Let us go the Asian way

I must confess very honestly that I am a simple commentator with no pretensions whatsoever to any intellectual prowess. I therefore do not promise you that what I will say here can in any way be considered profound for it is based merely on my self-taught hunch. I would like to say that from my […]

I must confess very honestly that I am a simple commentator with no pretensions whatsoever to any intellectual prowess. I therefore do not promise you that what I will say here can in any way be considered profound for it is based merely on my self-taught hunch.
I would like to say that from my small readings and from that small inner voice that usually ministers to me and which I know to be insight from God, I have discovered that no nation or empire in both ancient and moderntimes, ever became great without a DELIBERATE PLAN to follow, adopted by the ruling elite, and a complementary set of values or attitudes inculcated in all the people that helps to drive that plan to fulfilment. Without a plan and right mental attitude of a people, no nation ever arrives at a destination calls Great Nation, to be known, respected, envied and copied by others.
The plan may be trumpeted for the whole world to know just like that of the Quakers (the religiously persecuted Europeans who left continental Europe to found the new world) and who proceeded to create the humongous American Empire. Or it may not be as widely known as the Protestant Ethic of the Quakers which propelled them and their country to greatness but barely known to a few of the governing elite as is the case with the Asian countries.
Whatever is the case, the fact is, for any country or community to become great, there must be a plan, an operational plan; a road map, so to say, and a set of positive attitudes to guide the conduct and behaviour of both the leaders and the lead towards the direction identified.
But, sadly, our country does not seem to be guided by any discernible set of national plan and any widely accepted set of values that defines the rules of engagement that will make Nigeria great. The one remarkable defining characteristic of Nigeria and Nigerians is that anything goes. We seem to be organised in our disorganisation. We seem united in the orientation that we must consume the consumable from all corners of the globe. Apart from cement and electric cables, we prefer everything else to be imported to feed our gargantuan appetite. Much of the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the movies we watch, the books we read, the gadgets we use for everyday communication; you name it, everything of ours comes from foreign lands as if we all are a people with crippled bodies and deformed minds.
I hear that some of our rulers have even now developed a craving for imported fair skinned women! Since the 1980s this blessed but misgoverned nation is said to have grossed about a trillion dollars from crude oil but less than 20 per cent of that amount has actually been invested in the country, the rest has been frittered away.
Who we are and what we need for sustenance now depends on what others decide is good for us and not who we think we are and what we think we need. I also hear that some of the cars and other goods we import are made especially for us and they are inferior to what is sent to other more discerning and discriminating people. We do not give any one specification for our market. We live dangerously like a people programmed for destruction and who willingly have accepted their fate. Everyone is engaged in the infernal struggle as to how to position oneself to get a disproportionate share of oil money.
None thinks about what will happen to us in the next ten, 20 or 30 years. We live our lives for the moment with very scant worry for the future. It was only recently that our country woke up to the reality of setting up a Sovereign Wealth Fund more than 50 years after we started raking in free money from crude oil. And this took place several decades after other oil producing nations in the world set up their own future generation fund.
As I was working on this piece, a message came to my Facebook account. When I opened it, as if guided by that inner voice which I said earlier always guides my thoughts, I saw the following quote by Lord Lugard which about sums up what I have been trying to say about our extremely ruinous character. Quite fittingly, the quote was posted by my brother in the media ‘commentariat’ family and co-worrier about the plight of the Black race, Tope Fasua. This is what Lord Lugard said of the African ‘race’:
“In character and tempera-ment, the typical African of this race-type is a happy, thriftless, excitable person, lacking in self-control, discipline, and foresight. Naturally coura-geous, and naturally courteous and polite, full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity, fond of music and loving weapons as an oriental loves jewellery. His thoughts are concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future or grief for the past… He lacks the power of organisation, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business. He loves the display of power, but fails to realize its responsibility… In brief, the virtues and defects of his race-type are those of attractive children, whose confidence when it is won is given ungrudgingly as to an older and wiser superior and without envy. Perhaps, the two traits which have impressed me as those most characteristic of the African native are his lack of apprehension and his lack of ability to visualize the future”.
Tope and I invite all Nigerians, all Africans and all despised members of the Black race to chew on this profound observation about us.
It does not sound flattering at all but it should serve as a wake-up call on us to think and change our ways. Next week, God willing, we will look at the two different paths and attitudes for national development: the Americo-European path and the Asian path and why in my humble opinion I recommend that we should go the Asian way.