CELEBRATING THE PROFANE: NIGERIA @50

CELEBRATING THE PROFANE: NIGERIA @50
By Sam Onimisi
Grace is defined as unmerited favour given to man by God for his regeneration or sanctification. If it is an unsolicited gift as it were, then man does not deserve credit for it and so, all thanks and gratitude belongs to the source of it – God. However, when man attempt to appropriate honour to himself as if he were the source of grace, then it becomes disgusting and repugnant to good conscience.
One thing Nigerian leaders take pride for is the potentialities of the country: the varied and numerous mineral and economic resources which are yet untapped, the geographical size of our land mass and the acclaimed numerical strength which is reputed to be the largest in Africa. Potentials! None of these potentials are created by our leaders for which they take pride or credit and they have not shown gratitude to God who deposited these resources on our soil, who allowed us to be so big or large and made it possible for us to increase in number. By gratitude, I don’t mean religiosity, pompous piety or market square holiness which we display in super abundance. I mean the fear of God and the love for godly values, which is as short in supply as to make it almost non-existent.
P-o-t-e-n-t-i-a-l-s! How much of them have we developed or tapped? The petroleum resource which we concentrated on, how have we developed it with value added subsidiary industries? Why are we still flaring away the by-product of gas? Why are we still importing refined oil 52 years after exploration began? Why did we keep exporting oil in crude form after half century experience or involvement in petroleum exploration? We can go on with more reasonable questions ad infinitum; but what then is the pride displayed by our leaders for? May be for potentials only! The waste, thievery and pilferage of our petroleum revenue income by those mandated to manage them bleed the country of its greatness, making her a naked giant!
With a population of about 150 million, we are no doubt a giant in Africa. But how many of these are literate? How many goes to bed with food in the stomach? How many has roofs over their heads? How many are employed, whether partial or full employment? Do we really know how many we are? Why do we export our girls to Europe and Arabia for prostitution, and our boys for forced labour? Why are Nigerians such a menace everywhere they are in Asia, Arabia, America, Africa and Europe? Why has 419 scammers and fraudsters become our exports? How many of them are in the National Assembly, in the Judiciary and in the Executive? Do we have a means of knowing, of detecting them and of flushing them out of the system? Where then is our pride as a people?
In Africa, Zaire, Algeria and Sudan are larger than Nigeria in land mass, although we are more populous than them. So, if there is any pride in land mass, these countries takes precedence over us. Zaire is in shambles with civil strives and threats of rebellion. Algeria explodes intermittently in sectarian strife and Sudan is rankled with religious, racial and ethnic rancor. Which of these ills is not a threat to Nigeria? We may not have reached the Rubicon of war or disintegration as these countries, but are we not inching towards it by our leaders’ inaction and hypocrisy? And so, what is in our size and how have we exploited it to good advantage or benefits for which we could take pride? Is it our borders, which is reputed to be among the most porous in the world? Or our Immigration Service known to be ranking as the most compromised? Or the Custom and Excise that promotes smuggling and worship smugglers who impregnates them with bribery?
Potentials, unexploited potential and the abuse of what is a gift is not only unethical, unprofitable and sinful, it is a celebration of profanity for which no man or nation is commended but condemned.
See how we have abused the iron and steel minerals God gave us and how we have stolen Ajaokuta and Itakpe blind. See how we have despoiled the Niger Delta for the oil God gave us. The tin mined in Jos has left the town with gullies, valleys and unusable landscape. We probably have more fertile land than those countries which are larger than us, yet our agricultural development is not enough to feed us as we import not less than 40% of the food we take. P-o-t-e-n-t-i-a-l-s.
Nigeria has produced renowned economists, eminent jurists, gifted engineers and scientists, erudite scholars, celebrated surgeons, pharmacists and other medical and Para-medical professionals. What of our famous mathematicians, political geniuses, acclaimed administrators and other equally important professionals? But of what use are they to us today? To what use or purpose have we deployed them? Why are they attracted to work for other countries but their own? What incentives do we grant them to reproduce their kind for us? Why do we wait for their demise before we celebrate and honour them? What is the use or value of honour in the grave? Professors Chike Obi, Ayodele Awojobi, Dr. Tai Solarin, and many others whose ingenuity, inventiveness and productive creativity are enough to uplift any country are celebrated by default or at death. Here is a country that kills her best, celebrates her mediocre and worship at the altar of her pen and armed robbers!
In Nigeria, a thief at the Public works Department qualifies to be a robbery baron at the Port Harbours. There, giant ocean liners could disappear without trace, as they are in the care of master fixers. We probably have more private universities today than public ones and they are owned by those who had charge and responsibility for the upkeep and maintenance of our public citadel of learning but left them high and dry. Go and see their own universities, they are by far superior to our own as centres of excellence! Using Paul to rob Peter and robbing Paul together with what he stole from Peter is greatness. Is that greatness, I ask? It is greatness, is that your answer? Questions without answers are answers without questions. If I must conclude, here it is.
Potentials serve no useful purpose unless and until they are developed into actuality. Wealth without productivity is poverty in disguise. Stolen wealth has wings; they will surely fly away with time. To celebrate unearned wealth is not only profane; it deprives the individual and the people of true greatness and riches. Here is a poser, if you don’t mind. Between the first and the second National Anthem, which one has the potential (oh God, this word again!) to inspire a people to unity and productivity? Remember, potentials bereft of productivity are profanities!