The Emrys Ijaola Commentaries

“If you believe, and I believe, and we all work for it;
Almighty God will grant us grace, (and) Nigeria will be saved.
Nigeria will be saved, Nigeria will be changed
Almighty God will grant us grace, (and) Nigeria will be great!”
- Anthem of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG)

Faulty belief systems have been laid down as the foundation of our individual mindsets, and by extension, our national psyche. 50 years after independence, the country still wallows in abject mindless and directionless existence, because we have been wired to do nothing, while expecting every good thing to fall on our laps! A ‘do-nothing’ is a ‘get-nothing’.

There are issues that will always threaten to divide this nation, as long as the majority of its people refuse to shift our paradigm, and go beyond what we think is our belief system. If you however take time to reflect deeply, you will find that most of us had no direct input in shaping or forming that belief system. The society we grew up in, the incidents of association and whose voices we filled our brains with, contributed immensely to this system. Issues such as tribalism, religion, fanaticism, resource control, quota system, and national representation, are political trump cards always available for those who do not wish this nation well. The gimmicks will always work because we (the people) have not learnt to live above the base instincts of unquestioned but animalistic “pack” loyalty that makes a lion stick with its kind, while monkeys stick with their kind, and attack any strange intrusion, or inclusion.

Most Nigerians, still grappling with the most basic needs of life, are easy to sway, and mobilize for the nefarious ends of the political class. The root of uprisings (be it Maitasiin, Boko Haram, Niger-Delta militancy, OPC) is the instigation of a group of under-privileged people, using money and unfounded incitements to push lesser minds to the streets, in order to cause chaos, distractions, and civil unrest, while the instigators continue looting the treasuries and using the money to acquire more arms. Their children will never go on the streets to die for what they believe, because, in reality they believe nothing, know no God, worship only their bellies, and have absolutely no respect for the man on the street.
They know emotions run high when you hear that members of your tribe are singled out for attacks, so they foment such somewhere, and wait for you to reprise. Thus, the cycle begins. Lives are wasted, resources are wasted, and eventually it all dies down as suddenly as it began. The mechanism oiled, and waiting to be used when the need arises again. Where tribal sentiments will not work, they will use religion!
Divisive structures continue to be encouraged, even in governance. The quota system, an initial structure that was put in place to help balance the inequality between the North and South of Nigeria, still continues to be used 50 years on. This system only breeds mediocrity in the long run, and at best should be used over a short period of time to correct imbalances, and skewed empowerment. In the case of Nigeria, it has become a veritable tool for propagating lack of excellence, where merit is sacrificed on the altar of inclusion.

Metropolitan areas must increase in Nigeria, where people (especially children) of various cultures must mix, and grow up together. It allows for exposure to other cultures, appreciation, and acceptance of the good in other belief systems, and replacement of the aspects of one’s culture that is generally unacceptable, and offensive to others. We should go beyond breeding ‘de-tribalised’ Nigerians, to breeding ‘un-tribalised’ ones. This is not a call for the erosion of your tribal or cultural values, but a demand to change and improve on your values by ‘borrowing’ best practices from other cultures. This is the only way for civilizations to grow. It is what makes man higher primates than other animals.
We cannot continue to think, act and react the same way we have done over the years, and expect a change in the results we get. To change our society, we must first change ourselves. The nation is only a sum of each and everyone of us.

As Mallam Nasir El-Rufai mentioned recently (and I totally agree with him), for 99 per cent of Nigerians, the religion we practise is a matter of accident of birth. We did not choose to be Christian or Muslim or pagan, but only continued in what we were wired from childhood to believe. And for that accident, we mindlessly look down on others, and are quick to raise arms against them. Religious wars are non-existent amongst the Yoruba people because you have people of various religions in every family. They live together, and relate with one another, first as kin, without any religious bias. The rest of Nigeria should learn from this.

Most Nigerians indulge in disruptive issues because they do not question leadership. When we learn to question the motives of our so-called leaders, we do not jump at every command. Their children do not go out to the streets to die. The same educated people, who still send their children abroad to live amongst the Westerners, and acquire western education, sponsor the illiterate, mindless street urchins to bear arms against the western influenced system. We must begin to think differently.What do you teach your children about other cultures? What believes do you hold without questioning? What are you prepared to do in order to hold on to that belief? Multiply that by 150 million, and begin to appreciate why we are in the mess we have today.