Mandela: Nigeria’s half-hearted eulogies

The reason, I believe is simply that all our leaders past and present are but a pale reflection of the South African icon Nelson Mandela, who finally joined his ancestors and is to be buried in his native birth home of Nkulu in South Africa. The virtues that have made Mandela such an iconic figure […]

The reason, I believe is simply that all our leaders past and present are but a pale reflection of the South African icon Nelson Mandela, who finally joined his ancestors and is to be buried in his native birth home of Nkulu in South Africa. The virtues that have made Mandela such an iconic figure are hardly measurable in our leaders. There may have been traces in our post colonial leaders who verbalised modicums of democratic fundamentals of nationalism, sovereignty, justice and freedom, not so our military and post military leaders.
When Nelson Mandela took ill and it was clear to the world that the end had come, I had his two great non-political but philosophical quotes on my mind then.
“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
“We must use time wisely and forever realise that the time is always ripe to do right”. ~ Nelson Mandela  
I mused in this column on these two quotes as I joined millions of his lovers “in the great wait…for that flashing moment when the news would pierce the air of our violent silence that the symbol of forgiveness by earthly man has joined his ancestors in the great beyond! How more beautiful can it be? The great man Mandela, lies translating to eternity, and the world awaits the moment!”
I paraphrase Madiba a lot, that the greatest glory in living lies, not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” In this fall to the home call, “it is a rising to glory earlier foreseen and foretold. Thus as I wait, I do not await a fall. I await a rising, more triumphant than even the birth that began the legendary life”. I wrote this as Mandela lay ill, adding that “I have never thought of Nelson Mandela without wishing how much Nigeria needs men like him.
Was it the circumstance of his boyhood and nativity under apartheid, in which regard, was it a blessing in disguise? I must be Nigerian to think like that. Life is about conviction, belief and choice. When it mattered, the great Madiba raised his voice against injustice and inspired a following that transcended a lifetime of waiting. Jailed for 27 years, Mandela sat on the world’s conscience like a cancerous cyst, painful, sustained, and lingering until the fullness of time. He walked out of Reuben Island, a free man, but it was the world that was freed.
I look across the Nigerian landscape and all I see is a great many of our Executives granted golden lifetime opportunity to impact on the people meaningfully and positively, and much of what I see is a sea of wasted opportunity and monumental failure, albeit in the midst of which one finds flashes of success stories. This is in spite of our stupendous wealth, and human resource.
I look around the African continent or elsewhere on the globe, particularly the US and I see how elected public officers at the rank of Governor or President are using their offices to be change agents for the good of their communities, and I look here and all I see is embroidery and designer suits that convey mere material value than the character of man.”
Nelson Mandela was the epitome of strong will. Branded a terrorist by the apartheid regime, he rendered this famous quote at his 1964 trial just before being pronounced guilty and sentenced:  “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for. But, my lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
What have our leaders dedicated their lives in struggle for? What ideals are Nigerian leaders prepared to die for? What values do they cherish enough to protect and bequeath to the future generation by exemplary living? Ask even our youth today if they are prepared to die for their country Nigeria.
In that piece I wrote on Mandela as he lay on his sick bed, I expressed how disappointed I was at the lingering feuds over the 2015 ambitions of President Goodluck Jonathan and how no elder in the Peoples Democratic Party could strike the moral cord that would bring the warring parties to an amicable settlement since each one of them had been tainted by yellow cards in the democratic field of play, notably former President Obasanjo whose baby, the Jonathan Presidency is.
I posited then that “the Governor’s Forum has failed to rise up to the fundamental national calamities in health, education, decadent infrastructure, urban decay, and good governance, which to me encapsulates the total task of Governance. Individually, the office of Governor has tended to rob some if not all of them, of their unique simple “selfness”, in the sense that they loose their persona to the office. How many times do you hear friends of men in office lament, that the man is different from who was once known. This is the reason they fail to build institutions that bring them about, institutions such as the democratic process of election through transparent primaries, full access to Local Government Council statutory allocations even with supervision for tacit accountability. All told, given the resources these states receive, many of them have cases to answer as to why people’s fundamental needs are not met. But all told also, I do not think there is much more than a wasteful jamboree in all that the Nigerian Governor’s Forum stands for.”
Mandela inspired a following. Nigerian leaders instead use tribe, religion and access to national loot. Mandela eschewed bitterness, forgiving his jailers including the wardens that meted out torture to him. In Nigeria, the incoming group shoots down the outgoing lot as in a unique changing of the guards. Consider the waste of military officers under the Obasanjo vengeful regime which rationalised many capable officers out of active service, alas, only for the void to be felt in the face of current security challenges. Mandela developed character which grew stronger through the length of his incarceration. We may find ours, Buhari, Obasanjo, 2nd Republic politicians guilty of loss of stature in character through their political trials. Yakubu Gowon is not listed, his loss of character being only minimal.
Mandela out of character loved people. Nigerian leaders, indeed the accomplished political class show much of nothing but a loathing for even those who voted them in power. No wonder therefore, that Mandela’s Nigerian eulogies are half hearted. His iconoclastic mien reveals our thorough ugliness.