By Douglas Anele

They point to the big brother role Nigeria has played, and still plays, in the West African sub-region and in the African continent as a whole. One can concede all that and still maintain, correctly in my view, that although the country might be beautiful abroad, she is ugly at home. Even so, Nigeria’s standing in Africa, and in the world generally, has nosedived since the 1990s. For instance, the irritating subordinate status accorded Nigeria during the burial of Nelson Mandela is a telling demonstration that things have fallen apart with respect to her rating by other African countries.

President Jonathan, just like his predecessors, appears not to grasp the wisdom encoded in the Igbo saying that ana esi n’ulo mara mma puo ama (charity begins from home). It is plain self-deception to expect respect and recognition from other countries when the quality of governance at home is mediocre and a sizeable percentage of the citizens are using every means possible to leave the country in pursuit of better life elsewhere, real or imagined.

On the economic front, consideration of the large quantum leap in revenue generated since amalgamation, first through the sale of cash crops and now especially through crude oil exports, might lead one to support the owambe at Abuja. In that regard, recently, government officials have been telling Nigerians that the economy is growing. Although I am not an economist, my educated guess is that the figures indicating growth in the midst of relentless pauperisation, deindustrialisation and shambolic infrastructure must have been arrived at by selective manipulation of some economic indices.

Keep in mind that statistics are like bikinis; what they reveal is interesting, but what they conceal is even more interesting. Beneath the superficial statistical evidence of economic prosperity, the fundamentals of Nigeria’s economy, largely, are still as underdeveloped, still as dependent on foreign multinationals, as they were shortly after amalgamation. In some cases, they are even worse now. To substantiate that claim would require detailed exploration of the country’s economic development from 1914 to 2014, which would take our analysis too far afield.

All the same, one or two examples are enough to justify our assessment above. In the 1960s, Eastern region was rated among the fastest growing economies in the world. Then, Nigeria was slightly ahead of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia in economic development. Presently, revenge mentality against Ndigbo by Northerners who dominated the highest political office in the country and malignant greed among Igbo leaders have led to near-total collapse of industrialisation in Igboland.

Moreover, Nigeria has the nasty reputation of being one of the richest countries in the world with the greatest percentage of poor people. Oby Ezekwesili, a former member of the ruling elite, sometime ago claimed that Nigeria has made over $600 billion from crude oil sales. In my opinion, rapacious public officials have probably stolen up to half that amount, thereby spreading mass poverty nationwide. Therefore, on the economic front, Nigerian leaders, with a few exceptions, are a stinking disgrace. The best Jonathan’s administration should have done is to have a very low-key event without the shenanigan that reached its nauseating apogee at the award/dinner night in Abuja.

One of the most important ingredients in the evolution of great nations is a nexus of generally accepted symbols and narratives that provides psycho-spiritual consciousness necessary for social cohesion and patriotism. The United States of America, despite her egregious failures at both domestic and international fronts, is a supreme example of this. America is a pluralistic country like Nigeria, and although its history is different from Nigeria and Americans have had much longer experience in nation building than us, after a hundred years our leaders seem to have learnt nothing from American history.

Now, the kernel of psycho-spiritual consciousness for nation building is captured in the famous exhortation of J.F. Kennedy “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask for what you can do for your country.” But such consciousness is created, nurtured and disseminated through exemplary leadership, which understands that the destiny of nations lies in the hands of selfless, committed, transparent, disciplined and visionary leaders.

Americans are lucky. Over the years, a reasonable number of political leaders with these qualities, which motivated them to put America first in their decisions and actions, have made America the greatest nation on earth presently. In our own situation, the reverse seems to be the case. With the passage of time, succeeding generations of Nigerian leaders become less and less patriotic.

At independence, there was high expectation that prominent Nigerian politicians would put aside their differences and work together in the interest of our fledgling republic. Unfortunately, they failed to rise to the challenge. Since then, particularly since the Biafran war ended in 1970, Nigerian leadership has been dominated by clever scoundrels devoid of deep understanding of what leadership is all about.

One should not be deceived by symbols of unity such as the national flag, coat of arms, a unitarist constitution, a federal capital territory, a unified armed forces, single currency, the national youth service corps etc. The ruling elite has continuously perverted and deployed these things to serve sectional and selfish interests.

Looking at the issue more closely, Nigerians seem to forget that nationhood is, fundamentally, a mental phenomenon. In other words, for a nation to emerge, the people that constitute it must chare a collective vision of their unity and collective destiny, based on the conviction that what unites them is much more enduring and worthy of preservation than what differentiates them.

Hence, historically speaking nations emerge when groups of people feel the need to share a common life in a given geopolitical space, on the foundation of shared history, culture, psycho-spiritual affinities and belief in a common destiny. The physical symbols enumerated a moment ago merely give effect to deep-seated awareness of belonging to a nation.

Bearing in mind that nation building is necessarily a continuous process anchored on certain socially cohesive emotional and philosophical orientation, can we say that in the last hundred years, given the country’s human and natural resource endowments, Nigeria has made satisfactory progress on the road to a great nation to warrant celebration? To be candid, the answer to that question is, no.

As already observed, Nigerians from different ethnic nationalities and culture areas are yet to see themselves as belonging to one nation the way Americans, Israelis or Germans do. The average Nigerian considers loyalty to his or her ethnic group more compelling and important than loyalty to Nigeria. Again, in a religion-intoxicated society such as ours, people, especially Muslims, tend to put their religion first before Nigeria.

This is why several decades ago Chief Obafemi Awolowo described Nigeria as a mere geographical expression. The attitude that prompted Awolowo to make that comment has remained relatively unchanged despite the recurrent shibboleth or slogan of “One Nigeria” by our leaders. To sum up: in terms of mature psycho-spiritual consciousness necessary for nation building, there is very little to celebrate.

To be concluded.