Nigeria @ 59: We Shall Overcome

By Joe Igbokwe

Great leaders convert their bushes into great cities around the world while miserable leaders convert great cities into bushes. A seasoned banker , Fola Adeola told us in a gathering that two sets of people were given separate tasks to carry out within a specific time. When the time given to them to accomplish the task elapsed the organizers came for assessment. While a set tried so much to accomplish the task given to them, putting on their thinking caps the other team did not just know how to start. Adeola concluded that the team that failed had nobody in the house. There was no human being in that team.

Given the resources and human capital available here in Nigeria, one had thought that our Country would have been rubbing shoulders with the great cities in world but unfortunately we are not. The problem was not lack of resources and adequate manpower but ugly educated men and women who who had nothing to offer seized the center stage and brought nothing to the table. The result is that we had many years of lost opportunities, misplaced priorities, militarily interventions and incubus of bad leadership that spanned more than four decades. We had enough money to build our infrastructure and straighten our collapsed institutions but we failed. Today we are paying the price of many years political of irresponsibilities, prebendal and ethnic politics, power without responsibility, wealth without work, politics without principle.

Thank God for the decision we took in 2015 to bring a righteous man into the saddle to start the process of taking back a stolen, plundered and subdued nation. It has been a great battle for the soul of Nigeria since then. The plunderers are not done yet. They thought Nigeria will still remain for them and their families, their concubines, their soulmates, their marabouts, their fellow looters and grabbers of anything in sight. They were crushed beyond recognition in 2015 and 2019. They did not know what hit them. Till date they are still running helter-skelter, hitting their heads against concrete walls, gnashing their teeth and cursing the day President BUHARI was born. I pity them. We cannot return to the years of the locusts.

President Buhari is changing the narratives across Nigeria and every decent Nigerian can feel the impact except the plunderers and pathetic thieves. We will continue to stand behind this President who is breaking his back to build a nation. We are seeing his impact across Nigeria. We are seeing the love he has for this country. We are living witnesses of the hard decisions taken to reposition and rejig a stolen nation. We will continue to stand by him come what may. It is our country and #wediehere.

Teamwork will help us, patriotism will help, integrity, honour character will help Nigeria to rise again. Look deep and see the hard decisions President Buhari is taking to rebuild Nigeria. Yes things are hard but we have to pay the price of our many years of profligacy and irresponsible behaviors. You cannot eat your cake and still have it. Those who know better tell me that actions carry consequences. Let genuine leaders who see what PMB is doing throw away their primordial sentiments, ethnic preoccupation and put Nigeria first. Collective responsibility is where to go.

The late Professor China Achebe tells us that “A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to redeem them from starving. They all have food in their own houses. When we gather together in the moonlight village ground , it is not because of the moon . Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so. Therefore let us continue to be united and enjoy the power of togetherness. Let us smile not because we do not have problems but because we are stronger than the problems…”
TOGETHER WE SHALL OVERCOME!!!

-Joe Igbokwe writes from Lagos