Wake up call for giant of Africa, Nigeria

Nigeria is a gifted country with human resources and materials as well, but it does not want to grow because she has hang-ups with “this is the way we have been doing it”.

Many schools of thoughts would say such thinking will bring divide especially when flexibility is absent. Life would be “Stand still” because of lack of renovation of thought.

When we cling to ethnicity especially when in power, the tendency is to forget others and stick to what would profit our ethnic constituencies. That is what has been done in the past that brings imbalance in the country. When it continues; it brings economic woes and political stagnations in Nigeria.

Nigerian economic and political stagnation bring us to what we are now; a butt of ridicule on the continental scale. “That is the way we have been doing it” has brought setbacks to Nigeria. Perhaps a light can be thrown into Nigeria to make tomorrow shine and bring prosperity and unity to people’s lives. Being the same all the time is monotonous and boring and of primitive time.

Many Nigerians have suggested creative ways of bringing us out of this quagmire of Satan: “this is the way we have been doing it”. Old things refuse to pass away. And this is the cause of our stagnation, a way of marching in one spot. We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect to get a better result. We cannot use the primordial means to arrive at modernity. We cannot use old skills to solve modern problems.

The World uses balancing for overpopulation but China was able to go inward to come up with optimal solution to their problems. China is the second largest economy. China isolated itself from the rest of the world as part of its inward policies. Today China has exploded industrially. Their products became top brands in USA, Britain and Germany and all over the world. This is part of restructuring. This is what some of us are afraid of in Nigeria. Some parts of Nigeria are afraid of moving out of their “comfort zone”. Life involves sacrifice, giving us certain things to go higher like; research. There is a serious disequilibrium in our resources, ‘There is need to restructure spending habits in order to balance the equation’. In budgeting, a certain percentage is earmarked for capital and recurrent expenditure.

In developed economies, the capital side goes by a given percentage every year, while there is a reduction in the recurrent expenditure side. When the capital expenditure begins to grow, the recurrent expenditure profile declines. This is good for the economy because there will be more for investment. Lack of it brings disequilibrium. That’s why Nigeria will continue and cannot get her budgeting right because of its inability to manage her resource. It looks outside. Looking outside entails conditionality.

The western world cannot give money on your own terms, but on their own terms. That is the hemorrhage of Nigerian situation. This hemorrhage can only be cured through restructuring the political economy. One of the reasons Nigeria cannot be like China, Malaysia or the Asian Tigers is that, she lacks the political will to do what is right. It takes years to fish out what is right.

Nigeria has inexhaustible natural resources but as long as the oil flows, she failed to open up the economy. Our so called leaders do not want to open up the economy as long as the oil outflows.

Lavish expenses by the Nigerian leaders and inability to help its people, makes the youth look for greener pastures. We cannot quantify the number of Nigerian youths that died on their way to Europe via Libya. The colonial hang-ups are still in most of the African countries. Most countries in Africa still pay primitive loyalties to their former colonizers to get a bite from them.

Nigerian bad governance is one of the setbacks. Unequal distribution of the resources, election malpractices and installation of leaders that lack integrity, make mockery of Nigeria. There is too much bloodshed, defective electoral system and riggings. There is war all over Africa. The world powers sell their arms to the economically vulnerable Third World thereby wounding them the more. Nigeria has witnessed civil war and since then there has been killings in Nigeria. Killings by herdsmen in Benue now are unimaginable and make people ask questions about Nigeria and her future. Nigeria does not speak with one voice. Unity is fragile.

When a president makes policies that will only favour his zone, it creates a divide. Why would a group struggling for self identity be proscribed as a terrorist organization while the blood-shedding Fulani herdsmen are allocated a Cattle Colony with an alleged millions of naira released by CBN to build ranches across the country? This is ridiculous! Why must the rest of Nigeria be “Yes men” especially the south-east. Why must the South-east keep mute over a degradation of the country while the South-west are raising great voices against what hurts the nation.

Thirty-one years of military rule devastated Nigeria. The democracy they embraced now is not a genuine one. If it is, the President would not be acting contrary to Nigerian decisions. Governance in Africa makes a mockery of democracy. Africa has been destabilized by its colonizers and the psychological scar created is always with them. Nigeria, the so called giant of Africa was not excluded from Trump’s vulgar comments. To the amazement of the world, Trump said that certain “shithole countries” from Africa and Haiti came to America to rape them.

Nigeria is not excluded from the comments. Trump wants America back to “white society”. Trump calls African people shitholes and never remembered that African slaves contributed to American development. He is accomplishing his goal on why he entered into politics to destabilize the American system of free world. Trump is not a renaissance man. He is Trump and acts like Trump.

Diplomacy will not eradicate the imprint of Trump’s statement but it is already in the psyche of the world. Trump can be quoted, but reactions of those who read what he said will put him in the shithole of history.

The African leaders should not create refugees. They should govern their people well. Nigeria, the giant of Africa should bring peace in its own country and other parts of Africa. Power should be used to create peace, bring unity and heal the wounded by injustice. It should be used to organize people, not to disorganize them.

Those in power should not be indifferent but proactive. Nigeria should wake up and learn something from Trump’s vulgar comments.

Global outrage erupted over Trump’s shithole remark. Trump is rubbishing Africa, rubbishing the giant of Africa; Nigeria. Still he spoke at Martin Luther King Jr.’s Memorial Day amid his racial remark. He rubbishes Blacks, He rubbishes Mandela, rubbishes the former president of Zimbabwe; Mugabe, rubbishes our political Icons who fought for our freedom, rubbishes South Africa – the country of Black and White. But he refuses to see how black and white blend together and the tolerance of the Blacks; South Africa.

Infact, we have to know what Trump is after. America First is portrayed in his manners and speeches. We have to remember what happened at Charlottes Ville where everybody knew Trump’s stance and his hidden political agenda.

Since he came to power, he has been running Obama’s administration down. He claimed that Obama is not an American. Africans should not lose sleep because of Trump’s vulgarity because that is the way Trump is. Trump’s reality is not your reality, nor mine.

Trump has made Africa to open its eyes to appreciate their environment, climate and be at home with what she has. Africa should develop and take up challenges so that our youth will not be victims of western siren advertisement. There is no place like home. Our weather is clement. We have abundant resources tapped and untapped but we have to develop them for the benefit of all. But the problems we have is; the political elite hijacked those things given to us by God. That is why we are poor. For others to overcome poverty created by our greedy leaders, we have to go to America the land of freedom and plenty, Britain, Germany and Australia, the countries that are developed. If we are developed, nothing will make us look outside and receive insults like Trump calling Africa, shithole countries. What Trump said, is it worse than the quit notice given to Igbos by Arewa Consultative Forum, the Igbos living in their country? Are they refugees or economic migrants?

Pulling people down using; tribalism, racism, nepotism, xenophobia, are all these not found in the recesses of the whole world’s minds? Managing these behavioural attitudes or the old Adam in us requires high degree of tolerance for a civilized man, otherwise the world would be full of Trump’s cynicism, bigotry and the world created by God would be full of crises.

Thinking globally and acting globally ensures hope for this tangled world.

Very Rev. Msgr Livinus Ukah is a Catholic Parish Priest ‎in Lagos.