A closer look at the Nigerian national anthem (1)

As the year comes to an end, it is time for individual and corporate soul searching. I would like to start with the corporate. An enterprise that does not have a way forward, that repeats the mistakes of the past, that spends its time complaining, buries efficiency, destroys its heritage, spreads hate and falsehood on line, perpetuates living off other people’s money(Yahoo) and eats its citizens for dinner while citizens become predators of each other, needs some serious soul searching.

At 60, the Nigerian enterprise deserves introspection and I am not only talking of leaders who have a duty to look after us but I am also talking of her citizens who have jointly and severally brought Nigeria to its knees. We, leaders and citizens, have brought us where we are today. There is the most incredible failure of leadership at different levels. If you break the traffic light and someone dies, you are more likely to be thinking of how to bribe your way out of it than face the consequences. If you commit a crime, you are looking for who knows who to help you escape the law and if you rape someone’s daughter, your parents will arrange for settlement and treat the victim with disdain while asking them to take money for their pain. Exam malpractices are now the rave and we watched superstars in America go to jail because they bought admission for their kids at ivy league colleges.

We condone larceny, armed robbery, theft of all kinds, nepotism, crass tribalism, and the basest immorality even from our children and we look the other way while digging our own graves.

In Nigeria such a case will most likely be swept under the carpet. We do not make examples of criminals, rapists, predators, pen thieves especially those who are highly placed. We sweep the matters under the table and act like everything is alright. As for the few that get caught, we act like it is a travesty and call out those who dare to arrest them. The nation is groaning under crime without consequences and we use our community relations and our networks to pretend that we are alright but we all know it is not okay. From the very top to the lowliest Nigerian, there is unease everywhere and we ask ourselves what the problem is as if we do not know. We obey only when someone is breathing over our shoulders. We have decided that the law is for other people and we should not obey them. We are more interested in our cousins becoming DG of something, anything at all as long as he/she brings the money home. And it does not matter if he/she does not qualify. We condone larceny, armed robbery, theft of all kinds, nepotism, crass tribalism, and the basest immorality even from our children and we look the other way while digging our own graves. And we have thrown shame to the wind and believe that lucre and high octane enjoyment is certainly better than national development. Are we still asking what is the problem? The problem is us, severally and collectively.

Read also: Statement by Patriotic Nigerians, Nigerians of the Diaspora and Friends of Nigeria

Let us pause a while and take a look at our national anthem.

Arise O compatriots, Nigeria’s call obey… Oh wow! Nigeria’s call? Nigerians have abandoned the national call and are dealing with their selfish individual calls, their family calls and their club’s call etcetera. Nigeria as a body and all its values, which we grew up with, have been thrown under the Bus.

And continuing the anthem calls that we should “serve our fatherland with love and strength and faith” Really? Serve? Impossible. We use Nigeria as an ATM and give nothing back. We want our lineage for the next 100 years to “chop Nigeria finish.” So we steal her blind and not care about the commonwealth as long as our own family are okay. And we think it’s only at home that we fail Nigeria. Some of our members in Diaspora are burying their nation alive. Does Hush puppy and his cohorts live here? The Nigerian industry of fraud and crime is alive and well in the Diaspora. And quite a number of them want to come home and reap where they did not sow. DG of anything will do. Meanwhile they left the rest of us at home and escaped what they felt was a failed state. Then they come in through all means to help cannibalise the nation. Shame has departed us and that is an unspoken. People trusted to serve are acting like Pirates, their hand and that of their family in the till. It is sad. “The labours of our heroes past.” Who cares about our heroes? We have thrown everything away. We are modern people. Who needs heroes? And yet it is true that children who stand on the shoulders of their forebears cannot fail. Take a look at Britain’s great traditions and see for yourself where it took them. “To serve with heart and mind.” Sorry service was thrown out a long time ago. Self-service is more like it.

Next week we continue our close look at the National anthem.