Nigeria: A Nation of Absurdities,Lessons Learnt.

By Ogiri John Ogiri

The tyres of our national unity have already been punctured by the triads of consciously and carefully designed nepotism, fabricated religion and tribalism. It will take years to mend and it will require an experienced vulcanizer. I doubt if our unity as a nation will ever remain the same again after the exit of this government. One irredeemable damage this government has done to our national unity is that, it has succeeded in awakening our tribal consciousness while our common sense of nationhood has been completely obliterated. I never knew I was a Christian, a Muslim, Idoma,Hausa, Yoruba or Ibo until the advent of this administration.

Before now, I never had any cause to worry about a Fulani herdsman living in my community until the advent of this government. In my village in those days,I still remember how we would exchange our cassava for some cow milk or "fura da nono". All that has changed with the coming of this government. I am now conscious of the Fulani herdsman whenever I see him around my locality. Mutual suspicion has come to replace mutual trust.

It was this government that made me realize the uselessness of the federal character principle in the appointment of people into key or sensitive positions in my country. My people must be smuggled in even if it means denying other regions a fair and balanced representation.Federal Character Principle can 'kiss my ass' as long as the interest of my tribe is protected.

It was this government that made me realize that the elderly people about whom I had been taught to believe every statement coming from them ( since they were supposed to be wiser) can be lavishly generous with lies or deliberate falsehood using it as a tool of political propaganda in my country. Words of elders are said to be words of wisdom but I doubt if some of the current elders in this government are among the wise from whom words of wisdom can emanate. This government has taught me that an elderly man should no longer be believed hook line and sinkers.

The coming of this government made me realize that I have no right to complain or air my constructive views without consequences one of which can include arrest and incarceration without fair trial. And like the former Ugandan maximum ruler,Field Marshall Idi-Amin Dada, once told Ugandan people, freedom of speech is guaranteed but freedom after the speech is not a certainty. So even if I suffer, I must smile with sycophantic abandon, sheepishly pretending not to feel pains. This government made me realize all these within the few years it has been in power.

In my elementary years in school, I never was taught that the death of anyone could be rationalized and wished away simply as nothing to be concerned about. With the coming of this government, however,I came to know that my neighbour can be gruesomely murdered and I can go on national Television and argue away the pain by claiming that it was better that my neighbour was killed. It has made me realize that public display of insanity is an asset in gaining political ascendancy. 

It was through the advent of this government that I came to realize that integrity and piety have two sides: a fabricated one and a non-fabricated one and that these values could be relative to time and individual and geography.

 Moreover, this government has taught me to realize that crime pays. That an attacker and a murderer could more easily become a country's president than the diligent, law-abiding victims of such heinous crimes. This government has made normality out of abnormality. 

With the coming of this government, integrity and piety have been stripped of their prized mystery. They have been demystified. It will take years to restore the mystery of moral piety and integrity in my country.

Before now, I never imagined that one could become a president,governor or a member of the National Assembly without a university degree but with the coming of this government, I now know that I can become a president, governor, Senator etc without a university degree. All I need is to approach the nearest court of competent jurisdiction and obtain a sworn affidavit to that effect and I am done.

We are, indeed, a nation of paradoxical absurdities. We are enigmas unto ourselves.

These are the lessons I have so far learnt from this government.