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Umunnem, here’s my keynote speech last Saturday at the MIND sponsored Nigerian independence anniversary celebration held at East Side Neighborhood Services, 1700 2nd Street NE, Minneapolis. If the chair of 2008 Igbofest wishes to use this in the program magazine next year, he or she has my permission to do so.
Tony A.
SOCIAL UNITY IN NIGERIA: OUR COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY
Good afternoon my esteemed brothers and sisters, friends, ladies and gentlemen! It is very kind and considerate of you to take this time off your busy schedules to be here on the occasion of Nigeria’s 47th independence anniversary celebration. I always consider it an honor and opportunity to be asked to address an audience, knowing the good Lord whom I serve and worship will empower and embolden me as I strive, puny as I am, to do His bidding. I am not interested in being politically correct, in being diplomatic, in saying those things I know people like to hear, in sugarcoating the truth, or speaking in order to be liked. If by any chance these are your expectations, then the probability is very high that you will be disappointed.
Having shared my penchant for frankness with you beforehand, please allow me to begin this speech on social unity in Nigeria by addressing some nuances in meaning between “Social Unity” and “One Nigeria”. The former suggests the coexistence of people—be they of diverse ethnicity or not—living in peace and harmony and promoting the capabilities of each other for the common good. It denotes a society where all involved are determined to see justice, equality, mutual trust, respect, tolerance, understanding, openness, friendship, love, forgiveness, patience, etc. prevail. That is, the people comprising this society consider the prevalence of social unity to be priority and their collective responsibility. The notion of “Social Unity” is not necessarily synonymous, interchangeable, or identical with maintaining “One Nigeria,” which may connote a forced state of being or an injunction to be one. “One Nigeria,” as I see it, implies, inter alia, readiness to resort to any means possible to prevent the disintegration of the geopolitical entity known as “Nigeria”. So far, we Nigerians, especially the ruling class, have worked extremely hard at maintaining “One Nigeria,” but have done little or nothing to promote peaceful coexistence of the citizenry. I recall the assertion years ago that “to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be accomplished”. Using the threat of a gun to maintain “One Nigeria” without undertaking with honesty and good faith the desideratum of creating and nurturing an atmosphere where all people can get along, leaves room for unmitigated and recurrent social unrest. Where this is the case, it should come as no surprise that any government that elects to be derelict in its duty to serve the people and work painstakingly to sow the seed of social solidarity and unity will always turn to military action to maintain one country; in our case, to remain one, indivisible Nigeria. “National unity, wrote Frederick Pilkington in 1956, “is never easy to attain and in Nigeria it is a threefold problem aggravated by personal issues between different peoples speaking many languages, and by social and religious customs which often are bolstered by prejudice and obstinacy.”
The herculean task of creating and nurturing social unity in Nigeria or anywhere for that matter must be the collective responsibility of the people and their government. Everyone of age knows that Nigeria is an artificial entity carved out by the British and other European colonizers on arbitrary boundaries designed to serve their imperialistic interests. What used to be the colony of Lagos, the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, and the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria were amalgamated in 1914 by Governor Frederick Lugard to establish the colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the late Premier of Western Nigeria made his observation known that "Nigeria is not a NAtion. It is mere geographical expression. There are no ‘Nigerians’ in the same sense as there are ‘English,’ ‘Welsh’ or ‘French.’ The word ‘Nigerian’ is merely a distinctive appellation to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria and those who do not.” I lived in colonial Nigeria prior to the attainment of political independence on October 1, 1960 and know that Nigeria is the result of a deliberate and indiscriminate fusion of people with diverse ethnic loyalties, languages, religions, and historical experiences. Nonetheless, the people were purposely and selfishly impressed into an artificial union despite well documented studies that show that the sole unit to which personal loyalty attaches is often the family, ethnic group, or village. The British, in their sneaky tradition, deliberately sowed the seed of social discord in order to protect their interests in Nigeria after independence.
Rather than the homogeneous society foreigners often ascribe to Nigerians solely on the basis of the color of their skin, they are people with great internal diversity and indubitable heterogeneity. Until the pogrom or “ethnic cleansing” that exposed the heterogeneity of the people of Rwanda, Burundi, and the former Yugoslavia, they were invariably seen as homogeneous groups. That Nigeria continues to be mired in political instability and social unrest after forty-seven years of independence comes as no surprise to those familiar with its colonial history and its multi-ethnicity. Unfortunately, this condition will not change until we Nigerians and our ruling class learn to disavow, denounce, and repudiate the nefarious colonial legacy of divide-and-rule as well as the politics of exploitation and polarization in common practice today in Nigeria and anywhere ubiquitous Nigerians converge. Interesting and apt is the observation of Ngozi Razak-Soyebi, who wrote that “The joy of breaking free from the shackles of British rule to manage our own business has been reduced to despair and misery and a lot of people wonder now if we weren’t better off before our independence.”
Our problem as Nigerians is not that we are ignorant and incapable of generating sound policies; it is that we lack the social discipline and political will to implement often well-reasoned policies and to do the right thing for the common good. A wise individual must have known this about Nigeria and Nigerians when he asked: “Why, in practice, is the “simple” correct decision so rarely made?” Why are the things we consider priorities in Nigeria sometimes so juvenile and often defy common sense? I suffered in the most embarrassing way when I was singing the old national anthem at an important ceremony in Nigeria in the 1980s. I was forced to shut up when it became clear to me that I couldn’t be right and everybody else in attendance was wrong. I had no idea that the very felicitous “Nigeria we hail thee” had been replaced. I wondered if this very apropos national anthem had been changed just for the sake of change. I still remember the old anthem vividly:
Nigeria, we hail thee,
Our own dear native land,
Though tribe and tongue may differ,
In brotherhood we stand,
Nigerians all, and proud to serve
Our sovereign motherland
Our flag shall be a symbol,
That truth and justice reign,
In peace or battle honored,
And this we count as gain
To hand on to our children
A banner without stain
O lord of all creation,
Grant this our one request
Help us to build a nation
Where no man is oppressed
An so, with peace and plenty,
Nigeria may be blessed.
Here was an anthem that spoke to the realities of Nigeria. Why was it discarded? Is it because it says “Our own dear native land”? Is Nigeria not our own dear native land? Is it because it says “Though tribe and tongue may differ”? Is it a lie that tribe and tongue differ in Nigeria? Is it not true that in Nigeria there are an estimated 250 to 400 ethnic groups speaking an estimated 350 to 400 languages, not counting the associated dialects? Why did we abandon a well-reasoned anthem? Is it because it was written by Ms. Lilian Jean Williams, a British expatriate? Is it because it was composed by Mrs. Charles Kernot, aka Frances Benda, also an expatriate? Did we do away with such an apt anthem because it described the task of social unity in Nigeria as the collective responsibility of all Nigerians? Well, isn’t the quest for social unity our collective responsibility? The way I see it, unless there is an ethnic group in Nigeria harboring the belief that its members are the only legitimate Nigerians, social unity in Nigeria is the collective responsibility of all Nigerians. As Homer would remind everyone, “light is the task where many share the toil”.
To build and maintain the culture of social unity in Nigeria, the ruling class must understand and accept their role inherent in the philosophy and spirit of servant-leadership. They must learn to listen to the cry and plight of the citizens. They must learn to eschew selfishness, greed, self-centeredness, arrogance, nonchalance, cruelty, vindictiveness, threats, intolerance, and persecution in their role as servant-leaders. They must disengage themselves from any quid pro quo relationships with governments of rich countries, which often undergird human right abuses, oppression, and suppression in Nigeria. They must discontinue the practice of taking advantage of shameful and appalling socioeconomic conditions that they themselves have created in Nigeria to incite ethnic conflicts and violence; thereby distracting attention from the mess they are making of the country. They must learn the art of governing with transparency, candor, moral rectitude, accountability, integrity, trustworthiness, and compassion. They must recognize that the Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba may be the dominant but not the only ethnic groups in Nigeria. Because of all the attention (good or bad) these three groups receive, the numerous minority ethnic groups “often consider themselves discriminated against, neglected, or oppressed” (Simon A. Rakov). Due to the treatment often meted to them, many members of these minority ethnic groups often help the ruling class (already doing very well on its own) in pitting the majority groups against each other and exacerbating already volatile relationships.
In copying the pattern of government of another country, it must include those provisions therein that promote social unity and integration. If we choose to create states, as in the United States of America, we must uphold or adopt the notion of “state of residence” instead of “state of origin”, to avoid social resentment and violence. Why has our ruling class resisted the idea of convening a Sovereign National Conference in which all ethnic groups are represented for the purpose of an effective dialogue that stands a better chance of engendering social unity and integration in Nigeria? In the words of the venerable Pope John Paul II, “Dialogue leads to recognition of diversity and opens the mind to the mutual acceptance and genuine collaboration demanded by the human family’s basic vocation to unity.” He also wrote that “In order to build the civilization of love, dialogue between cultures must work to overcome all ethnocentric selfishness and make it possible to combine regard for one’s own identity with understanding of others and respect for diversity.” As Confucius rightly pointed out, when leaders lead by example the people will follow.” To our ruling class, the people are waiting and looking up to you to lead by example and doing the right thing for the common good; their patience is not infinite!
The people must share the responsibility of promoting social unity with the ruling class. By now we have all heard or read about John F. Kennedy’s “think not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. To succeed as a country we must cooperate and collaborate with each other in mutually respectful relationships. It is disrespectful and arrogant to speak Igbo to an audience involving Hausas and Yorubas who do not understand the Igbo language. It is disrespectful and arrogant to address an audience in Yoruba where there are Igbos and Hausas who do not understand the language. It is disrespectful and arrogant to speak Hausa to an audience comprising Yorubas and Igbos who do not understand the language. As Adam Smith noted in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, “There can be no proper motive for hurting our neighbor, there can be no incitement to do evil to another which mankind will go along with, except just indignation for evil which that other has done to us. To disturb his happiness merely because it stands in the way of our own, to take from him what is of real use to him merely because it may be of equal or of more use to us, or to indulge, in this manner, at the expense of other people, the natural preference which every man has for his own happiness above that of other people, is what no impartial spectator can go along with…” We must treat one another as we would want to be treated. Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora must learn to put aside their differences and work assiduously and relentlessly to understand and accept each other in the interest of social unity and solidarity. Nigerians must resist being caught in the well-known politics of ethnic polarization and animosity employed by selfish, manipulative, inept, incompetent, venal, and often diffident politicians in pursuit of coveted positions of power.
There is a saying in the Igbo language that it is wise to look for a stray black goat when there is still daylight because it will be difficult to find at night.
Adam Smith also said that no society can be happy and flourishing of which many of its people are poor and miserable. Another intellectual correctly observed that in the absence of distribution, growth is at the very least a necessary chemotherapy for the cancer of poverty. To these I add that growth cannot assist the poor if it does not reach them.
I once read from the bumper sticker of a car I was trailing that the mind is like a parachute; it works when it is open. We cannot desire a country in which people get along without keeping an open mind.
Finally, any society where poverty, inequality, unemployment, injustice, cruelty, human right abuses, and unacceptable income disparity prevail, peace cannot endure.
Ladies and gentlemen I thank you for the audience and opportunity to share my thoughts with you. May the good Lord richly bless you!
Dr. Anthony I. Akubue,
Professor, Department of Environmental and Technological Studies, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minnesota My Keynote Speech at the 47th anniversary celebration of Nigerian Independence, held at East Side Neighborhood Services, 1700 2nd Street NE, Minneapolis.
IN SUMMARY: The author is saying that Nigerians are comfortable with Poverty.
Hail Biafra Posts: 1672 | From: Minnesota USA | Registered: Mar 2001
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Beautiful speech and where researched. The ungrateful Awolowo after being Release from Calabar prison put the plan to change the truth you highlighted above. And when the Buhari people came he planted the idea to changeeverything.
Posts: 79 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Jun 2007
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I have JPEGs of Ibrahim Babbaginda pictures of his home in Nigeria [Minna]but I am unable to post it on the Message Board, It has no link. Anyone more tech savvy than me let me know, Or send me your e-mail through BNW; I will send it to you. The home is magnificent and breath taking. A public money you will regret being a Nigeian.
Hail Biafra
Posts: 1672 | From: Minnesota USA | Registered: Mar 2001
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Please sent it to me on attachment. My email address is: bobfranklin2020@yahoo.co.uk. It would be appreciated. That would tell you how the guy who destroyed the nigerian currency made billions of dollars. When he was the HOS, he not only was dashing oilwells to his friends but was bunking too.
Posts: 79 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Jun 2007
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I forgot to add above that if asked how he the house came about, would say it's a gift from his brother-in-law Sunny Odogwu, his wife Miriam's brother whom he made a billionier when he was the head of state by giving a couple of the nation's oil wells to drill and sell. Which went to give him his nickname of maradonna because he fucking the country up. Having let himself be bambuzoed by the IMF into devaluating the nation's currency and removing the oil subsidy in his 1st & 2nd tie system that turned Naira into CFA or the Italian discarded currency call the Lira. Having saved his hides from prison when as the army chief of staff he and his wife were implicated in a drug scandal that would have rock the Buhari/Idiagbo regime like the Adekunle/Sotomi did to Gowon's. He overthrew Buhari while Idiagbo was on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Then the economy of the country became, "steal as much as you can and hero warship maradona you will get away". God save that country where their leaders are what late Fela Kuti called "pen robbers".God please resurrect Biafra and save her people from these maladministrative blunder call nigeria. Hail Biafra
Posts: 79 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Jun 2007
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I sent you the JPEG of Babangida homes to your e-mail address. The home is magnificent, fit for a King. You will be amazed how much public money was used to build this home, not bad for an Hausa man, they now have, swimming pool, furniture in their home rather than mat.
Hail Biafra Posts: 1672 | From: Minnesota USA | Registered: Mar 2001
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Nigerian Senate to recommend reward to Samuel Peters a paid professional boxer. I hope it is not money, otherwise Nigerians are hosed again. Money should be channeled to upgrading the social life of the people not an individual. Patriotism is not about money it is about recognition.
Hail Biafra
[ October 25, 2007, 06:07 PM: Message edited by: Waypoint1Biafra ]
Posts: 1672 | From: Minnesota USA | Registered: Mar 2001
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Bros Waypoint1Biafra! I didn't receive the email,I've being dying to see the picture. I bet it would out shine the one he has in London that marvelled alot of English people who saw it. It is said to be one of the best building in London posh bishops gate area. Please try and send it to me again. As I posted on the Orji-Uzo Kalu's case, a governor from one of the western state came to London and paid cash for twenty two houses which cost him a little over seventy million pounds, which converted to dollars is about $140million. That is why there is no infrastructures at home and people are dying of hunger in a country blessed with natural and human resources. If the senate is rewarding Sam Peters, it means someone wants to use him to get some money out of the country, like Taka did with Dabo and we know what happened there. Once more, my email address is: bobfranklin2020@yahoo.co.uk I look forward to seeing this breathtaking edific. Hail Biafra The Land of The Raising Sun. Udo dirigi.
Posts: 79 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Jun 2007
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Nigerian Supreme Court is coming of age and becoming judicial activist in the Nigerian political arena.
Amaechi takes over as Rivers gov: Supreme Court sacks Omehia - Amaechi returns from London today - Yar’Adua orders his immediate swearing-in - Yobe gov knows fate Nov 20
THE Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the Rivers State governor, Sir Celestine Omehia, to quit office with immediate effect.
A seven-man panel of the apex court unanimously ordered the immediate swearing-in of the former Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Honourable Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, as the new governor.
Hail Biafra
Posts: 1672 | From: Minnesota USA | Registered: Mar 2001
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The biggest mistake Igbos made before the war started was trusting people like Awo and being too nice. If Ojukwu knew, he should have left the bastard to rot in jail.
DR. FRANK B. OPARA, I have e-mailed you the pictures of Babaginda homes built with public money to bobfranklin202@yahoo.co.uk on 10/27/2007. The last pictures sent to you were not returned undeliverable,I wonder why you did not receive them. Let me know if you got this one.
Hail Biafra Posts: 1672 | From: Minnesota USA | Registered: Mar 2001
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Yaradua has accepted the British Government to re-organize the Nigerian Police.
Advise; if this is true, it is a waste of Tax payer's money. Yaradua should send personnel to USA or Britian as observers and see what works, return home and implement the changes by themselves at no cost. The British government cannot be responsible for what what works in Nigeria and for them to play a major role in the re-organization of the criminal justice system is a shame to the country and disgrace to his administration. Nigerians for Nigerians. Do it yourself and if fail, learn from it. This dependency gotta stop somewhere.
Hail Biafra
Posts: 1672 | From: Minnesota USA | Registered: Mar 2001
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But the ex-Sandhurst trained officers, what have they done for that country other than being the centre-point of trouble making. Starting with the lates Muritala and Abbakayari to Gowon. Like you said they better come over as observers, but I still have my doubts that those coming over would be here to buy things rather than observe how their counter-parts work. To me, people, I think the President wants to please and shutup the police. Let him pay them first and stop them collecting bribe then he can send them to heaven if he wants. HAIL BIAFRA THE LAND OF THE RAISING SUN NOW AND FOR EVER!!!!!
Posts: 79 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Jun 2007
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Why are you worried about sending mail to a location that doesn't exist? You just don't get it, do you?
Posts: 37 | From: Kokori Villa, Benin City | Registered: Apr 2004
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Because I refuse falling for all the fraudsters mr waypa sent to dupe me. Waypoint1Biafra, be careful of the above Igbo hating, third class Benin wannobe who can't even express himself well in the so call bin Pidgin english. Only waypayo and waypa is all he knows.
Posts: 79 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Jun 2007
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