On Your Own: A Perspective Of Nigeria in Geopolitics
When troubles come for whatever reasons and from whatever quarters, only the weapons of war shall be sold to us to tear us apart and plunder the remains of the relics of our national resources.
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."
The above statement by Dr.Nnamdi Azikwe at his inauguration as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on 1st October 1963 daily captures the desired exhortation required of us all Nigerians on an individual and collective basis.
Why the exhortation as an admonition to us now as in times past?
In time past and as far back as 63 years ago, Nigeria was just building and budding into a sovereign nation that is constituted by peoples of diverse cultural backgrounds, tribes, and ethnic groupings.
A budding nation principally of two foreign religious faiths dwarfing the traditional constituencies of peoples being united to a " One Nation, One Destiny."
This integrative approach that was anchored on democratic principles encapsulated in parliamentary democracy tried to filter the differences as they were into the crucible of unity and sameness of a nation.
Good an attempt, the efforts but then, the roaring ember of dissimilarities encased in geopolitics that ultimately led later in the breakdown of laws and order, the coup and counter-coups that culminated in the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War which ripple effects still haunt as an albatross to anything progress reports about Nigeria till date.
The geopolitics in Nigeria is now responsible for diverse attributes of the North and South orchestra, the Muslim North, the once monolithic North balkanizing into Middle Belt, North East, North West, North Central, and what have you.
Replicating this in the South comes the natural and/ or artificial boundaries of bundling and unbundling into who and what belongs to where in the Southwest, Southeast, South-South, Niger-Delta, and now the reincarnation of the spirits behind the Biafra and Odua Nation and fringes of such even within the spectrum with or without reasonable definitions and dictation.
Religious influences daily find incursions into politics and a nation's economy, economics, and econometrics hence, Dr. Kenneth Idiodi's observation of this triune virus and deadly waves as he submits that:
"Religion has been politicized, politics has been religionized while politics and religion have been commercialized".
In every political appointment, in public service, and almost everything in Nigeria, the religion, and inclinations of whoever is involved hold sway. Religious considerations at the local, office, national, and international levels account for the boom and doom of Nigeria in the global geopolitical world order.
The geopolitics of terrorism, associated with farmers/ herders clashes, banditry, kidnapping, and killings without the blink of an eye, the demands for heartrending fat ransom, all, have made a mess of the unending aimless battle for purification of the nation.
While the hearts and minds of average Nigerians are so impure, no other account except total submission to the Almighty God could help mitigate the perdition of the souls of the partakers of evil now and in the afterlife.
As Nigeria now faces unending agitations for self-rule, nations within the nation, disintegration based on racial and tribal differences and ethnic domination, from whence come the salvation of my beloved country Nigeria?
The stinkingly rich Nigerians though get richer while the poor get poorer, yet their stinking affluence is corruption personified.
The advanced and developed countries from where dictations and dictates on economic indices always ooze out are unreliable, not dependable, and irresponsible at finding solutions to us all the now dismembering Nigerians.
To whichever part of the geographic globe Nigerians and the Nigeria nation in global geopolitics may turn for a solution, no matter how religious or otherwise of it we may tilt, like Bob Marley once concluded his plight in song, " Cold ground was my bed last night and rock was my pillow too."
Similarly, Jesus once expressed the agony of a homeless, " Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."
When troubles come for whatever reasons and from whatever quarters, home and abroad, only the weapons of war shall be sold to us to tear us apart and plunder the remains of the relics of our national resources.
Neither Saudi nor Israel, America nor Kabul shall come to aid us in conflict resolution but more likely in, " You are On Your Own-O.Y.O.".
Think About It.
God Bless Nigeria.
Taiye Olaniyi, a retired Postman of the Nigeria Postal Service, is based in Lagos.