ONE debilitating strand that can be threaded out of the Nigerian situation is what can be described as the lack of commitment to one another and to the nation.   If you like, you can equate this phenomenon to lack of patriotism.

For the purpose of this discourse, I prefer to use the word commitment in order to avoid the use of the word patriotism because of the rather emotional import it portrays, with all its social and political innuendoes.

It seems to me that the Nigerian psyche now abhors commitment.   We, as a people, have given up on ourselves.   It seems to me that one of the most essential ingredients for national growth and cohesion; that is, a commitment to the cause of the nation, has been removed from the nation building process.

If one examines the tumult that is now going on in our political, social, economic and cultural life, the genesis of the confusion can be traced to the basic lack of commitment to Nigeria.   It is as if we have all resigned our fate and embraced the selfish philosophy of “every man for himself and God for us all”.

It is difficult to find in history, except in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Holy Bible, a nation that is so hell-bent on its own destruction, as almost the entire citizenry of Nigeria is up in arms against her.
Let us examine, even as feebly as we can, some aspects of the Nigerian situation in an attempt to bring home the import of my submission that the bane of the Nigerian society is the lack of the basic commitment of the Nigerian citizenry to the cause of the nation.

The political imbroglio in the country, particularly the series of precarious logjam at the National Assembly and the Houses of Assembly, and the internal wranglings within the political parties, which have been characterised by acts of arson, murder and a virtual breakdown of law and order, are a direct consequence of some individuals or groups fostering the behest of vested interests, whatever their colouration.

At the risk of bearding the lion in its den since I am talking to distinguished state and local governments’ legislators, the law makers, let us look also at what has happened to the rule of law as well as law and order in our country.   See the chicanery at some Houses of Assembly and the National Assembly.   They propose laws, and as soon as it appears that some of them will be the victims of the law, they frustrate them or refuse to pass them.

In Nigeria, it is one law for the legislator and another for the rest of us.   “The grasses have begun to eat the sheep.”   They combine the role of the Legislature with the executive by concentrating on the oversight functions and have become the super executive just to serve vested interest who are hell-bent to remain relevant for all times.

The labour unions are busy romancing with their oppressors when they should call for a national strike until wrongs are righted, only to call their members on strike if petroleum subsidy that benefits only a miserable minority of vested interest is removed or threaten brimstone and fire if PHCN is privatised.
Judgments are delivered by the courts of the land and operators of the system ignore court judgments and carry on business as usual because the efficacy of the judicial system is in question, what with published cases of judges with questionable cash balances in their bank accounts.

Even when there are palpable infringements of the law of the land, the lawyers look the other way, only to protest frivolities, if someone decides to marry a minor or whether the SAN title be abrogated.  Every lawyer has his own interpretation of what the Constitution says or the law court decides.   So, we have on display an unenacted anarchy.   It is all like a huge joke and Nigeria is becoming a laughing stock.   What an inglorious decline for a nation with so much potential clout and international respect.

Let us look quickly at the battered economy.   I submit that the bane of our economy is the direct influence of selfishness and greed; a lack of commitment by all the players within the polity.   Is it possible for anyone to fathom such an unproductive economy, like the Nigerian economy sustaining an interest level at 22 per cent per annum?   What can anyone produce to garner income that will pay the interest and leave some profits?   Maybe cocaine sold in America.

The sudden surge in income from oil production made us to abandon agriculture – the mainstay of our economy, and embrace a most reckless spending of the money that was not worked for, saying that our problem was not the lack of money, but how to spend it.
Time it was that the Nigerian Naira was the equivalent of one American US Dollar.   We all basked in it.

We imported all forms of rubbish that were the rejects of other nations into this country.   We borrowed and borrowed in the midst of plenty only to become slaves to the Paris Club and London Club.   For he who goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.

In Nigeria today, it is still business as usual.   With the Naira at N150.00 to one US Dollar, see what Nigeria still expends its meagre resources on.   We are happy as a people to spend our meagre resources keeping foreign industries in production whilst we impoverish our own and condemn locally produced goods as inferior.   We waylay all attempts by incumbent governments to shore up the economy through acts of sabotage and the perpetration of a corrupt system that is nulli secondus.

The banks needed a cudgel at their back to be persuaded.   We now know the core beneficiaries of the debacle – the selfish minority vested interest.

Our penchant for satisfying selfish and greedy lusts to the detriment of the masses of our people and the nation has eaten so deep into our body politics that it is now a cancer that will consume the nation.   The disease is now near incurable. It comes  from a basic lack of commitment to the cause of the nation.

I believe a lot is wrong with a people who have destroyed the intrinsic value of love and care through the share lack of a will to commit themselves to the nation and one another.

Is it to the fourth realm that you want to turn?   Today, they cry Hosanna; tomorrow, they yell crucify him.  Except for a few, there is a general lack of commitment to the nation.   It is more of a question of which side of the divide they are, and what power at the moment influences their thinking.   It could be money; it could be vaunting ambition or their employer.   As the saying goes, ‘He who pays the piper dictates the tune’.

See what has happened to education and health in this country.   All stakeholders have virtually given up on themselves.   The governments are confused, hopping from one system to the other, complicating the issues and paying lip services to funding education and health services.

By Dr Bayo Akinnola, a High chief, is the Lisa of Ondo Kingdom.