It was not an election – it was war

At some point in this life, diplomacy is bound to change. The current system is neither sustainable nor durable. Why is it possible to be born in one country and acquire the citizenship of another with its full rights and responsibilities without inhibition? As we say in Nigeria, that is not balanced.  

Any country that makes it impossible for another to acquire its citizenship should itself be denied citizenship anywhere else. That should be the golden standard of international diplomacy with the exception of citizens of rogue states that treat dissenting citizens worse than they treat their pets. 

Not many people would agree that Nigeria has just returned from another battlefield. In Nigeria, when we announce elections, we have declared war. We set an umpire to select a date as we go to battle granting them the ultimate power to declare the combat won or lost in the final analysis. The latest grandmother of all battles, without apology to Saddam Hussein; the skirmish lasted more or less eight hours with heavy casualties and collateral damage.  

The battle took place on Saturday and by Sunday morning, the official body count was 20. That is, 20 Nigerians who woke up on Saturday morning with hopes and aspirations of seeing a better Nigeria than the dawn they saw only to end up either in the morgue or in the grave. 

BREAKING: PDP’s Lawal Dare unseats Matawalle in Zamfara

NIGERIA DAILY: Will Kwankwaso Allow Abba Yusuf Work In Kano?

You could say that is nothing new or even extraordinary. After all, every day the grave harvests the noblest of humanity, interning them with their dreams. Next time you pass by a cemetery, listen to the silent whispers of buried dreams, unexecuted plans and unrealised aspirations speaking out.  

Nigeria did not need this kind of war again after fighting a conventional battle over 50 years ago, resolving never again to test popularity in an orthodox battlefield. It is not to be, the nation fights a cyclic war every four years. That is when politricians (many political tricksters), seek general validation for their right to display their level of incompetence.

When Nigerians go to the polls, it is not an election, it is a war. If foul is fair in war as the saying goes, these politricians have never failed to employ the foulest of rhetoric or tactics to sway us to their side. 

If, as they say, insanity is doing the same things with the hope of getting a different result, especially an altruistic one, then we are a nation direly in need of more shrinks – not politicians. 

Sixty-three years after the British lowered their Union Joke and authorised the fluttering of the Green-White-Green over the territory they forcefully amalgamated, it is shameful that we have failed in our attempts at building a nation.  

Forget what Her Excellency, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria said about the need to be proud of the results of last presidential election. It is an impudent advice from the leader of a nation that changes prime ministers faster than some people change their underwear. Outside a circus, there is nothing to be proud of in mass hypnosis or abracadabra. No true Nigerian should be proud of mass intimidation, rigging, ballot snatching and the potent use of regionalism and religion to gain political power. 

It may be good for Britain, it is not good for Nigeria and that is the truth. The Island people of Britain might have woken up to find that their once white nation is now a mosaic of undesirable colours and decided to whitewash it, Nigerians should not follow their lead.

If the husband of the last monarch could come from Greece and yet raised a child that now rules Britain, why should a battle that alienates the people of Nigeria be something to be proud of? Except Britain is happy to have another dumpster nation like Paul Kagame’s Rwanda to ship its unwanted cargo, there is nothing to be proud of about our elections or its outcomes. 

At Saturday’s poll, like the presidential polls before it, we went to war, not with the glue that could cement us or help us to bond, but the corrosive substances that would keep us divided. Our politricians have employed subterfuge in their campaigns and raised an army of unthinking choristers who bought into their ethnocentric and religious subterfuge.

These elections confirm the saying that our parents have eaten sour grapes and set the teeth of us children on edge. 

At last Saturday’s polls, Nigerians, or 10 per cent of them have confirmed that you can take the children from the country, but you can’t take the country from them. We, the people whose siblings are quick to ‘japa’ to ‘the abroad’; are swift to grab at other citizenship opportunities with glee and to display the beauty of our newly acquired country, learn nothing about rights and privileges.

We, for whom the Awori and the Gbagyi have ceded their ancestral rights for us to lay claim to Lagos and now Abuja are unworthy of their sacrifices.  

 We have confirmed that if it suits our politricians, patriarchy does not work because the offspring of intermarriages have no rights or privilege in the place of their birth nor could they make claims based on their patriarchal leaning. We, who proudly regurgitate the cerebral ditty of Martin Luther King’s  ‘I Have a Dream speech’; we, who reminded racist America that ‘All Lives Matter’ are at home appropriating the land that was freely given to all.

To make us feel better, we have quoted scriptures to validate our bias. If it suits us, we would not hesitate to invoke the articles of the United Nations to intervene if we feel racially profiled in other people’s land. America should de-racialise but we should cleave to our ethnic claims. 

We are sending signals to governments across the globe, that open their arms to talents of all hues, shades and colours to come in, be accepted, live and thrive that we would never take a mouthful of the medicine we prescribe to others. While we are quick to remind the developed parts of the world to be its brother’s keeper, we have launched into the concept of yours is ours but ours is ours. 

If our concept were to be universally applied, all those so-called British-Nigerians, Nigerian-Americans et al are nothing but glorified landless, stateless migrants. By our actions, we are telling Britain to seize every house bought by our own citizens anywhere else outside their ‘ancestral’ lands. 

For in these far-flung countries, once a foreigner satisfies the requirements of full-fledged citizenship, there are no off-limits to their aspiration. Indeed, many have exercised their rights to aspire, knowing that in elections, only the votes of the people make leaders. In Nigeria, we have denied those we have termed ‘settlers’ their constitutional rights to aspire to lead where they were born, reside and do business. What’s more – we think it is dope! 

Somebody should ask the British High Commissioner how our pride should be in hatred instead of inclusion, barbarism and nepotism instead of advancement. This is where it is not out of place to suggest a register of ethnoreligious chauvinists to prevent them and their offspring from polluting the fountain of global citizenship.

We must not endorse divisive bile at home in the hope of being treated as rationale humans abroad.