Half-a-chance for greatness

I was one person who refused to be deceived by most of what happened in North Africa, which were, perhaps in the event of their undue extension, hijacked by the DOGS OF WAR. Today, Tunisians are wondering if it was all worth it, Egyptians are ruled by military men, and as I write, militiamen have been clashing in Tripoli, Libya, for days, leaving many dead and injured. The so-called ‘mainstream’ press, are desperately suppressing any such stories, not willing to let the people of the world know what mess they have made of a once-great country.  Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are all spending hard-earned monies, conducting elections in order to get the same type of DEMOCRACY that Nigerians can tell them does not solve any problems.

I was glad that the Nigerian revolution was not hijacked by any foreign forces, who will sell arms and ammunition to the govt and then turn around and sell to so-called ‘protesters’ who will metamorphosise into ‘opposition’, then ‘dissidents’, then rebels, then into ‘revolutionaries’. The North Africans are busy sucking their injured toes today and though many of them believe they are superior to black Africans, in some of our arguments, I warned them to stop being racist and that if they are not careful, black Africa will overtake them given what they stupidly did to themselves. It is apt to note that Libya, Egypt and Tunisia, were the three most advanced countries on the African continent, as at 2010, in terms of Human Development Index, which measures life expectancy, maternal mortality, poverty and literacy level, income disparity and the real things that matter to people. Those are the very things Nigerians are fighting for today.  But they screwed it all up and they have joined Baghdad and Kabul.

Once again, let us thank God that we didn’t fall into the hands of the LORDS OF WAR. Has any reader watched Nicholas Cage’s recent flick? What did he say about Africa in the movie, which modeled the life of Victor Bout, the Russian arms dealer now in American custody? He said ‘Who will inherit the earth? Weapons dealers of course… the rest are too busy killing each other’… He also stated that Africa was where the bulk of arms and ammo were sold, and that Russia made so much from the Kalashnikov (second highest earner after crude oil in Russia), it has that image on a coin, while Mozambique has the Kalashnikov on ITS FLAG!!! We are damned lucky in Nigeria that our struggle remains on an intellectual keel. This govt and the ones after it have got the clear message that they cannot mess about any longer with Nigerians. But we will not be merely reactive. We will be proactive and we will recommend to our governments, best practices, and make them go down the route of accountability.

We should ensure we do not drop the ball… I have always wondered why we do not have shadow ministers who give concrete, workable alternatives to government policies like they have in the UK. CPC and ACN especially should seize the gauntlet…

Still all I see are opportunities. On the part of government, an opportunity to change its ways and truly TRANSFORM NIGERIA if it so wishes. Government also has an opportunity to anchor the energies of those millions who trooped out in anger and demanded that it changes its ways.

For the people, we have an opportunity to continue along the lines of cooperation and unity. Our young ones have a great opportunity to bury the hatchet and forget the prejudices of their parents. They have an opportunity to reduce the influence of religious bigotry and embrace science and technology, and philosophy in all its hues; the things that really matter to our present circumstances. Our young ones have an opportunity to rewrite their own histories, away from poverty, diseases, corruption and all the stinky garbs that their predecessors have been decorated with by a deceptive world…

We all have a great opportunity to redefine the way Nigerians are seen, plus an additional opportunity to properly seize intellectual primacy amongst black people everywhere. Let the bugle be sounded, that Nigerians had their own revolution, with as minimal a bloodshed as possible, and without us playing pawns to the Dogs of War. Let the world know that we know when to spar, and when to jab, and when to reach compromises.

The failure will be ours, if we belittle what was achieved last week, if we stop talking and using all the instruments of communication at our disposal to spread messages of encouragement, unity, hard work, humility, courage, chastity, open-mindedness, education, and all the things that should matter to us at this auspicious time. We would have failed if we do not articulate cogent positions and suggestions that keep this government and those that will come after them, on their toes, such that they will know, that Nigerians have woken up… that the idea whose time has come, can never be stopped.

All the opportunities I mentioned above are only but HALF-CHANCES. But we should be pragmatic enough to know that the best we can get in this brutal world is but half-chances.  This means that I may be wrong in my optimism, but I may also be right. 50-50 chance.  But it is now that we have to err on the side of optimism.  If the people believe that government was swayed by their spontaneous and unprecedented reactions, by their demonstrations and most importantly, by the many intelligent positions they articulated, which punctured so many holes into government positions, then the people will be able to hold their heads up high, and continue to provide constructive feedback to this government and those that will come after it.  It is our country, it is our lives.

If the people think that they failed because they were unable to get government to totally reverse pump prices for PMS, then they have belittled their own achievements by thinking it was all about N65 fuel prices.  No it was not.  It was about a call to accountability, a call that the wishes of the people must be respected.  We may not have achieved all of that, but something has broken in Nigeria, and the people now own their president, at least for now.  The challenge is not to lose him so soon.  Looked at simplistically, we would never have been able to hear all the revelations of corruption we are now hearing, if people did not rise up in their millions and say NO, NEVER AGAIN! I believe it is a new day in Nigeria.  But all we have is half-a-chance. And we must grow that opportunity, not diminish it!