By Prof. Chris Nwaokobia Jnr
“Nationhood is definitely the product of hard-work; it is not
an event nor is it the product of happenstance, wistfulness and or presumptuous
historicity. Nations are built not wished.” – Prof Chris Nwaokobia Jnr.
The
aftermath of the 2015 General Elections leaves our Country with profound
questions seeking urgent answers; questions ranging from how tenuous the
woodwork of this collective edifice sustains to how variegated the fouled
waters of our corporate existence appear. We cannot pretend that all is right;
we cannot pretend that governance will sail pretty without national cohesion;
we cannot pretend that the CHANGE we preached will not meet with despair if we
do not etiolate the fires that raged during the campaigns; and we cannot
pretend that all is well.
We
saw a campaign that was inundated with hate, a campaign that was replete with
caustic diatribes, a campaign that snow-balled the deluge of dichotomies that
litters this space; the dichotomies of creed, of clan, and of region dominated
our politics. Debates on issues were in short supply, the prelude to March 28
and April 11 saw a Nigeria split effusively and profusely along the lines of
ethnicity, religion and region. That the CHANGE MOVEMENT prevailed at the Polls
compels a national task that must be handled as imperative and germane. We must
heal the wounds and unite our peoples.
The
linchpin of the present challenge is a vibrant national orientation paradigm.
We must above all emphasize the beauties of this enterprise. We must water the
trees of patriotism. We must clear the bushes of ethnic distrust. We must level
the mountains of religious fundamentalism. We must diminish the shrubs of
partisan discord. We must etiolate the fires of the pre and post-election
angst. And we must coalesce at a place where Nigeria becomes the winner.
Today
our National Orientation mantra must soar beyond ONE NATION GREAT PEOPLE; we
must begin to address the fundamentals of national integration, we must locate
the cords that unite us and prize the jewellery that presents us as the hope of
a continent in search of leadership. We must remember the halcyon beats of our
history, we cannot forget that not only were we a nation of great wealth, we
were the Big Brother to most African nations. We cannot overlook the realities
of our history, and we must seek to replicate and surpass the great mementoes
of our co-existence.
I
have worked my mind on the realities of history. I have discovered that most
nations emerged like Phoenixes from the ashes of the Civil Wars that sought to
immolate them to forge great symphonies of brotherhood and community. History
is replete with Statesmen who did not sulk over the pain of battle and the
internecine conflagrations that traumatized their space, but who seized the moment
and wove nations out of variegated seas of distrust and angst. We can yet do
the same.
I
was born a year after the Nigerian Civil War, I did not meet three of my
grandparents because they died during the War. I was suckled by the only one
standing, Ma Christiana Nwanze my Mother’s mother. She did a marvellous job
teaching me to love and to think. She was so forgiving that she saw nothing but
a great Nigeria where the difference in creed and clan will count for nothing,
where our strength will devolve on the well of our minds and the content of our
character. She died at 92 never loosing that faith.
She
lived in the North before the 1966 pogrom, she returned home just before the
Civil War, she lost her businesses in Northern Nigeria to the War but that did
not stop her first daughter Aunty Justina my mother’s elder sister from making
Funtua and later Malumfashi in Katsina State her abode and base for close to
30years after the War. I learnt from this the inviolableness of our
togetherness. My Igbo brothers have made the North their home irrespective of
the many pitfalls that rehearse the shortness of our National Orientation
stratagem.
Lagos
is today a copious experimentation of our love for each other; we can replicate
the same spectacle across the country. The shortcut to the nation we seek is to
make patriotism our pride, wealth and job creation our passion, corruption our
national foe, social security a collective challenge, and to make a rework of
our national canvass an urgent imperative. Yes, we can together as a People
create a Nigerian Dream, we can build a great Nation where the prime is the
primacy of lives and properties, where the summon
bonum shall be the well-being of the masses, and the centre-point of our
collective intercourse COUNTRY FIRST.
I
am not saying that we do not have cause to worry; I am saying that it is not
sufficient to lose faith in the journey set before us. I am not saying that
Nigeria has been fair to all, I am saying that we can make Nigeria a fair, just
and an equitable enterprise. I am not saying that leadership has been
responsible; I am saying that WE can make leadership responsible and responsive
to all. I am saying that we can set forth to the Isle of Peaceful Co-existence
when we make followership engaging and commit leadership to decorum and
sincerity.
An
era where the National Orientation Agency made its primary responsibility
reportage and documentary of and on terror and the attendant war thereto must
be made Shibboleth. It is incontrovertible truism that that error dealt some
blow on our collective psyche and mores. A vibrant national orientation
paradigm must look beyond villainy and see our common nationality, our common
humanity and our collective citizenry. A proactive national orientation must
seek to foist a template of dialogue and national concord such is the basic quid pro quo.
We
must create a national orientation network that must set out at dawn without
hate or bias to unite all fair interests, and begin an overhaul of our
collective morality where imperative. We must make noble values prime and
celebrate patriots. We must lampoon quick fixes, corruption and villainy and
hail hard-work and rectitude. We must salute dedication to service of
fatherland and condemn any form of dereliction of national trust. We must
create for posterity fabrics of reference, such that must confer honour on acts
of heroism and patriotism. And we must create monuments of deterrence such that
our nation must flee from fleece, sleaze and thieving.
A
national orientation praxis that seeks the reorientation of villains is
germane, and the one that seeksto inspire the virtuous to continue the noble
stride for the good of fatherland is imperative. I cannot be more hopeful that
the incoming regime understands the urgency of now. We are here because we rode
on the mantra of CHANGE; we cannot therefore sacrifice same at the altar of politics.
We must fix square pegs in square holes and round pegs in round holes. We must
as was promised the electorate create jobs, and kill corruption. We must ensure
human capital development and improve national security. We must provide social
security and more homes for the masses, and make real the promises of our
31page manifesto. We must make true the promises of democracy.
We
are at that point in history where Statesmanship latches in on the monumental
goodwill it enjoys, we have an unequalled goodwill and as Statesmen we must hit
the ground running. We must in all that we do engrave the praxis NO LONGER
BUSINESS AS USUAL in our collective thought. We must wage the war against
indiscipline and fight the good fight of faith.We must make Peace, Progress and
Prosperity the Nigerian Dream and work for all that must guarantee this 3Ps.
Countrymen
and women, the fierce urgency of now is such that we must bury the hatchet, all
hatchets and confront our fears. Do not forget that fear thrives only when
False Evidence Appears Real, the truth is that the 54years plus of our nation
is not all melancholic, we have a litany of highs and lows, and we must search
the reasons for the lows, fix them and soar, whilst celebrating our highs. We
must create a nation that shall truly surmount her differences and build the
harmony that shall lead Africa to the top of the new world. Yes we can.
The
moment is indiscriminate of which Party controls State A or State B, the
urgency of the now demands nothing but service to the country and the
citizenry. We must rise above partisanship and make this country the pride of
all. We must together chase the Nigerian dream. We must dedicatedly work for
the good of all. We must make the amazingly munificence with which the good
Lord has blessed our nation count for nothing BUT for Peace, Progress and
Prosperity.
We
owe this moment to the Almighty who brought our boisterous planet out of primal
vapour. We owe this epoch to the electorate. We owe this era to the many
victims of the conflagrations that trouble our space. And we owe the reality of
the present challenge to history, we must work such that in the end it will be
said that there came a moment in time and a great people came at it. We must
work such that posterity will remember in halcyon light this generation of
Nigerians, to the bridge my Countrymen.
In
confronting the moment we must not be unmindful of the fact that the task
before us is onerous, the faint will say monumental but the faithful must seize
the moment and show the world what great people we are. I cannot be more
confident that WE CAN because the body language of our President Elect assures
us that things will be done differently. I cannot be more hopeful now that the
mantra of CHANGE resonates. I am indeed positive that we shall set forth at
dawn to do that which is needful and imperative.
God Bless Nigeria.
(Nwaokobia Jnr is the Director
General
CHANGE AMBASSADORS OF NIGERIA
CAN.
Lawyer, Writer &
Humanist.
Email: chrisnwaokobiajnr@gmail.com
Tel: 08023361983,
08038604312, 08073958013
Pin: 27169311, 5588BE17,
55EDA68C.)
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