NIGERIA: A TOAST AND TOAD OF NATIONS
By Taiye Olaniyi
"To no person no matter how rich should we mortgage our conscience. To no nation no matter how powerful should we mortgage our independence? " This saying, ever golden and recurring in Nigeria's national life was first uttered at the swearing_ ceremony of late Chief, Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe on 1st October 1963 as the first President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, our beloved nation.
Today, as we approach another milestone of transfer of power from one civilian president to another, the reality of the above-quoted quotation keeps bothering my mind and soul as people of like minds keep thinking about the problems of Nigeria, and how to find solutions to them.
We get worried, so worried to the extent that despite our impression to be " A heart unafraid" yet many problems seem deferring solutions. Whereas abject poverty is most phenomenal in Nigeria, the few rich are getting so richer and the poor getting so deadly poorer to the extent that if "Conscience", the Rosicrucians tag as "The Eye of God in the Heart of Man", ever exists among poor Nigerians, the poor man's conscience has capitulated under the yoke and enslaving influences of the nouveau rich Nigerians in whom consciences are equally interred.
No matter the religious dispositions of the average Nigerian rich, the stalwarts of politics, the economic wizards, the religious top ranks, the military veterans, and other accomplices of evil doings in Nigeria, to almost every nation of the world, our independence as a nation is at the verge of collapse.
Though Nigeria is toasted because of the immense natural resources the nation possesses, Nigerians like a toad are detested because of ugliness and bulk indecency inherent in our attitudes both at home here and abroad.
A couple of days to the inauguration of a new set of Nigerians and their initiations to corridors of power, the pains of lack of electricity, the pangs of hikes in the prices of fuel, diesel, and attendant man/ hour loss to already demented public services, the struggle and hawking for juicy appointments by politicians and legislators and the entire fears that Nigerians seem not interested in learning any lessons from history, tend to further make frail one's confidence that Nigeria is truly an "Independent" country when it is seen almost dependent on other countries for even how to breath fresh air.
Now that the debts are mounting, corruption expanding, the corrupt are always elusive, sacred cows always escaping, the poor, are everlasting scapegoats for the evil acts of the rich and the media is gluttonous in covering the evil acts of evil men and are classed and grouped in what I refer to " Na my town's man journalism", after the inauguration, numerous outlets abound for the rich outside the shores of Nigeria, the poor can remain perishing or even perish.
Many have sworn to live on the shores of Nigeria, and they can do so but then Emerson Thomas says of such runaways:
"Men run away to other countries because they are not good in their own, and run back to their own because they pass for nothing in their new places".
Sharing thoughts on a beautiful philosophy once propounded during General Muhammadu Buhari's military era, I submit to you to decide as to what Nigeria is, or should be to you as either a Toast or Toad for Supper by other Nations during this difficult period of "Change". According to him :
" The present generation of Nigerians and even the upcoming ones have no other country to call their home. Nigeria belongs to all and we must all remain here to salvage it together". God Bless Nigeria.
Taiye Olaniyi, a retired Postman of the Nigeria Postal Service, is based in Lagos