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10 Nigerians to fix Nigeria’s broken walls

By Martins Oloja
30 July 2016   |   2:49 am
The ancient words that have been long preserved for our walk in this world, ever so true, according to Michael W. Smith, have also enabled us to believe without doubting a revelation that to everything there is a season.
Martins Oloja

Martins Oloja

The ancient words that have been long preserved for our walk in this world, ever so true, according to Michael W. Smith, have also enabled us to believe without doubting a revelation that to everything there is a season. There is a time for every purpose under the heaven: …a time to keep silence and a time to speak. It is also time to rely on the power of the ancient words of hope to give us strength to help us cope in this world where we now roam, especially in Nigeria. Yes, Nigeria, the most populous back nation on earth that has become a permanent embarrassment to the black race, and to use the word of David Hiole, a “failure that keeps failing”.

The media – across platforms have written and broadcast all that could be written about the way we are. We have asked all the germane questions. And sadly all the questions have since 1966 been blowing in the winds. We muddle through and in June 1993, we threatened to make it somehow but the ‘militicians’ blew it again.

Since last week, we have been reviewing where the rains began to beat us when the military politicians struck and intervened in our politics with their correcting fluids in 1966.

We have again reviewed a sad chapter in our history and the juncture where General Aguiyi Ironsi kicked out federalism with military fiat before he too became a victim of military politics that began on January 15, 1966. We have also seen that corruption that the January 15, 1966 mutineers mentioned as part of their reason for killing most of our best political leaders is still waxing strong 50 years after. In fact, the art of corruption has mysteriously become a fundamental objective and directive principle of state policy 50 years after the ‘militicians struck and decried it. We say we are giants of Africa but we are still in the sun. We vaunt that we are the big fish but since a rot was noticed in the head, there has been no response to treatment. Since they killed our regional leaders on January 15 and their regionalism on July 29, 1966 we have been groping in the dark despite the fact that the arrowhead of unitary system didn’t survive his ‘revolution’. We have been running on the same spot.

All the world-class regional universities such as University of Ife, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, University of Nigeria, Nsukka they seized with their federal might, have been ruined. Besides, billions of dollars have been wasted on super-federal power sector yet there is no electricity even for domestic consumption. The new owners now say they don’t have power to generate and distribute since the mid-stream sector, transmission power is still in the hand of the principality called the federal government. They say they can’t give what they don’t have. Even minor ear infections of our leaders cannot be treated in any of the more than 100 teaching hospitals in the land of our birth. Our tertiary institutions have become so ordinary that even journalists are not quoting the luminaries there anymore. The economy is technically in recession. Manufacturing, the engine of economic progress anywhere has no place in the factors that conspire to float our Naira. Our hands can’t reach even low hanging fruits such as football in Africa. We have been so barren in our season of anomie that we can’t qualify for even Under-20 African Youth Championship for next tournament even as a defending champion. In 2013 we indecisively won the Africa cup of Nations (AFCON). But in a twist of fate, we could not qualify for the next edition in 2015.

In the last qualification series for the next contest of AFCON, Nigeria again could not qualify. The civil service is being reported as technically moribund as what we have now cannot withstand the forces of globalization that shape governance processes anywhere we go now. What is more, Nigeria’s mass transit system is the worst on earth. Everyone struggles to buy cars to ply the worst road networks in the world. All of us suffer but we smile. The vibrancy that was the hallmark of the news media in the days the press was Ngbati Press or Lagos-Ibadan axis of the press is gone as the news media industry had been technically knocked out before the technical recession of the national economy. Now the diversity that used to be our strength has become a monumental liability. All the chanters of the slogan, “To keep Nigeria one, is a task that must be done” are ashamed to be associated with the slogan. Now the war dust has settled and we can now identify the “victors” and the “vanquished” in the political fields. Now from news reports on all platforms, there is a consensus that Nigeria has not made substantial progress since independence and some progress recorded before the military intervention in politics in 1966 has been wiped out. The life cycle of soldiers in politics is 50 years old this week. And so, we need to appeal to outstanding 10 elders of the land who can assist in fixing Nigeria’s broken walls. These 10 Nigerians have been shortlisted from significant and peer-reviewed journals of 50 years of Nigeria’s fallen house. God the Almighty who rules in the affairs of men, has been over-faithful to these extra-ordinary men. They have tried their best to make Nigeria great from a record of their service to the country. But their best has not been excellent enough to lift up to hundreds of their countrymen from poverty. Some leaders such as Lula da Silva did in a BRICs country, Brazil.

I overhead Bill Clinton’s men shout two days ago that he created 23 million jobs in his time in America. Even David Cameron boasted the other day before gracefully leaving office in the UK that he lifted his economy out of recession. Certainly, these great men in Nigeria are the ones we can validly ask questions about the way we are. They are really great but their country is not great. We need to engage them before the folks who are getting angry become outraged. Yes, these men have been involved. They have signed billions of Naira in contracts to fix Nigeria’s critical infrastructure but that has been a mirage, too. We need to implore these 10 great Nigerians to be on the alert to receive calls for a former leaders’ summit so that they can begin to rebuild Nigeria now or never. We beg them. They are:

.Major General Muhamadu Buhari
.General Matthew Olusegun Obasanjo
.Lt. General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma
.General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida
.Lt. General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau
.General Abdusalami Abubakar
.Alhaji Aliyu Shehu Shagari
.Dr. Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan
.Alhaji Atiku Abubakar
.Asiwaju Bola Tinubu

There is no doubt that Nigeria’s destiny has been in the hands of these people. The least influential among them who just strayed into this Operation Fix-Nigeria Team by some accident of history is former President Shehu Shagari. But his presence is important at this time. We need these big men, the top ten in Nigeria. There is an urgent need for these big and old men in Nigeria to call on some of their allies to assist because these elders should imbibe the values of contribution even at this critical time when the nation is failing under their watch. So, Nigeria’s top ten should remember Professor Stephen Covey’s words of wisdom that “The key to life is not accumulation.

It is contribution”. The management guru also adds that, ‘”There are achievers and there are contributors. Many achievers also contribute, but mostly they are just preparing to contribute. See your life as the life of a contributor. This is also relevant to the points at issue – rebuilding Nigeria’s broken walls, “Most of us have spent too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important”.

The conclusion of the gospel of contribution according Covey is: “Primary greatness means character and contribution. Secondary greatness is prestige and wealth and position”. This is my contribution to the just identified Top Ten so that at the end of their pilgrimage, they can report progress to their creator within the context of primary greatness.

Grammar school returns next week.

4 Comments

  • Author’s gravatar

    This is a good piece. Virtually all the people mentioned at one time or the other had ruled or led this nation. If we will be true to ourselves and these people will be honest to us and if they have the love of this nation in their hearts, they know why it has not been easy for this country

  • Author’s gravatar

    If they could not do anything then I wonder what advice they will give. Even the current one is seriously misbehaving. Nigeria is not a must. Let us just redraw the boundaries to give additional countries and things will surely be better.

  • Author’s gravatar

    There is no doubt that Nigeria’s destiny has been in the hands of these people at one time or the other. I hope by calling on them we are not putting new wine in old skin and it may burst.

  • Author’s gravatar