BY: Nestor B. Udoh
For a long time, I have been convinced that Nigeria, as a country has a soul. Many people who still see Nigeria as just an amalgam or, at best a British contraption for its economic gain, will spit at this apparently unlikely assertion. But if you are one of them, just listen to this true live story.
On the morning of June 12, 1993, I held the hand of my three-year old daughter and, alongside my own father and mother, headed to our village square. Our mission was to elect a President for Nigeria.
There were two presidential candidates, representing the two major political parties that had earlier been decreed into existence by our very own Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, then the country’s military President and numero uno. One candidate, Alhaji Bashir Tofa, a northerner, represented one party that was obviously backed by the northern-dominated military. The other candidate, one Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, a mercurial southerner contested on the other party.
Back in the village square, the dutiful presiding officer placed the symbol of each party before us to represent each candidate. He then told us to line up behind any candidate of our choice.
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While just three people lined up behind Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC), as his party was called, the line of people behind MKO Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) convoluted on itself three times like a sun bathing anaconda snake. This was notwithstanding that our state was ruled by NRC, and my cousin, also of the NRC was the local government Chairman. Of course when the count was taken, Tofa was mercilessly beaten. I told myself well, maybe this was because we were in a southern enclave, which naturally was Abiola’s forte.
I was to discover that mine was a very lazy political calculation. Even in Kano where Alhaji Tofa came from, what happened in our village square replayed. North, South, East and West, it was the same drama. People lined up for Abiola in great numbers, never before seen in Nigeria’s electoral history. Everyone, including the ruling military was miffed. What had suddenly happened to Nigerians, whom everyone had believed were now a conquered people thoroughly weary from years of military misrule occasioning gargantuan social and economic pummeling?
Everyone was scared. The military became so jittery about the outcome of the election that they forced Babangida to truncate the whole process and, in his words, “annulled” the election. The tale of what happened thereafter as the comeuppance of this queer act, has been well told in the history books, and needs no repeating here. I am sure many reading this were not even born when it all happened.
As I type this, we are in the throes of yet another general election. As usual, Nigerians have come up with lazy stories, real or imagined, of the perceived north-south political dichotomy theory. And this is despite that there are very credible, competent, detribalized Nigerians who are electable even outside the two major political parties. I am persuaded that all this are symptoms of either intellectual laziness or outright mischief, typical of third world tribesmen.
In all this, I would like to remind everyone, especially the present generation of leaders that unknown to many Nigerians, Nigeria has a soul. Whether we want to accept it or not, that soul has no respect for money, religion, ethnicity, geography or even history. That soul is an essence that is not even aware that the country, as presently constituted, was amalgamated by a man called Lord Lugard, and that the name is said to have been coined and foisted on the amalgam by his mistress.
In other words, it is a country likened to a child born as the product of the rape of a woman. But as rightly said by one of the presidential aspirants, the circumstances of birth of such a child should not stop him making genuine efforts to realize its human potential.
There are certain things however that the soul of Nigeria recognizes. It recognized, years ago for example, that the military was riding rough-shod on Nigerians, and taking it on a roller-coaster. It recognizes that the problem of Nigeria is not religion, ethnicity, geography, history, Boko Haram, IPOB or ISIS. It is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the challenge of personal example, which are the hallmarks of true leadership. This much was observed by the celebrated Chinua Achebe in his book The Trouble with Nigeria. And this was the testimony clearly and eloquently enunciated by the outcome of the 1993 general elections.
The soul of the country is undying, and has not changed since then. I am sure that it has now recognized that all the indices that make life easy for citizens of other nations with even leaner resources have turned topsy-turvy in Nigeria. The soul of Nigeria has recognized the pains, the misery, the abject poverty in an oil producing country, the weeping and the orchestrated insecurity that daily decimates its population. The soul of Nigeria knows, as a fact that all these maladies are not limited to any of its geographical states or local government areas.
Take it or leave it, it recognizes its diversity as its strength, and knows that there is nothing monolithic about the different regions in the country. It also knows that these maladies are fueled by some of its leaders who should know, solely for their own benefit. Yes, the soul of Nigeria knows that all these can only be corrected by a credible candidate who is willing and able to work to turn things around, and not by a tribally connected pretender with deep pockets who can bribe gluttonous delegates to launder him into, and possibly win the contest. At the appropriate time therefore, the soul of Nigeria my yet ambush and defeat its politicians as it did in 1993.
Nigerians do not need to go far. All that is required is to examine the candidates one by one, and then determine who can better handle these challenges. Such candidates are there, in all the political parties, and the soul of Nigeria knows them from their track records. The soul of Nigeria, which is quite different from its leaders, recognizes that in as much as political parties are platforms for people to contest elections, there is hardly anything supreme about any political party.
All that is required for Nigerians to be free, is a free and fair vote, and the predatory military to stay out of political power.
Udoh is a retired Permanent Secretary and a Consultant Public Health Physician
