Date Published: 05/22/09
When we became Nigerians
by Douglas Dodiyi-Manuel
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Douglas Dodiyi-Manuel |
As enshrined in our anthem:
Nigerians, so they called our fathers. Men of honour and ideal, who laboured to give us a unique and common identity in our diversity - no wonder, we are simply called Nigerians, as little was seen of our ethnic, lingual and tribal polarization.
Nigerians we were, when our nation’s call we answered, and in anthems sang we in a million voices – to serve our fatherland with ”LOVE and STRENGHT and FAITH”.
Hence, may I ask what “LOVE”, as was commanded by our fathers, and as in anthems we sing, has the Commander-in-Chief, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua commanded in the ethnic cleansing he order against the innocent few through whose natural resources the Nation feeds??
For while of theirs the Nation feeds, why then deprive them of what to them heaven freely gave?
Also, may I ask what “STRENGHT” the Nation’s father (Yar’Adua) has demonstrated in tolerance of an aggrieved few whose grievance in excess may have been showed??
For whatever they are, they were so made by the State!
What “FAITH” today is left for the common Ijaw-man whose habitation and tradition, a rogue government by means of amoral politics, has mortgaged.
Obasanjo and Yar’Adua have made mockery of the labours of our heroes past – and now in sequence they kill the masses (Odi and Gbaramatu) whose mandate they claim to have.
Alhaji Yar’Adua, please LOVE the Niger Delta, for our Nation is sustained by her breast. In my last article, I quoted Thisday News Paper in which it was alleged that Fmr Governor Turaki, paid for the Oil Block that the government gave him, with public funds.
How many Ijaw people and by extension, Niger Deltans have Oil Blocks?
I live in South Africa, and here, the government, though organisations and corporations like the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), gives people money to develop their businesses. For small businesses, the government can through, Khula and Umsobomvhu, support with Five Million Rands (equivalent of N100m) and below.
There is so much money budgeted for trainings of all sorts, just to have people qualified for at the least, a basic secretarial employment, and for the homeless, the government builds houses they call, Reconciation Development Project (RDP Houses), and give them for free.
National Conscience:
Tonye Princewill, by resigning from the Federal Government Vision 2020 Subcommittee, to demonstrate his disdain of the President’s orders, has made us all proud - he acted like the true Kalabari as we were in the days of our fathers.
We shall in our generation, rekindle the flame of the Kalabari dignity by standing for what is right, and if it necessitates deferring gratification in certain instances, should we be ready that simply to do.
What Tonye Princewill has done today is beyond him. It is a precedence set for his children and their children – an act with and for which his children will be recognized and recommendable, as no less would be expected of them, and also for anyone that bears his name, as well as for all of us who share common ancestry.
He has despise an inglorious power affiliation, and for the records - let it be said that amongst them, Douglas Waserite Dodiyi-Manuel also identified with Tonye Princewill.
Rebranding the Nigeria:
While Nations of serious stock, with whom Nigeria claims common system (Democracy), further their respective people oriented courses, through constructive policies and regulations by visionary leadership, Nigeria is dancing naked in rain and reign of idiocy and depravity.
Do you preserve the corpse by painting the grave?
The rebranding exercise of this administration is nothing but a ploy to deceive the world by false pretence and false impression, for on the foundation of their party (PDP) they stand, compact with lies and scorn.
Nigeria is in darkness both in power and idea, because not even the President or Minister knows what to do – everyone is just in a cul-de-sac – if not, what are the Constitutional functions and duties of the Minister of Information?
Today, she lives in her past glory.
Instead of resigning honourably like Ngozi Okonjo Eweala - who knew the area of her strength, and thus refused to be inappropriately deployed.
This government appointed Dora Akunyili because her involvement may give people hope, and the government, credibility. But Information is not the place of her strength.
Nigerians are falsely impressed that the functions and duties of a Minister or Commissioner for Information is propaganda and government’s spokesman-ship, and therefore requires mendacious characters or people through whom they can perpetrate State deceit.
The amount of time and resources being wasted on frantic rebranding exercise, could have been better utilized by a visionary leadership that knows what policies to formulate, that would create an enabling environment for the given sector to blossom.
Nollywood:
Because of the ill-image of our country Nigeria, we in diaspora are always looking for something good about our country – something for which we can walk tall – Nollywood is one of such.
Yes, there production quality is quite basic and non-competitive with Hollywood, but they have inspired and commanded creativity out of other African countries, and here in South Africa, there are Nigerians that feed their families through distribution of Nollywood products – hence, Nollywood has demonstrated tremendous export possibilities, and other than Crude Oil, I strongly and personally believe that Nollywood can compete very favourably with any other sector of our economy in terms of exportation of products, yet this brain-sick government is incapable of seeing our possibilities in the entertainment sector which falls under the oversight of the Ministry of Information.
State Level:
Ideally speaking, government is a mechanism which’ functionality is determined by policies and regulations.
Every birthday of a governor, we see untold number of sycophants applauding him for phantom achievements. Some would talk about the roads that the governor is constructing, and the hospitals he is building.
What has a governor got to do with roads and hospitals?
These are necessities that should be considered in an ideal Civil Service System – which should “SYSTEMATICALLY” identify social and infrastructural necessities, and SYSTEMATICALLY provide them through tenders and various stages of government’s standardization and accreditation of service providers, and also SYSTEMATICALLY provide for maintenance through retainer-ship of maintenance services.
Hence, the absence of SYSTEM has resulted in mal-infrastructural development, non-maintenance culture and the docility of our Civil Service.
Imagine a situation where a particular government, through due process, awards contract for certain services, then the next government (or the governor himself), in the absence of any procedural error, arbitrarily cancels the contract – yet we are crying everyday for foreign investors to come to Nigeria. No sane person will come!
The Evil that men do lives with them:
Here in South Africa, human existence is garnish with crime – the kind of crime that is senseless. People kill and get killed for 50cents. It is so bad that even a global icon like Luck Dube was not spared – killed for nothing!
I have never seen such senselessness before.
In the second quarter of 2008, their xenophobic tendencies could no longer be contained, hence the world witness historic barbarism – consequently, there is an exodus of white South Africans.
The news is that the perpetrators of this “nonsense” are blacks and coloureds – and they are a product of the Apartheid regime.
During the apartheid regime, the blacks were not allowed to have good education, consequently, their sense of reasoning became absolutely and unbelievably eroded.
Today, the white-man who created these beasts must either live with them or flee the land of his birth in order to be safe.
Whatever name or adjective by which you call or by which you choose to describe the Niger Delta militants, the bottom line is that they are creatures of the State.
Their evolution is diverse – some were recruited by politicians like Peter Odili – who can no longer visit the State he ruled for Eight Years (8yrs) with monumental legacies, while other evolved through poverty and privation – and the government that has created them must live with them.
God help Nigeria!
