The march of time

In two days’ time, 2019 will yield place to 2020. December 31 does not just mark the end of one year; it also marks the end of a decade, the second since the khaki politicians yielded place to the agbada politicians in the ceremonial enthronement of the government of the people, by the people and for the people.

A decade is an important milestone in human progress and the individual ageing process. None of us is as young today as we were at the beginning of this decade. Three decades make a generation. A generation is a critical turning point in human development. It is the period at which one set of leaders vacates the stage for a new set of younger men and women. In the three decades that make a generation, we reckon that the young must have acquired the competence, the wisdom and the leadership experience to lead their nations aright. When the torch passes from one generation to another, it is much more than a ceremony, depicting in our African tradition, the coming of age; it also makes an important statement about the changing of guards, as it were, in the political, social and economic direction of the particular country. It is the visible face of human growth and progress as ordered by nature, no less.

It is correct to say that the decades that make up a generation are training periods for those who must receive the torch from the generation whose time is up. A nation that neglects to properly bring up its young, courts trouble for its future. It is right and proper to regard the young as the leaders of tomorrow because through the process of natural attrition, one generation must yield place to a new one. No one can argue with this for thus it is written where it matters – beyond the clouds. Training the young is critical to the success of a succeeding generation of leaders.

A new generation must be guided by the wisdom and the actions of the departing generation. Perhaps, that is why there is no cut off point between one generation and another. Each new generation must necessarily be part of the departing generation. Every generation must then carve out a niche for itself. It must decide how it discharges the burden of political, economic and social leadership thrust upon its shoulders. Perhaps, even more importantly, when it receives that torch of leadership, it must let its voice be heard loud and clear. It must serve notice that the old generation has passed away and behold, everything has become new. Such fundamental changes cause some trembling, tremors, even.

John F. Kennedy, the youthful and charismatic American politician, put it every well when he took office as president of the United States on January 20, 1961. In his inaugural address, he invoked the significance of the torch he and his generation had just received in his country. He said, “Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans – born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage – and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.”

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

Awesome. It was the confident voice of a new leadership in America. It was impossible for friends and foes alike of the United States who heard him to ignore what this statement portended for a new world order. I am given to a mixture of fond and dark thoughts about the post-military generation in our country. This is the generation that would reach maturity in 2029. Would it be possible for a Kennedy or an Obama or a Macron to receive the torch when the time comes and draw the line in the sand between the past and the present? I am afraid, I cannot answer that question.

In keeping with tradition, political pundits and others would devote a considerable amount of time and words to the successes and failures of 2019. But none would assess the decade itself to let us know what progress we made in the ten-year period that ends on December 31. The problems that have dogged our path as a nation since the generals mercifully returned the country to civil rule in 1999, are still there, leading perhaps to the inevitable but unfair conclusion that we have done almost nothing to smoothen the path for the emergence of a new leadership honed on the anvils of our national challenges.

These we know as we step gingerly into the new decade on January 1. We did not solve the power problem in 2019. We did not end the Boko Haram insurgency that has plagued the north-eastern parts of the country since 2009. We did not end kidnapping and armed robberies in homes and public highways. We did not end the wanton killings in various parts of the country. Insecurity thus remains our major national challenge.

Nor should we forget that our major fault lines, ethnicity and religion, widen almost daily. Despite the huge sacrifices the people of this country have made at various times since independence to make us patriotic people of one nation bound by our collective destiny, we are still not defined by our Nigerianness but by our ethnicity. The nuances of democracy still elude us such that the rule of law, the cardinal principle of liberty and freedom, is treated like a nuisance.

I have always thought that it is unfair for a nation to keep on dealing with the same problems from one generation to another. Why is it not possible for us to wake up on January 1, 2020, and see that the epileptic power supply has ended? That the security problems are no more and we can sleep soundly with our two eyes closed? That the Boko Haram insurgency has been contained and the people in the affected theatres of their operation can now get their lives back, and begin the painful process of picking up the pieces of their lives? That our elections have integrity and those who emerge through them are the choices of the people, not of the party moguls? That Nigeria is a country we are proud of, not a country we love to deride in purple prose at any given opportunity? That the drummers of ethnic jingoism have a different song to sing and different drums to beat?

Was it written that a nation’s problems must never be solved but must follow it from one decade to another and from one generation to another? Perhaps leaders do not and are not meant to actually solve problems. They are meant to address them. This may sound cynical but remember that the solution to one problem throws up the same problem with a new name. We move in circles. I hope this circular movement was not part of the punishment divinely decreed from the Garden of Eden.