Shocking an unshockable nation (ii)

I subscribe to the fact that terrorism is not Nigerian. Majority of Nigerians love to live. Most of them won’t fight for their belief and that is evident in the pyrrhic peace we have in spite of not having a leader for almost two months. This rudderlessness accentuates the Farouk public relations disaster. This is […]

I subscribe to the fact that terrorism is not Nigerian. Majority of Nigerians love to live. Most of them won’t fight for their belief and that is evident in the pyrrhic peace we have in spite of not having a leader for almost two months. This rudderlessness accentuates the Farouk public relations disaster. This is what you get when an illegitimate government puts square pegs in round holes. A public relations or media practitioner as minister of information would have known that a nation like Nigeria needs a crisis management committee to react in a moment of national disaster and that in diplomacy; you do not talk first and think later. But that is exactly what Dora Akunyili did, which may not be wrong in pharmacy but is a diplomatic cum public relations disaster for the country.

There are two basic examples to cite here and all come from Britain. Richard Reid a.k.a the shoe bomber was called British, but his father is actually a Jamaican immigrant who spent life in jail. Reid followed his father’s footsteps and was in several jails where he converted into terrorism. In spite of this background, all through his trial, Britain never once alluded to his parental background or attempt to deny him. The second is Shamil Shaikh, the Briton who was executed around Christmas in China for drug trafficking. Guilty as hell, Britain continued to defend him by using his alleged bipolar disorder. Even after he was executed, they invited the Chinese Ambassador for explanation. Now Shaikh may hold a British passport, but he is every inch the Asian that he is. Yet, nobody played that up.

What did our Rebranding Minister do? Before even Obama could make a statement, Akunyili was virtually at her best trying to deny Farouk and after that, she began to plead against profiling. It’s like the action of a condemned man dousing himself with petrol and moving towards fire. Akunyili got for Nigeria what Obama gave us and rightly so.

My other contention is that certainly, there are more Farouks out there. The palaces of Europe, the chateaus of America and the ashrams of the Middle East are filled with more Faroukhs, deracinate and jinxed youths looking for direction but given none except the fake succour that their parents’ questionable wealth could buy. These floundering Farouks perhaps may not end up as syringe bombers, but exposed to conflicting cultures, norms, learning and leanings that are antithetical to our cultural norms and ethos, they are bound to graduate as future problems for us – a crisis of incomplete metamorphosis – by which they neither belong here nor there.

They are the reasons why our hospitals are worse than consulting clinics; they explain why our schools are glorified walls; why Nigeria is a nation where nothing works. Why would a Nigerian hospital work when the President can travel to Germany to treat a common cold? Why would there not be deracinate Farouks when our children learn under trees and first class wielding graduates cannot write a correct sentence? Why should they return here and live our abnormal lives when the societies they grew in never experience power cuts, water shortage or inadequate laboratories. Why should the ruling class fix water when they can buy bottled ones; why should they fix electricity when they have the loudest generating sets? Why should they fix the bad roads when they can fly in and out at will? These are the root causes of the lingering Farouks waiting to unleash on us.

Farouk is a clarion call to fix Nigeria. Fix Nigeria and you would have fixed the sixteen ethno-religious riots that have occurred in ten years of self-rule and turned our cities into potential riot zones. Fix Nigeria and those who think that their breads are buttered only when their family becomes a nation with its own flag would their lots be better than under this funny contraption. Fix Nigeria and we would make Dubai, London and Washington envy us. Leave Nigeria as it is and you will be fighting profiling at every air, land or seaport. Fix Nigeria and the teeming unemployed often used for all sorts of diabolic purposes will settle down and enjoy their God-given life. Whipping up inexistent patriotic sentiments cannot declassify Nigeria. Move this giant from potentials unlimited to potentials exhibited and we will be on the real rebranding route.