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| Reuben Abati |
There is today in Nigeria an entire generation of Nigerian-passport
wielding men and women who do not actually know, to borrow Achebe’s
words that indeed “there was once a country”. These children born in a
season of austerity, and raised during the years that the locusts ate,
have become angry citizens.
They
are angry because they live in a country that makes them feel less
worthy than the human standard. The only Nigeria that they know is a
country that makes them feel ashamed of their own origins. Many of them
have enjoyed the privilege of foreign education and exposure to some of
the best traditions in other parts of the world, but when they return to
their own country, right from the airport, the snow of failure and
inefficiency strikes them in the face, leaving them with no option but
to wonder quo vadis Nigeria? It is the same question that their
parents asked and the tragedy is that their own children except
something else happens, are likely to ask exactly this same old and
vexed question.
The angst of this
young generation is made worse when they are told that Nigeria was not
always like this. In their late 20s to thirties, these children have
only known that Nigeria where fuel scarcity is a fact of daily life, and
part of the mechanism of survival is to know how to draw fuel with your
mouth, or negotiate black market purchase of fuel, while lugging jerry
cans, either at the fuel station or a roadside corner where you cannot
be sure of the quality of fuel- all of that in a country that is the
world’s sixth largest producer of crude oil. These children have only
known a country where the roads are bad, services are sub-standard,
people are mean, criminality is rife, and electricity is available once
in a blue moon.
What they know is a
country where the pastors and malams are better known for lying,
swearing, cheating, calling the name of God in vain. In their Nigeria,
public and private officials are lazy, and unproductive, they just want
to reap, and they have sucked the country so dry, her glands are wasted,
flat, going South and no more presentable, the balloon has suffered a
blow out, even the blind can see that this is so. These angry children
are no longer proud of the green passport; because the Constitution
allows dual citizenship, they’d rather grab the citizenship of another
country, and remain linked to Nigeria only by blood, and that is the
case because they have parents who would not want them to de-link
completely, but if they don’t, their own children and their own children
after them, are already being lost to countries where things work,
where the basic necessities of life are taken for granted and where the
future is not a distant, unknown, and impossible destination.
The anger and the
nonchalance of this generation of Nigerians is the pain and the agony of
an older generation that knew a different country before all things
went kaput and Nigeria became a byword for the unhinged, the dark, the
ugly and the regrettable. Our generation and the generation before us
knew a different country. And because that is so, memory is an
affliction, a source of torment, nostalgia and regret, more so as that
distant past now seems so unattainable not because distance often makes
the past look better, but because in Nigeria, the past is sorrily
idyllic. Those who lived in that other country and are still alive could
not have forgotten so soon, because to forget something that important
is to self-deny, it is to pretend, it is to abuse, it is in all, an act
of pitiable abnegation.
How could we have
forgotten? How can anyone possibly forget? That this was once a country
where Nigerians felt at home in virtually any part of the country.
Igbos lived peacefully in the North, and Fulani herdsmen were at peace
with other Nigerians, and there was no issue with the planting of yams
or the grazing of cattle. In this same country, Southerners lived for
decades in the North, acquired property and spoke the language of their
hosts. We grew up knowing Baba Kaduna, Daddy Kano, Mama Kafanchan,
Uncle Porta, just as persons from the East and the South South contested
for elective positions in the West and won. There was a civil war yes,
and things began to change but even after the war, it was never this
bad. Nigerians from the South still went on national assignment in the
North, Christians and Muslims tried to live together in peace, but
today, things have fallen apart.
There
is no open civil war, but this country is at war on all fronts, the
worst fronts being the ethnic, the religious and the political, and
these post-civil war children just can’t understand why the generations
of their fathers and grandmothers can’t run an efficient country. They
have been taught in school that every nation has problems, but
leadership is about managing those problems and building a happy nation.
They hear about the big names of Nigerian history, the statesmen who
fought for independence, the Amazons who defended the place of women in
national decision making processes, the accomplished scientists, the
literati and cultural workers, but the historical figures who have made
the biggest impression on them are the ones who ruined the nation with
their acts of omission and commission.
In
this same country, the Naira used to be at par with the pound and was
for many years stronger than the dollar. So strong was the Naira that
many Nigerians, including the lower middle class could afford to travel
to London on Friday evening, attend a party in London on Saturday,
attend church service on Sunday, check out one or two mistresses in
paid-for flats in different parts of London, and return to Nigeria early
enough on Monday morning to be able to go to work. All that was no big
deal. Everyone in London knew the Nigerians. They were the biggest
spenders and they threw the best parties. There was Nigeria Airways;
owned and operated by the Nigerian government and it was one of the best
airlines in Africa. Its pilots were rated among the best in the world.
Its safety record was superb. And it was affordable. It was the pride of
the nation. Within the country, Nigeria Airways was also efficient. A
trip from Lagos to Calabar in those days was just N44! Students enjoyed
rebates too.
In
this same country, once upon a time, public transportation was
impressive. In Lagos for example, the public transportation system was
almost exactly a version of what they have in London. This may sound
like something being made up to the younger generation, but it is
nothing but the truth. The railway system worked too, and one of the
most prestigious jobs was to be a railway staff. That same Nigerian
Railway Corporation that is now a parody of its former self, used to
link up the entire country and it helped to build cities and villages,
as the various major train stations became commercial centres. Today,
railway transportation looks like something we are trying to reinvent.
Once
upon a time in this same country, those who sent their children abroad
did so majorly out of choice, not necessity, because Nigerian schools
were among the best in the continent and the world. Teachers from
different parts of the world, the best and the brightest, sought
employment in Nigerian schools. The Naira was strong, investors -both
commercial and intellectual – trooped to this country in droves and they
enriched us in many ways. The schools were well-equipped; they
attracted students and teachers based on their reputation.
Parents
sent their own children to their alma mater out of loyalty, and regard
for tradition. That pattern of grandfather, father and son attending the
same secondary school seems to have ended; the public schools in
Nigeria have failed, the missionary schools of old have been destroyed
by hostile government take-over, back in the hands of the missions, the
destruction is yet to be fully corrected. The younger generation
reflects on all this: mostly products of private schools, they can’t
understand why a country that still prides itself as the giant of Africa
cannot run a decent education system or provide jobs for the products
of its school system.
In
this same county, we used to have industrial estates. In Lagos, Apapa,
Ikeja and Isolo were industrial estates. In Kaduna, Jos, and Enugu,
manufacturing companies created jobs and wealth. We had uncles and
aunties who used to do shifts in many factories and this country
produced things: from refrigerators to bulbs to vehicles to metals to
books, to textiles to shoes. Sad: many of those factories have become
churches! In those days, if you went into a bookshop, you could not miss
the mint-fresh smell of the books on display. I miss that smell. There
are fewer bookstores today and the books no longer smell the same,
because by the time they are imported and passed through dirty
containers and the hands of thieving handlers, the books lose their
soul.
Once
upon a time in this same country, there was so much hope about
tomorrow. Salaries were paid as and when due. State governments offered
students bursaries and scholarships. School was attractive because the
teachers were dedicated and they were smart. At the university level,
the government provided subsidized tuition and feeding; the rooms were
kept clean by staff, the libraries were well-stocked; there was light
and water and town-gown relationship was just fine. In the larger
society, the present regime of no water, no fuel, no electricity was
unheard of. You may have heard of the British standard, there was in
fact at a time, the Nigerian standard, and this was the standard that
other Africans looked up to. This same country dominated the continent,
morally, intellectually and culturally. Financially too: so rich was
Nigeria that a former Head of State reportedly boasted that our problem
was not money but how to spend it!
But,
sorry, we lost it all. And the rains began to beat us. The victims are
the younger ones who have not known any other country but this new one.
The danger is: they may never know how to make a difference when they
inherit this poisoned chalice called Nigeria.
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