STRIKER: An Uphill Task
A well-established and incontrovertible fact is that there are at least 3 unfailing ways to destroy any people and any nation (much else a “mere geographical expression”), easier and sustainably than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki style: 1. Destroy education; 2. Destroy culture and values system; and 3. Erase or Rewrite history.
Doing only one is good enough. Doing two is a sure bet. Doing all three will set the nation or country on its way to automatic, voluntary self-destruction. Terrifyingly and unfortunately, all three are well accomplished today in Nigeria by forces seeking the nonexistence of the most populous, endowed and enterprising assemblage of black people on earth.
The writings have been on the wall ominously since the end of the First Republic. Systematically, the meaning and purpose of education is removed and EDUCATION is reduced to mere schooling for useless certification. Then, from how to name our children to how to bury our dead and honour their memory, down to what to appreciate as honourable or despicable, were gradually changed beyond recognition by any ancestor that miraculously wakes up like Lazarus today. Finally, we now have a generation that will ask you, “who is he, a musician or footballer?”
If you were to ask one of them about who Herbert Macaulay was, not to mention Micheal Imoudu or Mokugwu Okoye! So bad that even almost half of all youths born in 1999 after return to Democracy (26 years ago) can not make any coherent statement about MKO Abiola – no knowledge of Concord Airlines, Concord Newspaper, Abiola Babes Football Club or SDP! Sadly, we dare not ask any graduate from a Nigerian University – even a graduate of History – who is Cheick Anta Diop?
How Nigeria has continued to exist as Nigeria since 1970 till date is a miracle that testifies to the fact that it surely has a historical destiny that it must fulfil for Africa and the world.
However, the most fearsome state of the nation today is, without any doubt, the arrival at a situation where nobody cares much for objectivity anymore – much else respect it, defer to it or defend it: it is now the time of defending anything and everything BASED SOLELY ON PERSONAL PREFERENCES AND PAROCHIAL INTERESTS!
Political analysis is such that if the President were swapped and it is Atiku Abubarkar that is President today AND IMPLEMENTING EXACTLY WHAT TINUBU IS IMPLEMENTING, the Tinubu camp (including all the Omokri of this world) would have almost brought down the government with destructive criticism and Pro-max, anti-Jonathan-type protests. The same is the result if, in same vein, you swap with Peter Obi – and so forth. No room at all for objective analyses of how the policies fulfil or negate the fundamental objectives and directives principles of State in guaranteeing THE WELFARE AND SECURITY OF THE MAJORITY OF CITIZENS.
We are ruinously into the era of blind partisanship (love or hatred) and followersip of “leaders,” parties, religion, tribe, fraternities, stomach, pocket, etc – so long as individuals get their share of the “national cake.” Almost all organisations have fallen victim to the toxic curruption and insane partisanship and lack of objectivity so long as the “benefits” flow!
The most lamentable, of course, are the last hope of the commoners – the judiciary; civil society and human rights organisations; trades and students unions; the fourth estate of the realm; and the likes: all now unrecognisable in their currupted, comatose, inept states!
But then, like Martin Luther King Jr asked: “how long will prejudice blind the visions of men (and) darken their understanding?” For the sake of our children’s children (generations unborn), let us hope and answer with him: “not long!” because “truth crushed to earth shall rise again… no lie can live forever… you shall reap what you sow.” Truth cannot be forever on the scaffold and wrong forever on the throne! “Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own….” “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
What is certain is that – for the few remaining patriots with correct sense of history and value, it is an uphill task to shift the paradigm; even as they are becoming leaner in numbers, as endangered species.
The opinions expressed in this publication are solely those of the author. It does not represent the editorial position or opinion of OSUN DEFENDER.
