I look at the Nigeria of today and I am not encouraged or
inspired. As a matter of fact I am deeply saddened. I see no
heroes on the horizon but only questionable pretenders and
fallen caricatures that have sold their heritage and destiny
for a mess of porridge and that couldn’t give a fig about
what history or posterity will say about them or their
country.
Many have asked why I should say such things. Permit me to
answer that pertinent question by posing a few of my own.
I start by asking: is this the Nigeria of Murtala Mohammed
and Theophilius Yakubu Danjuma? Is this the nation that
helped to liberate Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and
South Africa?
Is this the nation that restored sanity and stability to Sierra
Leone, that brought an end to a civil war in Liberia, that
fought so gallantly in Burma and Somalia and that quelled a
military coup in Sao Tome and Principe? Is this the nation whose wealth once knew no bounds and
whose middle class once owned the finest cars and
properties in London, Paris and New York? Is this the nation
whose beautiful people once graced the streets of Belgravia,
Chelsea, Hampstead and Knightsbridge?
Is this the country that once nationalized BP and that gave
Margaret Thatcher sleepless nights over apartheid South
Africa?
Is this the nation that once stood up to the mighty Boers and
whose ancestors studied at Oxford and Cambridge as far
back as the 1800’s?
Is this the nation whose inhabitants and various ethnic
nationalities once ruled vast empires and whose progenitors
contributed so much to the traditions, religion and culture of
Ancient Egypt?
Is this the country that once fought a bitter and brutal civil
war, yet declared ”no victor, no vanquished” and, in the
spirit of love, came back as one? Is this the country which
has been through thick and thin and yet whose people
remained ever so resilient and always put a smile on their
faces?
Is this the country where giants once held court and where
the greats of old once presided? Where did we go wrong?
What has happened to our people and what has afflicted our
country? When did our leaders become spineless cowards
and deceivers? When did the green white green of our
nation’s flag become soiled with human faeces and when
was it torn to shreds? When did we shy away from fighting our own battles and
prosecuting our own wars? When did we start bowing our
heads in shame as events unfold in our country? When did
we start sitting down silently as international newscasters
speak about our nation in painful, disdainful, hushed and
condescending tones?
What has happened to the ever courageous, ever smiling,
ever confident and ever dependable Nigerian who shook the
world with his arrogance and confidence and who spoke of
his nation with pride and joy.What has happened to our great army that was once the
pride of Africa and that once made us so proud? What has
happened to our great intellectuals and our men and
women of courage and vision who once, like a collosus,
bestrode the world?
What has happened to the stubborn and proud yet warm,
friendly and profoundly good people that Nigerians once
were? What has happened to the people that were once
regarded as the hope of Africa and the pride of every black
man on the planet?
Where and when did we go astray? How and when did it all
go wrong?
When did we lose our strength, our wealth, our honour and
our power? When did we lose our excellence, our
confidence, our dignity and our self-respect? When did we
become so weak and so helpless? When did we turn into
killers, savages and barbarians?
When did we become so pitiful that the whole world mocks
us and heaps insults on us so easily? When did they start
saying that we have ”no serious government”, that we have
”lost control of large portions of our nation” and that we
can’t even protect our own children? When did we become
incapable of defending our borders and protecting our
people?.When did we turn into a laughing stock and a reference
point for incompetence, stupidity, cowardice, ignorance,
evil, cluelessness and all that is bad to the rest of the world?
When did other nations start giving us lessons on how to
fight insurgency and how to prosecute our wars? When did
our people start clamouring for foreign armies to enter our
land, violate our sovereignty and march on our sacred soil?
When did we start having to ask others to come and solve
our local problems? O Nigeria, how are the mighty fallen.
Truly ours is a nation afflicted. She is finished and there is
little hope of any form of redemption or resurrection.
The honeymoon is over and the glory has departed. One
hundred years of a forced and failed marriage has ended in
a bitter yet undeniable divorce. We have lost it all and there
is no going back. Those that wish to break up our nation for
sport and bring our people to their knees have had their
way.
Those that wish to watch us slaughter one another in an orgy
of mindless violence and that wish to establish their
AFRICOM in our shores will soon be here and we shall be
occupied forever.
O Nigeria, how are the mighty fallen. I loved Nigeria but now
I have stopped believing in her. She is saddled with many
different sub- nations that were simply incompatible right
from the start.
She is plagued and cursed with one particular sub-nation
whose ruling elite are dangerous and unyielding, whose
guile and deceit is second to none, who treat their own
people with contempt and derision, who believe that they
were born to rule, who think that power belongs to them,
who suppress the religious and ethnic minorities within their
ranks and who were taught from an early age that there was
none besides them. Those people have killed Nigeria. They
and those who have consistently bowed and trembled
before them and who have always allowed them to have
their way. Our nation has become a cruel joke- she is a
maliciously contrived contraption that has shattered many
dreams and frustrated many ambitions and aspirations. This
was a country that was created for the benefit of just a few
at the cost of the misery and pain of so many. I will never accept the idea of living in a nation side by side
with religious extremists who slit the throats of children,
who habitually slaughter the innocents and who abduct and
fornicate with small girls. Animals have no place in the
homes of men.
It is time for us to stop pretending: let the terrorists and
their friends in high places break away and establish their
own country where they can marry as many young girls as
they please and chop off as many limbs as they want. Let
them form a nation where they can stone adulterers and
turn women into chattels that are not even worthy of life. Let those of us from the west establish Oduduwa and let us
celebrate and enjoy our freedom from the bondage and
ineptitude of a cruel failed state that has no soul and that
lacks humanity and compassion.
Let us be liberated from the deceit that is known as Nigeria:
a nation that once was but that is no more. Let us be free of
Nigeria: a nation where injustice, evil, persecution,
insensitivity, impugnity, terror, graft and wickedness reign
supreme.
Let us be rid of Nigeria: a country where those of us that had
the misfortune of being born on the ”wrong” side of the
regional divide or who are adherents of the ”wrong”
religious faith are butchered for our heritage and can never
be treated as equals. Give us Oduduwa or let us die. Yet we will eventually take our freedom by force if it is not
freely given to us. We shall take it by fire: by the shedding of
blood and by our own bleeding if necessary. We will take it
by fire and by sacrificing our lives if that is what we are
forced to do.
What we will never do is continue to live in perpetual slavery
in a nation called Nigeria that is afflicted with feeble rulers
and peopled by religious bigots, sexual deviants and
bloodthirsty terrorists.
We shall not allow ourselves to be consummed by the
weakness and ineptitude of our present-day rulers and the
sheer incompetence of those that do not have the courage
or the moral authority to crush the beasts that have
abducted and enslaved our girls.
I have had enough. I say goodbye Nigeria: give them Biafra;
give us Oduduwa or let us die.
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