Nigeria will rise again!

“I am a Catholic priest. The commodity that I market is hope, and hope is never in recession” – Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah.

These are indeed very distressing and trying times for Nigerians. We have found ourselves as a people stranded on the highways with seemingly no help in sight. Our political choices in the kind of leadership we have foisted on ourselves have not paid off. On the contrary, we are inundated on a daily basis with harrowing tales of murder and bloodshed, with our leaders doing practically nothing to halt the tide. The level of unemployment continues to soar, as young people, ravaged by the epidemic of hopelessness and helplessness in the face of an expired political leadership bereft of vision, are giving themselves willingly to slavery by risking death through the Mediterranean just to get to Europe. The recent return of hundreds of stranded young Nigerians from Libya attempting to reach Europe through the high sea is a testament to how low Nigeria has sunk as a nation. This is certainly not the vision of the founding fathers of our nation, and I am sure that they will all be cringing in their graves about what we have made of the hopes, aspirations and dreams that gave birth to modern Nigeria.

I have followed the concerns of young Nigerians on social media as far as the happenings in our nation are concerned. The feeling of betrayal on the part of our leaders is all too palpable, so is the level of angst among the young generation. Many young people want a nation that gives hope and inspires greatness; they want to live in Nigeria and realise their potentials. They do not want to spend their lives in exile trying to make a living. But it seems that the more they try to make a living in Nigeria, they more they are frustrated by the skewed and suffocating political system that is wired to destroy dreams and burn out vision. We are surely not going to change Nigeria by simply sitting in the comfort of our rooms and churning out insults against those who rule us and against one another. Young people defending politicians who have colluded to squander our commonwealth and those who are manifestly against the corrupt political system are those to whom the future of Nigeria belongs. The upper stratum of Nigeria’s political elite is fading out. What we will do when leadership falls upon us is yet to be seen in the attitude of young people towards leadership and public service. 

We need new ideas in politics as well as a new kind of politics. It is these new ideas that will inspire the new kind of politics that we desperately need. As 2019 draws near, we have a duty to collectively interrogate all those who put themselves forward for political leadership. By now we should all be tired of wolves that come to us in sheep’s clothing asking to be voted into power. What we need are men and women who embody the right kind of values that are central to nation building. We all know what these values are. Other nations in Africa and elsewhere have done it. There is nothing that says that Nigerians cannot do it. Nigeria can be great (again!). Leadership is not rocket science. We have the intellectual, political and economic resources to pull this country out of the graveyard of despair and catastrophe. We cannot afford to wait for too long. Nigerians are dying on a daily basis. If human life means anything to us, our first concern should be to restore dignity to a battered nation and its battered people. This is the most important value we all have lost in the maze of politics bereft of morality. The first task of a new kind of politics is to give Nigerians dignity and make Nigerian lives matter. Once this is established, every other thing can follow. Once we reclaim our lost dignity, we can start to ask for bread, not as beggars in need of charity and philanthropy, but as citizens demanding their just rights to survive and to thrive in their own country.

In this Season of Easter, God comes once again with the assurance that Good Friday does not have the last word. Death and destruction may seem triumphant, but that seeming triumph is only short-lived. Good Friday will always give way to Easter Sunday. In the context of current happenings in our nation, the resonance of this Easter message of hope makes a lot of difference. Easter means never giving up! It means that we realise that nation building is a painful process that requires a lot of sacrifice, commitment, and dedication. This sense of sacrifice is clearly visible in the life of Jesus Christ whose passion, death, and resurrection has won redemption for the whole of humanity. Looking up to Jesus, Nigerian Christians and indeed all citizens have to imbibe those values that make for justice, reconciliation and peace – the fruits of Christ’s redeeming sacrifice. Connected to this, is the realisation that Christians have an important role to play in nation building. If we are able to mobilise and harness the intellectual, moral, ethical, cultural, and spiritual resources of our faith, we can turn around the fortunes of this country. Jesus Christ who died and rose to life holds the answer to all our national predicaments. If we turn to him for inspiration, we will find the support we need to start the tortuous journey from Calvary to Emmaus.

But there is also an important message for our leaders, perhaps a warning. The warning is that they stop deceiving themselves by thinking that they are working for the people and conscientiously begin to do what is right and just in God’s sight. The vast majority of Nigerians know that our politicians are in power for their own selfish interests. Very few of them embody the patriotic spirit that leaders who put their nation and its citizens over and above petty considerations live by. The corruption in government is all too evident for the blind to see. In the last couple of days, I have been working on an essay that requires me to read Frantz Fanon’s seminal book, The Wretched of the Earth. I feel Fanon’s prescient lamentation about corruption in much of postcolonial Africa at the time he published his book in 1961, shortly before his death. Writing about the situation in under-developed countries, Fanon says: “Some [politicians] have a double source of income and demonstrate that they are specialised in opportunism. Privileges multiply and corruption triumphs, while morality declines. Today the vultures are too numerous and too voracious in proportion to the lean spoils of the national wealth.” Going further, he says that “scandals are numerous, ministers grow rich, their wives doll themselves up, the members of parliament feather their nests and there is not a soul down to the simple policeman or the customs officer who does not join in the great procession of corruption.”

If I did not mention the book and the time it was written, you would think that the writer is describing Nigeria as it is so today. Fanon quotes a Christian newspaper, The African Weekly published in Brazzaville Congo in the heydays of independence, which addresses the princes of the regime in these words: “You who are in good positions, you and your wives, today you enjoy many comforts; perhaps a good education, a fine house, good contacts and many missions on which you are delegated which open new horizons to you. But all your wealth forms a hard shell which prevents your seeing the poverty that surrounds you. Take care.” Fanon says that what The African Weekly wanted to point out to the starvers of the Congolese people is that “God will punish their conduct.” It continues: “If there is no room in your heart for consideration towards those who are beneath you, there will be no room for you in God’s house.” These observations say a lot about politics but also about the character of the men who masquerade as leaders of their people. Privileges often bind and blind! Our God is merciful; he has room for everyone. But he also wants those he has placed in positions of leadership to create room for everyone. Those who refuse to create room for everyone, particularly Nigerian politicians, should know this: God is watching you! Amidst the challenges facing us today as Nigerians, we cannot afford to lose hope; we cannot afford to allow our lives look like Good Friday without Easter Sunday. I am an incurable optimist; I believe in Nigeria and I believe that Nigeria will rise again! Happy Easter.

Ojeifo is a priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja.