As a scholar and researcher in the history of the making of nations starting with the America, Britain, Singapore, India,China,Korea,Russia,Pakistan,Iran,Iraq,Kuwait,Dubai,Saudi Arabia,Egypt,Israel, South Africa, Morocco,Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ghana,Togo,Sierra Leone,Mali,Burkina Faso,Niger and Chad at various times in their history of growth and development the foundation was laid by their founding father’s on the ground of gaining the confidence of their people by fighting for the course of justice,equity,inclusiveness, liberty, freedom and better living standard for their citizens.
This is what was then known as government of the people and not government of a party or some carbals as it is today
Hijacking governance for personal gains even when the sitting President has good intentions and motives,the few disgruntled,carbals will turn a state affairs to a party and personal affairs as a result there cannot be growth and development.
The founding fathers of today’s America, Britain,India,Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia,Ghana among others were never selfish and intolerant. They were fathers of the nation. What happened to us suddenly? Can an outsider determine for a father what is good for the household or family,when to eat,when to clothe them. This means our affairs are people related. We have suddenly lost grip of the reality that brought us together and to where we are and allowed people who don’t know our history to define and interpret wrongly, deliberately what we were not. Today, an average American citizen will tell you to your face confidently,I am an American,same a British,I am British,same with a South African,an Indian. However , we Nigerians are in a battle of lost identity and distortion of history by the political class. We no longer have love for our country,but what we have is love for self,children and grand children and few cronies. As a result, we cannot move beyond our nose,with this style that is selfish in nature and it is alien to us as a people.
The reason nations that share borders with each other fights themselves today is nothing far from selfish motives, personal gains,intolerant, distortion of history and memory lost. If not memory lost,what will make Niger Republic think Nigeria is no longer a brother ? What will make Ghana to want to deport Nigerians or people from Benin Republic,talkless of South Africa and Liberia literally liberated by the spilling of the blood of our soldiers, who sacrificed all from Congo,to Sierra Leone,Ivory Coast,Chad, Cameroon. What suddenly happened to our history?
A people without history,are lost people. We must go back to history,not history of war but of how we help ourselves out of the war,liberated nations and people. We are a nation with so many things to be proud of, but not our present democracy and politics,politics of bitterness,politics of greed, politics of share hatred, politics of divide and rule, politics of lost memory, selfishness and lack of honour.
As we look towards a bigger picture of Nigeria as a big brother,we must re- visit our history,foundation and what made us what we were and discard what is making us what we are presently; a people with great fortune and endowment but swimming in squalor, unemployment,hunger, hatred,division on ethnic and religious lines and bedeviled with so many negative attitudes that will be shameful to mention by name. We must re-trace our steps back to the right track to salvage Nigeria. We are not a party.
“We the people of Nigeria” not a party. Nigeria is bigger than all of us put together. We did not birth Nigeria,Nigeria birthed all of us.
James Sunday, Publisher, Author, Researcher and Scholar in Diplomatic Practice and Ethics writes from Abuja.
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