By Joseph O. Okpaku, Sr.
A virgin at 50 is still a virgin. A man at 50 is a legally accountable adult whatever his contradictions and idiosyncrasies. A nation at 50 is of age and firmly answerable for its condition and conduct, whatever its history or circumstances.

Nigeria at 50, a people and nation extraordinarily gifted and endowed yet with a profound promise yet unfulfilled, remains patently the epitome of a marvel of an illusive enigmatic anomaly the substance of which continues to be slippery to the grasp of even its own people.

And so it comes as no surprise that two months ago, as the country observed the 50th anniversary of her formal political independence from Britain, Nigerians were in an extraordinarily uncharacteristic mood and disposition.

They were more out of sorts than enthusiastic, distracted and otherwise preoccupied with the burden of every day life that has been all but what they ever expected and actually once knew. Nigerians are today skeptical even if still not quite disillusioned because Nigerians, being humanity’s most innately perpetual optimists, never truly despair.

But on the weekend of October 1, as they took advantage of the half-day holiday of Thursday, September 30, and a full day on Friday, October 1, to catch their breath, they were essentially sullen and disconcerted, but not broken—far from it. Such is Nigeria today, on this 50th anniversary of its existence as an independent nation.

Nigeria was born 50 years ago on a bedrock of a great dream carved out of the earnest hopes and expectations of the people themselves, their desire, ability, determination and commitment to build a one-of-a-kind society that embodied the best of human genius ennobled by a rich and diverse culture that would serve as its context and lifeline.

That dream was born out of the palpable vision of a group of brilliant and genuinely highly motivated young leaders who were as eloquent as they were passionate, and as responsive and solicitous of the people’s will and support as they were soberly accessible, responsible and reliable.

Together, the people and their youthful, smart and charismatic leaders seemed a perfect fit for nation-building even though they had political, ideological and strategic differences and interests which they mostly recognized and enthusiastically debated in the open.

Together, the people and their political leaders were on the same train, one propelled as much by the sheer force of their common dream and fortitude as by the energy of the great promise of the new nation they embarked on building.

They were clear about the complex challenges of masterminding the future of Nigeria and of the fact that success or failure lay in their hands, and they were sober about the enormity of that responsibility.

Two-thirds of Nigerians being yet unborn have no recollection of that moment on Saturday, October 1, 1960 when the Union Jack came down for the last time in Nigeria and the vertical green-white-green panels of the flag of an independent Nigeria rose in dignity at what was then Independence Square, later appropriately renamed Tafawa Balewa Square after the nation’s first prime minister.

As for the older one-third, those amongst them who were old enough to experience the magical exhilaration of independence as the right to shape their own destiny in accordance with their own genius, anecdotal evidence in the absence of a comprehensive dedicated study suggests that there is some sort of an intellectual hesitation, an emotional uncertainty, a combined unease.

There seems to be a profound unwillingness to categorically characterize this moment in history and the years that immediately precede it, for fear that doing so might reveal their own sense of existential guilt and responsibility for what failed to come about and yet most eminently could have been. Amongst this group there is a palpable sense of having been let down. By whom perhaps? This is where the perception is rather blurred.

Most commonly it is said, that the Nigerian dream and promise were betrayed by a group generically called “our leaders”. But it is hard not to discern in this disquiet, the sense also that most of this generation, my generation, privately feel that, to some extent, we might in some way have let ourselves down, we might have contributed, even if inadvertently or by miscalculation or honest omission, and, in so doing, let our young generation down in not having so far delivered the foundation on which they could have built their own glorious present and future legacy.

And so the march up to October 1’s 50th anniversary celebrations, as indeed the public commentaries all that weekend, focused on whether or not there was reason to celebrate and, if so, for what. Mr. Adams Oshiomhole, governor of Edo State, addressed this pervasive public preoccupation frontally in his address to the 50th anniversary rally in Benin City when he said, “Many have said that there is nothing to celebrate. I believe that there is much to celebrate.

We do not celebrate the problems of the past, but the hope of a better tomorrow.” President Goodluck Jonathan, himself, also courageously and smartly took on this pervasive public anxiety in his own anniversary address. “This is the time to consider our past,” he said, “so that it can inform our future.” My friend, Alhaji Maitama Sule, one of the young Turks amongst the founding fathers of modern Nigeria and once ambassador and permanent representative of Nigeria to the United Nations, put it philosophically.

“The purpose of history,” he said in an interview as one of the 50 recipients of the Nigeria 50th anniversary honours, “is to know the past so that you can adjust the present to inform the future.”For his part, former Delta State governor, Dr. Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan, addressing the people at the state capital, Asaba, said that “the golden jubilee anniversary of our independence as a nation must be observed even though we may not have attained the height we had looked forward to on the day of our independence.

If nothing else, we should applaud our founding fathers for all the sacrifices and efforts they made to obtain self rule on which foundation, a solid, strong and progressive nation state has been built.” Paraphrasing one of the founding fathers of Ghana and pre-eminent African of all times, he said that “indeed as one of the great African leaders, Kwame Nkrumah once said, we need to seek political freedom so that all others would follow.

We salute our founding fathers, especially today and surely, their efforts would not be in vain.”
“There are arguments in some quarters on whether, as Nigerians, we have anything to celebrate,’ Uduaghan continued. “We have numerous milestones to thank God for, both as a nation and as a people. That in spite of the numerous challenges we face as a nation, we remain one indivisible country; that we survived a civil war and became more united thereafter; that our voices are beginning to be heard louder and clearer in the comity of nations, in addition to the uninterrupted march of democracy and its ethos in more than a decade, are all worthy of celebration. We cannot count all the blessings.”

Issuing a clarion call to Deltans and to fellow Nigerians in general, Uduaghan declared, “There is time in the history of every nation for reflection, forgiveness, unity and collective rededication to a positive future. Let us look at history, our communities, our families and ourselves and seek answers to the question of whether we are doing the right things. The best time for this renewed commitment and sacrifice for the sake of our state and country is now.”

For a people famous for being so very happy-go-lucky, so insufferably self-confident, this uncharacteristic heavily layered somber mood has been most striking and, in its own way, most significant. It reflects the disposition of a people whose immense capacity to absorb shocks, to ride the wave of stormy weathers until calm returns has almost worn thin from excessively extended battering.

It speaks loudly of a people who simply want their leaders to put on the brakes, even for a few days, sit down without distraction, and listen to them talk about their and Nigeria’s common concerns and anxieties, their disaffection and their strong loss of faith in the direction their nation is and has been going.

They simply want to be heard and listened to, and to have their leaders take time off from their relentlessly frenetic rushing around to rethink in dialogue with them and, in the open, the pedigree of Nigeria’s malaise, what has gone wrong, why and how together we might craft a new direction. They seek a fresh or renewed effort in the right direction, so that whatever the price we have paid over the last fifty years for which we have not gained legitimate or expected returns, we might now get things right going forward, and, in so doing, get the benefits of hindsight and lessons learned, even if we do not regain the portion of paradise already lost in the bold process of gaining a new paradise.

Perhaps what has been refreshing in all of this is the almost uncanny seemingly inadvertent consensus on the importance of this preoccupation with whether or not there is something to celebrate as reflected in the ubiquitous nature of the issue being addressed.

This development, which is a significant departure from the erstwhile prevalent contradictions between a political leadership that until most recently pretended or declared that all was well and a people who simply know or feel differently and now really do not care to listen, would suggest the very early beginnings of a political awakening.

It would seem that, for the first time in years, our politicians are beginning to feel that they once again need public support and endorsement for their continued relevance; they need the people’s votes for their political survival.

If this incipient development, namely the wholesome reduction in the presumption and arrogance of the politician and of power back to the people, is real, even if as yet only minimally so, this might signal indications of hope in the people’s long search for a political paradigm shift. Perhaps, at long last, the political leadership just might be hearing the faint echoes of what has been a loud but disregarded wake-up call.

If this is true, and a close observation of the events and the mood, temperament and disposition of the Nigerian people in the days preceding October 1, of the weeks since then would suggest this to be the case, then, indeed, there is much to be at least thankful for, if not celebrate, during this continued festive period.

What makes the emergence of this crystal of hope, this catalyst of new possibilities very significant at a time like this is that its incipient evolution is not accidental nor is it a gesture of concession by politicians. Rather, it may be early evidence that the very insistence by Nigeria’s long-suffering people that enough is enough and that time had come for change or else, might just have gotten through, even if infinitesimally so.

For decades, the circumvention of the people’s will and opinion in the ascendancy to power by military regimes for 29 of the past 50 years of Nigeria as a sovereign state, a process inherent in their own institutional culture, rendered irrelevant the very notion of democratic governance.

The indecent mimicking of the same authoritarian process by civilian politicians and political parties which simply negotiated public office and equally disenfranchised the people, public opinion, and its collateral public vote, even when cast and if at all counted, simply perpetuated the same travesty in the paraphernalia of civilian governance.

This time, however, for many interesting reasons, not least of which are the strong voices of the erstwhile silenced population and, thankfully, the struggle for power within the political parties (especially the ruling Peoples Democratic Party) which has now literally forced competition within the parties themselves, present circumstances seem poised to compel those who once took the people for granted to now regard them as important to their political ambitions. Once recklessly arrogant politicians are finding themselves having to take cognizance of the people and their electoral power, or, at least, are beginning to pay lip service to the power of the people.

The people’s daily public insistence that the law and due process be upheld, that the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) carry out its duties and obligations honestly, transparently, lawfully and dutifully, with neither fear nor favour, would seem to be laying the groundwork and structure for a future genuine democracy. The people’s disposition to, at least, entertaining the idea of the possibility of a truly independent INEC, and the resurrection of the judiciary as willing and able to honestly and faithfully uphold both constitutional issues as well as the pleas of people who come to it to seek redress, all seem to be converging and conspiring to create a new hope.

The specter of a looming primary battle within the PDP for the nomination of a presidential candidate, one between a sitting president with the not insignificant power of incumbency,  and, until a few days ago, a former president who once wielded almost infinite power over the lives and fortunes of the Nigerian people, a former vice-president reputed to have enough personal wealth to fill a campaign war chest and more, a former chief of national security,  and more to come, offers up a cocktail of new hope that perhaps, at least, we might be at the early beginnings of a rationale democratic political process. The plethora of campaign advertisements with song and dance and whatever else might be yet to come (quite a prospective bonanza for our musicians), is a welcome throwback to the old days so many forgotten years ago when the people were genuinely and eagerly wooed by would-be elected officials and the public debate that ensured from the process brought enlightenment to the ideas and promises of good governance, all of it under the will and authority of the people.

*. Okpaku, Sr., a globally renowned Nigerian scholar, writer and corporate executive, is the president of Telecom Africa International Corporation and the chief executive of Third Press Publishers, both based in New Rochelle, N. Y. Email: Okpaku@aol.com