Everyone blames everyone else

Everything good was in short supply when Nigeria celebrated 56 years of Independence at the weekend. The only thing that was not in short supply was the apportioning of blames. In 1940 when the small Royal Air Force gallantly fought off the much larger German Luftwaffe and averted Britain’s defeat, Winston Churchill paid tribute to […]

Everything good was in short supply when Nigeria celebrated 56 years of Independence at the weekend. The only thing that was not in short supply was the apportioning of blames. In 1940 when the small Royal Air Force gallantly fought off the much larger German Luftwaffe and averted Britain’s defeat, Winston Churchill paid tribute to it this way, “Never before, in the field of human conflict, was so much, owed by so many, to so few.” Let me pay tribute to Nigeria at 56 by saying, “Never before, in the field of blame gaming, was so much blame apportioned by so many social groups to so many other groups.”
Nigerian youths say the country’s current condition is the fault of elders. That for five decades elders presided over a profligate regime that could not build and maintain decent schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, a good public service or hold a decent election. That elders blew billions of Oil Boom dollars without commensurate results, that this generation engages in lucrative sit-tightism, that some of its members became ministers in their twenties and were still ministers in their seventies while jobless youths roam the streets. Nigerian elders however say it is the fault of the youths. That today’s youths spend all their days making selfies and posting meaningless messages on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Badoo; that they are driving and texting, and that most of them cannot write a decent job application letter.
Listening to Nigerian students, they say everything is the fault of teachers because they skip classes, sell handouts, favour female students and they spend days on end whining about their delayed salaries. Teachers say it is the fault of students because the kids of nowadays prefer chatting to reading their books, they are more interested in the next English Premier League match than in their exams, that they know more about Kannywood actors and actresses than they know about our country’s  Founding Fathers.
Analogues say it is the fault of digital agers, that they no longer write legibly on paper, that they endlessly browse without reading, that they think the digital age is all about listening to music and watching films on gadgets. Digital agers say it is the fault of analogues, that they still prefer vouchers to payment software, that they waste time walking to the library when they can simply Google, that they insist on filling ponderous application forms when an online form is easier to fill. 
Nigerian men say it is the fault of women because they are unsteady on the steering wheel, that they “dress to kill” and cause fights in schools and work places, that they invent too many ceremonies and create rapid fire changes in fashion and they expect men to pay for it. Nigerian women however say it is men’s fault, that since 1960 a woman never ruled Nigeria for a single day and that it was men that created corruption, inefficiency, profligacy, militancy, insurgency, communal crises, budget padding, war and national cluelessness.
Employers say it is the fault of workers because they are indolent, poorly trained in their schools, unwilling to learn new skills, always agitating for more pay and that workers always see more meat in another man’s plate. Workers say it is the employers’ fault. That they live lavishly and give workers a pittance,  that they send their kids to school abroad and they go to foreign hospitals and they travel in private jets and they holiday in The Bahamas and they leave workers to the tender mercies of Nigerian roads, taxis and hospitals.
Nigeria’s private sector says it is the fault of the public sector. That left to it, Nigeria would be a very efficient place with very good private schools, private clinics, private telephones and private football teams but that the public sector overburdens it with too many taxes, slow bureaucracy, late budgets and low budget implementation. Public sector however says it is the fault of the private sector. That Nigerian public schools and hospitals were doing a swell job until private schools and clinics came along, poached the best teachers, stole medicines from government pharmacies and went on to dupe Nigerians by fixing high fees, because gullible Nigerians think more expensive means higher quality.
Voters say it is the fault of politicians that this country does not have decent elections, that the politicians have neither ideology nor programs and they mobilise thugs to snatch and stuff ballot boxes despite the coming of card reader, which the Judiciary said cannot be admitted as a witness in an election case. Politicians however say it is the fault of voters because when they come to a politician’s house they do not ask about his ideology or his program, only for money to buy a bag of rice or to pay a second wife’s dowry.
Nigerian worshippers say it is the fault of clergymen because they lead prayers which God does not seem to be answering, that clerics give conflicting accounts of salvation and contradictory interpretations of dreams, and that in any case they preach one thing and do another. Clergymen say it is the fault of Nigerian worshippers because they do not know that God works in mysterious ways, that He can answer a prayer by rejecting it, that Nigerian teachers are too impatient to wait for their rewards in Heaven, and that a priest has to encourage the rulers by telling them that they are doing well, otherwise his family cooking pot will run dry and he will lack the strength to preach.
Agitators for national restructuring say it is the fault of the Constitution, which they said created national booby traps such as federation account, bicameral legislature, state-local government joint account, nolle prosequi and that it recklessly vested “all the Executive powers of the Federation” and of a state in one man, which is unAfrican. The constitution’s apologists say it is the fault of the implementers, that the Constitution has a chapter on fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy which, if implemented, Nigeria would be an earthly Heaven by now.
Nigerian nationalists say it is the fault of foreigners because they colonised Nigeria, disrupted our internal development, destroyed our local industries, strapped together tribes that were fighting one another for generations and they also forced us to think in a foreign language, which wiped away our native memory. Foreigners however say it is the fault of Nigerians, that other peoples were colonised but they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, that many of the things we are doing with our economy and politics look strange even to the former colonialists.
Nigerian insurgents say it is the fault of the security agents, that if only they had not disrupted Mohammed Yusuf’s school and shot the Imam, all Nigeria would be a blessed Caliphate by now. Security agents say it is the fault of insurgents because they located their capital at hilly Gwoza instead of rocky Asokoro. The Constitution would have been amended by now to vest all legislative, executive, judicial, spiritual and residual powers in Al-Shekawi and the Shura Council.
I know that as soon as they finish reading this article, readers will say that it is the fault of columnists that we wash our dirty national linen in public. But columnists say it is the fault of readers who spend their money to buy newspapers, squander their time flipping through it, waste their energy to read this column, only to fritter away their credit by sending a text message to condemn what they just read.