Please, people should not be fooled by the sprawling churches and mosques in every nooks and crannies of Nigeria. In Nigeria, my country, before you said one word, no matter the meaning of what you said, the next person to you will say, praise God and when you ask how he or she came late to an appointment, the next thing is we thank God. Our heavenly father has been used to commit all kinds of immoralities in Nigeria, and some other places in this world. This writer is a strong born again Christian, but he wonders how people especially, in Nigeria have used the name of the father of creation to do all kinds of unconscionable things, mind you, I am focusing on my constituency, Nigeria.
Unfortunately, my father died in 2000, and then I just recently left Nigeria for USA, but my brother told me that up till the last day of my father, he clinched to integrity and good conscience tenaciously. He advised all his children to emulate his lifestyle. My father was a poor trader yet he was satisfied with the little he had and almost all his children follow his footstep. He told all his children not to substitute integrity and good name for anything mundane in this world; and we should not bring shame to him. My father died at 91 years old. The words of my father follow me anywhere I go, but he was not a Christian. My father only stepped his foot in a church services when my mother got baptized in 1996. Iwuanyanwu Unanka, my father was an “Ozo” title holder; he lived a life worth emulating in Osuh Owerri community, Isi Ala Mbano.
There were lots of many Iwuanyanwu Unankas in Nigeria, so today I do not think any of them is still around. Such people hold on to their beliefs and subscribe to their strong convictions. They abhor maiming, oppressive attitudes, avarice, stealing, looting community wealth trusted in their hands, robbing, and immorality; showing off, injustice, greed and recklessness. Some of these people hardly carried Bibles, Chaplets and Qur’an. During the twilight days of my father, lost money will be found and taken to the head of the kindred for announcement so that the owner would prove ownership and take it. My brother told me that when he brought a Mercedes Benz car home, my father refused to enter the car unless my brother proved how he bought it. My brother, an NNPC senior staff proved to him that he was earning enough money to buy the car, and he requested more convincing evidence before he entered into the car. Sometime, if I get the chance, I will write on ethics and ethical living. One of my professors, who taught me business ethics, asked: where does one learn of ethics, if not at the feet of one’s father?
Chinua Achebe asked a rhetorical question: where did the rain start beating us? This question has to be tackled and the answer found, if not, it will be difficult to dig ourselves out from the hole we forced ourselves in. When the greater percentage has fallen into moral depravity, the small percentage does not count anymore and the true state of matter is that Nigeria has no moral fiber any more, period. The environment stinks from Bornu to Bayelsa, from Lagos to Lafiagi and from Abuja to Aba. The Bible says train a child the way he should go and he will never depart from it when he grows up. Where are the fathers? The fathers have all compromised, if there are any at home. Discipline belongs to the father just like my father claimed ownership of it when we were growing up. I do not know why Nigerians practice a scheme that has failed in the western world, especially in North America. In USA, it is a common practice for ladies to have children out of wedlock, and the product of these decay practice, especially boys, who have no father at home, some grow up to be a menace to the society and some of them jail bound.
It is now socially accepted fact that in many places, father has been substituted for baby daddy and mother for baby mama. Marvin Gay asked, “What is going on”? In my village it is a shame for a woman to have a baby without marriage but the so called “beentos” in Nigeria do this and expect all us to clap for them; they should be ashamed of themselves. Destruction of the family is the beginning of the end of any society. Some sociologists opine that family is the foundation of a civil society. Chairman Mao said that a simple spark can set prairie on fire. Why are we hiding from ourselves, thinking that all is well with our country Nigeria? Was it not Socrates, who said, to thyself be true?
In one of my trips to Nigeria, I was in a hotel along Airport Road, Ajao Estate, Ikeja. I decided to visit the Bush Bar with my wife to entertain some guests. I saw group of teenagers mixed with boys and girls, and to my chagrin, two little girls, may be of age, fifteen to seven were smoking cigarette and almost naked, roaming about. I could not hold myself; I told my wife whether Nigeria had descended to that level, for such teenagers to smoke freely. My wife told me not to go and insult myself before those riffraff, that it was the order of the day in Nigeria. This level of girls cannot even smoke in Los Angeles, I quipped to my wife. Do those girls have parents and if they do, why should parents allow their little girls to wander about in late nights?
It seems the job of family units has disappeared in Nigeria and if root cause analysis is carried out by management experts, the cause of all these things is corruption. I read that since 1999 to the time Jonathan Goodluck exited from government, Nigeria has expended $20 billion in power and the result has been darkness. Refineries in Nigeria do not work despite huge expenditures on them. Now may be 50% of the nation’s wealth go to maintain national assembly rogues, whose only job in Abuja is to have sex with young girls enough to be their daughters. Every month, state governors Waite patiently to share oil money from Abuja, and only to spend them with their family members and the rest is wired overseas to their accounts. Have you ever heard American legislators bringing their dollars to hide in Nigerian banks? Can we ask ourselves hard question?
Imagine if there is no corruption and the electricity flows as normal currents; will there be folding of industries? Will there be generators jarring on peoples’ nerves at night and hordes of people dying from toxic carbon monoxide fumes? Imagine if refineries are working, wouldn’t there be smooth operations of transport services and lots of employment? Imagine if our commonwealth is not lavished on the dishonorable assembly men and women, there will be money for capital expenditure to take care of roads construction and rehabilitations of decaying infrastructures. Imagine if the state governors collect the money and appropriate them in projects that can generate employments, wouldn’t people be engaged purposefully and life improved? Imagine if anybody that is caught misappropriating public fund is punished by terms of imprisonment and such money returned to where it belongs, will there be spate of stealing? Imagine if our leaders behave like sane human beings, will there not be joy and happiness in Nigeria?
Have we sat down and ask ourselves why America, European countries, Asian Tigers, even Singapore, Dubai, India, Brazil, Malaysia, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia are the way they are? My worry is that the so called leaders of Nigeria pay visits to these countries, and in their foolishness, steal our commonwealth and dump them in these countries. I think that we have come to critical point when any aspiring leader in Nigeria needs psychological evaluation to ascertain if he or she is fit for public position. My reason for this is that almost all of them behave drunk at all times. And what do we expect when majority of them are 419 people, jobless and fraudulent contractors?
They said Buhari has no certificate, but the same man gave us direction when he took over government from Shagari. The former Brazilian President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had only elementary school education, but he was the best thing that happened to Brazil. Our President should not think that he is working with normal people; they all come from the decayed Nigerian society and one of the things he will do to my suggestion is to declare state of national emergency on morality as an impetus to curbing corruption and restoration of moral rectitude among Nigerians. I resumed writing because Buhari is mounting the saddle, and I hope he is not misled by tribal apologists. If the whole of Nigeria is not his constituency, he will not succeed.
Four years is enough for him to carry surgical operation on any aspect of our national life. We are damaged commodities; what he does in office and how he carries himself will determine the direction of Nigeria. President Buhari is now the organ of Nigeria. Some of the present fathers, who are supposed to be custodian of discipline and provision, are castrated because of the activities of our politicians. Ray Epku, once in his column in Newswatch asked: how do you expect a man who has neither penny nor position to have confidence? Some who have, are confused, though stolen money, they have identity crisis; and they don’t know where they belong. President Buhari has load of work to do. Everywhere in Nigeria, we have all compromised. Example is the recent killing of the former Vice Chancellor of FUTA, Professor Albert Ilemobade by his own security man and his driver, and they sold his car for money. Sometime in 2012 at Calabar, two brothers murdered their father, a professor just because of the man’s N40m retirement benefit. Nigeria over to y’all !!!!!! When the head is sick, the whole body is sick.
Chukwuma Iwuanyanwu writes from Los Angeles.