33 Chilean Miners in Nigeria?

33 Chilean Miners in Nigeria?
By Sam Onimisi

The resilience and political strength of a country could be measured by their response to a natural disaster or at a period of a national emergency. And the type of response by the leaders elicit similar response from the populace. In fact, it is during such adverse periods that the virtues of leadership are made fully manifest and its quality truly exposed or laid bare. The South American Country of Chile had the misfortune of a mining accident which submerged 33 miners for 69 days. In ordinary circumstances of a third world country, those unfortunate miners should be considered dead. For one thing, that accident was a peculiar one in which the gold miners of Chile had no experience. For another, Chile is not known for her technological advancement that could be relied upon to respond to the extraordinary situation at hand.
There were apparently two choices before the authorities in Chile. They had the option to seek for help from advanced countries such as the United States or any Western European Countries to rescue the miners. They could also had given up on the helpless miners and tagged the accident as the will and an act of God over which mortals have no say. And the poor miners could have perished; perhaps the 33 could have died one after the other until they all perish. But the Chilean political and industrial leaders rose up to the occasion. Their president assembled the best of Chilean technologists and mining experts who devised means of keeping the trapped miners alive, healthy, cheerful and hopeful while designing the best method and means of rescuing them from the bottomless pit, as it were. Within 60 days or so, a capsule was designed which could go down to the pit to pick one miner at a time at a rate of one miner per hour. And in 33 hours, all the miners were rescued alive. The story is well told by most news and broadcasting media world wide.
Now the political and technological profile of Chile went up several notches higher than hitherto. The whole of Chile is celebrating the achievement as a family, with everyone supporting every efforts made by government in the process. Today, Chile emerged from the disaster a more cohesive, united and stronger nation the world is bound to respect and honour. No one accused the employers of those miners of any crime. The victims were not blamed for negligence either. The authorities did not resign to fate and God was not left alone to come down and save the miners. There were no high sounding but hollow promises by government officials. The people of Chile were spared the embarrassing charade of shameless officials sounding off and teaching us what ought to have been done but which was not done. No brash and thoughtless orders were issued with immediate effect by authorities. No mining company was closed down and no scapegoats were made. Neither the Police nor the armies were seen harassing the people for causing the accident. Opposition parties in Chile viewed the accident in the same way as the ruling party viewed it. All that everyone was concerned with was how to rescue the trapped miners and they achieved just that. They called upon God but put their brains to work for the physical salvation of their fellow Chileans. To keep 33 miners alive for 69 days and get them rescued without a single casualty from a mining pit of over 500 meters underground is a feat unparalleled in the annals of mining industry world wide. All hail C-h-i-l-e !.
Here in Nigeria, a man-made disaster happened on October 1, 2010. A group of cowards employed some street urchins who planted bombs in two cars and smoked life out of 12 innocent Nigerians during a festive day. Scores of citizens were wounded in addition to several cars that were completely damaged. Rather than the whole country mourning the dead and united to fetch out and deal with the culprits according to the law, governance was paralyzed as leaders began to trade blames on security lapses and incompetence. Partisan political brickbats were immediately deployed to rubbish the Presidency, demean the country as a pack of hungry and blood thirsty hounds in a wilderness and those who basked on being addressed as elder-statesmen suddenly sank to the level of juvenile delinquents. Some called on the president to resign immediately while others accused him of playing with the destiny and peace of the country. None of them has any idea or proffered any of what to do. The victims mattered so little before these leaders and all that seemed to bother them was how to convert the unfortunate and tragic incident into an opportunity to showcase their supremacy of experience over and above the president. Of course, a natural disaster such as the one in Chile is not the same as the man-made terrorist activities and politically motivated bomb blasts in Nigeria. The only common ground is that both incidents are national emergencies which involved threats to and actual loss of lives - in the case of Nigeria. But why the difference in the reaction of leaders in the two countries?
Ours is a country of many nationalities without any agreement on integration into one nationality. As our tribes, tongues and cultures differs, so our world view on most issues of concern; all of which goes to define our divergent approach to matters of common interest. Our response to the 1 October bomb blasts reflects our differences but these differences are often denied by our leaders for selfish and exploitative purposes. Whenever it is suggested that all ethnic nations should come together to discuss and agree on terms of co-habitation as common citizens, such protagonists were labeled as tribalists. Yet, the tribalist in our leaders gets exposed when in times of national emergency, most of them races back to take refuge in their various ethnic groups, which is somehow more secure and reassuring than the pseudo nation called Nigeria. No single leader invests the same faith in Nigeria as he/she invests in his ethnic nationality. Which is why they could not speak with one voice when the country finds herself in troubled waters. Were the 33 miners to be Nigerians, all we could have done was to pray for the repose of their souls since they were already buried alive; we would then assume that it was the will of God or Allah that they translate into heaven or al-Janah with their eyes wide open in consciousness. At least, our Pastors and Imams would have found a spiritual consolation to explain why we must allow the 33 to rest in perfect peace, deep down in the pit. Is our faith in Nigeria not defined by and depends on our share of the oil income from the Federation Accounts? Does it mean that if the witch called petroleum dries today, the boy called Nigeria will die tomorrow? I am sure your own answer will be more correct than mine.