Welcome, dear Nigerian reader, to a new season; a season of jubilee as the nation celebrates her 50th year as an independent country.
How time flies! It seemed. Only like yesterday that I, as a starry-eyed primary six pupil of St Luke's Demonstration School in Ibadan joined thousands of other to celebrate "ominira" as it was known among the Yoruba people. I remember that off-white coloured plastic cup and miniature flag that we were all given as souvenirs. And yes, there was also the jollof rice meal!
I remember the general air of festivity, the well-lit, festooned streets and my own personal conviction that the world was now at my feet. I remember the happy faces of many of my mates, as we prepared to head for one secondary school or the other, preparatory to taking on the world in the service of the fatherland.
Hope was abroad. Such was the inspirational leadership of the man at the helm in that part of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, known as Western Region. Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He had built the first television station in Africa, an ultra modern stadium, a free education policy was in place as a major component of a wider welfarist system. The goal of that leadership came straight from the Bible, straight from the mouth of the Lord Jesus himself: LIFE MORE ABUNDANT. And it loomed large, a distinct possibilty!
Then the dream died... And today 50 years later, we are all asking ourselves what went wrong. The situation is such that we don't even agree on whether we have anything to celebrate or not.
No less a person than Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, for instance, does not think it's drum and dance time. There are many patriotic Nigerians who agree him. Of course, there are many others, no less patriotic, who think we have enough reasons to celebrate. In any case the drums are out and the dance has begun.
But, even if all debates on the appropriateness or otherwise of celebrating has become academic, the jury is still out about who or what was got us here. And this is important because, as one saying goes, if you don't know where you are coming from, you might not know where you are headed.
This is where Chief Olusegun Obasanjo comes into the picture. The former military ruler who ruled as civilian President from 1999 to 2007, last Wednesday had something to say about the subject. He took potshot at the nation's founding fathers. He fingered them as responsible for the nation's underdevelopment which, according to him, is the result of the "regional politics" they played.
Speaking as guest lecturer at the second convocation lecture of the Redeemer’s University, on the topic,, “Nigeria @ 50: What Celebrations?”, 0basanjo was reported to have blamed Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, leaders of the nation’s regions in the first republic for Nigeria's inability to get it right so far. He said if they had made proper efforts at nation building, the country would not have been where it is today
His words: “For a newly independent country, our weak political fabric, diverse and highly differentiated socio-cultural milieu, required a leadership with effective national mobilising capacity, ability to weave together the different ethnic groups, inspire them and provide a broad-minded leadership.
“Unfortunately, Nigeria did not enjoy such leadership at independence and that leadership deficit and weakness of structure militated against Nigeria on independence.”
Continuing, one of the newspaper reports wrote: "He painted the picture of how a more nationalistic group would have improved the nation’s fortunes as he compared Nigeria with nations such as South Korea, Indonesia and Malaysia which all had their independence at about the same time with Nigeria but have so far done quite well in comparison.
"Mr Obasanjo did not leave out the military in his retrospective, stating that the 'most retrogressive era for Nigeria was from 1983 to 1999,' when different military leaders steered the nation’s ship recklessly. He alleged that the military leaders did not, during this period, invest a penny in the critical power sector."
It's vintage OBJ - controversial, irreverent and probably self-serving. I have always wondered if Fela Anikulapo-Kuti had his Egba brother in mind when he wrote and performed one of his evergreens, "Opposite People."
To accuse the nationalists who fought for and won independence for Nigeria is clear revisionism. To blame those who worked with such fervency at a feverish pace to develop the part, in other to build the whole is to be at best mischevious. To situate our national underdevelopment in 'regional politics' is to display amnesia about how Nigeria was cobbled together and how we arrived at federalism as the system that could stabilise the flegling entity.
The wrong-headed centralist approach of the military power usurpers, rather than 'regional politics' got us where we are, along of course, with corruption.
How anyone can reasonably describe the emerging ideological politics of that era where Action Group with roots in the West had allies in United Middle Belt Congress beats the imagination. That a political system that saw quantum leaps in education, infrastructure and so on, relative to available resources, can be found guilty of underdeveloping the nation does violence to the truth. And it does injustice to the legacies of those giants whose shoes Obasanjo is hardly qualified to lace.
Frankly, if Nigeria is to experience true jubilee, we must work hard at removing whatever influences this man and those like him have in shaping the direction of our politics and policies. The place to start is expose the lies they seek to pass off as analysis and protect the young ones by being more careful in our choice of speakers to the youth. Our future depends on it.
Happy golden jubilee anniversary, all.
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