefulness for betterness, we must be simply sincere and pragmatic in the practice of those values of unity, strength of character, and love; the values on which we were founded on. And love is not some esoteric and impractical religious concept, but in concrete terms refers to man's daily efforts to care for and put his neighbors first. It means thinking about how our action or inaction will affect others.
I see a Future where for example, politics will be practiced instead of being played, where “politricks” will be undone, and where kin-selective altruism together with kindred-sensitive nepotism is totally forgotten, thus, making way for fairness and rightness in leadership. A system whereby elected officials will be tact and tacit in their approach to solving issues, and not just be as primed “politrickal” robots, who when quizzed about their responsibilities, choose to give responses sounding like biblical parables wrapped in an Imam’s prayer pouch an embedded in an “opon Ifa” enigma.
A Future where bank executives won’t be “executhieves”, who just choose to exhibit a bogus larger-than-life charade with peoples’ sweats.
A Future where the magical magnitude of great attitude and acts of random kindness are both employed by all and sundry.
When all these sincere measures are at least put into ignition, we can then boldly say that we have Hope for a fulfilling Future where no more action of men is seen as a natural disaster claiming a plethora of lives.......and I say YES, WE HAVE HOPE!
Arise, O compatriots, Nigeria's call obey
To serve our Fatherland, With love and strength and faith.
The labour of our heroes past, Shall never be in vain,
To serve with heart and might,
One nation bound in freedom, peace and unity.
O God of creation, direct our noble cause;
Guide our Leaders right, help our Youth the truth to know,
In love and honesty to grow, and living just and true,
Great lofty heights attain,
To build a nation where peace and justice shall reign.
"NIGERIA WE HAIL THEE" (1960-1978)
Nigeria we hail thee, Our own dear native land,
Though tribes and tongues may differ,
In brotherhood we stand,
Nigerians all are proud to serve Our sovereign Motherland.
Our flag shall be a symbol, That truth and justice reign,
In peace or battle honour'd,and this we count as gain,
To hand on to our children, a banner without stain.
O God of all creation, grant this our one request,
Help us to build a nation where no man is oppressed,
And so with peace and plenty
Nigeria may be blessed.
Written above are the stanzas of the Nigerian national anthem, both the old and present; and over the years, I have personally had varying definitive and somewhat emotional attachments as to what they really embody.
At times, I ooze with Pride, some other times, I get beset with a conundrum of contrast, while most times, I simply console my permissible faithlessness with Hope. The Pride, I attach to Nigeria’s early Past, I gaze through her Present with this whole of contrast as against what the anthems really portend, and then, my peep at her Future hangs haplessly on the ever-enabling wings of Hope. Yes, Hope.
While these emblematic stanzas are replete with words that will surely confer responsibility for betterness on any soul (or even, on a mammon), it is rather evident that no commensurate values have been sustained over the years, and all we’ve got for the Present Nigeria are lethal doses of recurring bitterness.
Nigeria, a thoroughly blessed and daring nation of worth and wits, will be fifty (50) years old as an independent state on the 1st of October, 2010; and I nonetheless say or better still, whisper, “HURRAY!”. But, as this jubilee is being planned to be celebrated as golden in some coffers of power, the shreds of an inglorious, mismanaged and misruled Past, that now chronically plagues her Present with a plethora of avoidable anomalies, have succeeded in making the 50-year celebration anything but golden. Rather, for most of her 158,259,000 miraculously-enduring citizens and wailing parastatals, it is going to be a rotten jubilee of sorts, or somewhat brazen, to say the most, and definitely not golden.
As the major of all the events in Nigeria’s Past are nothing near laudable, but rather laughable, the woes of her Present, though nearly beyond endurance, shouldn’t be unto us a lingering surprise, instead, it is glaring that they are outcomes of such a dillydallying Past, which always present this Present as a hapless situation, culminating into almost making a foray into her Future a hopeless assay; but, I say we have HOPE!
Our dear country birthed into independence with so much enviable bandwidth of strength and tribe-breadth of unity, such that, the common goal and uniform motive that characterized the efforts towards independence were positively acute in their response. It is figuratively acceptable that it took (just) twenty-four (24) years of perspicacious approaches to attain the much-deserved liberation in the year 1960, as it reckons that slavery was finally outlawed in Nigeria in 1936, paving way for the right to task and thirst for independence.
Then, the unabashed sincerity in the hearts of our fore-leaders was what blinded their ego and also paralyzed their cynicism; clearly as it were during the proactive struggle, Dr.Nnamdi Azikiwe was not considering the tribal marks that adorned the cheeks of Sir Ladoke Akintola as a patch for disregard, neither was Chief Obafemi Awolowo measuring Sir Ahmadu Bello’s usefulness based on the latter’s bluntness in speech or elocution, rather, the fire of their harmony was (or probably, seemed) unquenchable.
These above was how it all thankfully begun, the nostalgia about the Past is “sweet”, but this reminiscence is not complete without stating the unpleasant fact. It all went well until the viral machinery of insincerity acquired every arm and will of our government. Under normal circumstances, the events of Nigeria’s Past should be a mirror through which the Present is reflected, either soberly or otherwise, but the opposite is the case, no thanks to the scions of Insincerity that waged and which still wage against our long-awaited progress.
These scions, vis as vis corruption (which chronicled into our existence during the Oil boom), egocentric politicizing (which led to use of spurious political calculations that continue to throw up characters who are best fit for the zoo, or better still, a psychiatric center), and compromised electoral standards (which itself peaked during the June, 1993 general elections and which still makes our politics banal), are the unswerving mafias that untimely butchered our Past that started promisingly, they strongly represent the challenges of our Present, and are bold threats to a deserved Future. I then ask, doesn't this Present moment also represent a much awaited Future?
Insincerity, oh Insincerity, the bane of all Nigeria’s woes.
Nigeria’s Human Development index, according to the figures provided by the United Nations Development Programme is anything but positive. The country’s ratings were abysmally dismay in the 2009 HDI report which looks at human development from three dimensions, including : (A) living a long and healthy life; (B) education; (C) decent standard of living.In life expectancy, Nigeria is rated 167 out of the 180 countries, with an average of 47.7 years. In adult literacy, Nigeria is rated 117 while its combined gross enrollment is put at 53.0 percent, making it sit on the 150th spot, and 114th with just 36.2 percent in human poverty index.
While thinking aloud, my sequential pulses beat out these rhythms of a soliloquy, my soliloquy;
“My Name is Nigeria, I Need Re-building and NOT Re-Branding!
I am Nigeria!!. I am divided into 36 unequal states, plus my capital territory, christened ABUJA. I have millions of acres of arable land and billions of cubic litres of water, but I cannot feed myself. So I spend $1 billion to import rice and another $2 billion to import milk. I produce rice, but don't eat it. I have 60 million cattle but no milk. I have the capacity to feed the whole of Africa but I import most food instead.I am hungry.
I drive the latest car in the world but have no roads, neither can I boast of manufacturing a bicycle's Tyre. I lose family and friends everyday on my roads for which funds have been allocated to build and rehabilitate but the fund has been looted. I lose my young, my old, and my most brainy and productive people to the potholes, craters and crevasses they travel on everyday. I am in permanent mourning.
Malaria, typhoid and many other preventable diseases send me to hospitals which have no doctors, no medicines and no electric power. So my wife gives birth by candle light and surgery is performed by quacks. All the nurses have gone abroad and the rest are also waiting to go. I have the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world and future generations are dying before me. I am hopeless, hapless and helpless.
I wanted change so I stood all day long to cast my vote. But even before I could vote, the results had been announced. When I dared to speak out, silence was enthroned by bullets. My rulers are my oppressors, and my policemen are my terrors. I am ruled by men in mufti, but I am not a democracy. I have no verve, no vote, no voice.
My people cannot sleep at night and cannot relax by day. My children sleep through the staccato of AK 47's, see through the mist of tear gas, while we all inhale poisonous Carbon Monoxide from popular 'I better pass my neighbor' (portable generators) and 'Okada' (motorbike taxis). The leaders have looted everything on ground and below. They walk the land with haughty strides and fly the skies with private jets (28 of which were bought in the last 12 months). They have stolen the future of generations yet unborn and have money they cannot spend in several lifetimes, but their brothers die of hunger. I want justice.
I can produce anything, but import everything. So my toothpick is made in China; my toothpaste is made in South Africa; my salt is made in Ghana; my butter is made in Ireland; my milk is made in Holland; my shoe is made in Italy; my vegetable oil is made in Malaysia; my biscuit is made in Indonesia; my chocolate is made in Turkey and my table water made in France. My people are cancerous from the greed of their friends who bleach palm oil with chemicals; my children died because they drank 'My Pikin' with NAFDAC numbers; my poor die because kerosene explodes in their faces; my land is dead because all the trees have been cut down; flood kills my people yearly because the drainage is clogged; my fish are dead because the oil companies dump waste in my rivers; my communities are vanishing into the huge yawns of gully erosion, and nothing is being done. My livelihood is in jeopardy, and I am in the uttermost depths of despondence.
I have genuine leather but choose to eat it. So I spend a billion dollars to import fake leather. I have four (4) refineries, but prefer to import fuel, so I waste more billions to import petrol and diesel. I have no security in my country, but would rather send troops to keep the peace in another man's land. I have 160 dams, but cannot get water to drink, so I buy 'pure' water that broils my inwards. I have a million children waiting to enter universities, but my ivory dungeons can only take a tenth (10 %). I have no power (electricity) , but choose to flare gas, and vote billion of dollars every year to generate electricity but not a single watt has come from it. So, my people have learnt to see in the dark and stare at the glare of naked flares. I have no direction.
My people pray to God every morning and every night, but commit every crime known to man because re-branded identities will never alter the tunes of inbred rhythms. Just as the drums of heritage heralds the frenzied jingles, remember the Nigerian soul can only be fighting free from the cold embrace of a government that has no spring, no sense, no shame. So we watch the possessed, frenzied dance, drenched in silent tears as freedom is locked up in democracy's empty cellars. I need guidance.
But then, why can I not simply be me, without being re-branded? Or does my complexion cloud the colour of my character? Does my location limit the lengths of my liberty? Does the spirit of my conviction shackle my soul? Does my mien maim the mine of my mind? And is this life worth re-branding? Is it re-branding that I need or complete re-building? Others blame my calamities on the colonial master that has left my shore some 49 years ago. Without deceiving myself, I know I have problems, who will deliver me? May be what I need is to be re-born, Christians call it being born-again. Turning to a higher authority or changing direction. I mean to sincerely own up and turn to the man up-stairs, may be, just maybe solution will come from there. To re-build a wobbling structure, there is need for the dismantling of an existing one (remember, if the foundation be destroyed, what can the righteous do?). Shall I then consider the idea muted by some of my own who have fled abroad? Some call for 'Separation for Co-operation' , others call for true Federalism - while others are yet asking for the return to Parliamentary system. Which way do I go? On October 1, 2010, I celebrated my 50th birthday. I do not want to proceed in my golden age without direction,... so, please, help me God. Re-mould and Re-Build me.”
In writing this piece, there is a sole prayer I have in my mind; that it (that is, this piece itself) will stir a choleric outburst in the hearts and minds of our leaders, making them responsibly appreciate how Nigeria’s Independence was expensively secured, and also deeply rue how it was cheaply lost to the thorny whims of a 33-year 'militancy' and the spiky caprices of a clueless democracy; and to finally acknowledge that it is high time that we credibly got it back with due sincerity in service, thus, rescuing our dear Nigeria from self-inflicting neo-colonialism.
Then as Nigerians, for us to achieve an enabling Future, we have to learn as a people of great resilience, how not to shift the woes of our Present on the regrettable errors of the Past. In our hopefulness for betterness, we must be simply sincere and pragmatic in the practice of those values of unity, strength of character, and love; the values on which we were founded on. And love is not some esoteric and impractical religious concept, but in concrete terms refers to man's daily efforts to care for and put his neighbors first. It means thinking about how our action or inaction will affect others.
I see a Future where for example, politics will be practiced instead of being played, where “politricks” will be undone, and where kin-selective altruism together with kindred-sensitive nepotism is totally forgotten, thus, making way for fairness and rightness in leadership. A system whereby elected officials will be tact and tacit in their approach to solving issues, and not just be as primed “politrickal” robots, who when quizzed about their responsibilities, choose to give responses sounding like biblical parables wrapped in an Imam’s prayer pouch an embedded in an “opon Ifa” enigma.
A Future where bank executives won’t be “executhieves”, who just choose to exhibit a bogus larger-than-life charade with peoples’ sweats.
A Future where the magical magnitude of great attitude and acts of random kindness are both employed by all and sundry.
When all these sincere measures are at least put into ignition, we can then boldly say that we have Hope for a fulfilling Future where no more action of men is seen as a natural disaster claiming a plethora of lives.......and I say YES, WE HAVE HOPE!
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