The lie that holds us back (I)
When President Muhammadu Buhari stood at the grand finale of the APC Edo governorship election campaign in Benin to proclaim that APC would make Nigeria “great again,” it was with the assumption that the nation was great previously. When the 19 Northern States’ Pentecostal Bishops Forum visited Aso Rock within the same week and beseeched […]
When President Muhammadu Buhari stood at the grand finale of the APC Edo governorship election campaign in Benin to proclaim that APC would make Nigeria “great again,” it was with the assumption that the nation was great previously. When the 19 Northern States’ Pentecostal Bishops Forum visited Aso Rock within the same week and beseeched the leaders to make Nigeria “great again,” they also assumed that Nigeria was great in the past. Archbishop John Praise Daniel, the chairman said: “they should not stop to get who can help in our economic recovery to ensure everything goes on well so that this country can bounce back as a great nation.”
Which leaves but one question outstanding: was Nigeria great before?
These two unrelated events gave the impression that the leaders and their followers are united on the question of our greatness – that we are not great now, but we were before; but these statements left me scratching my head. So I thought of enlisting the help of my friends. And I’ve found that the easiest way to do that is to post a question on the social media. With my modest following of about 9,000 people, there’s an impressive diversity: the professors, the patriots, women, youth, men, the religious scholars and those of us who listen to their sermons.
From this mix, one could extract insights that you’d never otherwise thought of in a thousand years. Thus, I posted the following: “The president’s optimism smooths the road ahead. But was Nigeria ever a great country? If yes, when?”
Some responded with “never,” but on average, the comments said: “Yes indeed, Nigeria was great in the First Republic in the 1960s, during the time of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Zik, Sardauna and Awolowo.” Today, I challenge this perception.
In this article, I’m going to argue that the leadership of the First Republic, even though it was a hundred times better than what we have now, was actually peopled by thieves, patriots of dubious intentions, lily-livered opportunists and (yes!) ex-convicts.
Yet, I believe that we have the potential to be great; and I believe that such greatness is worth fighting for, but first, we must recognize that there’s nothing impressive about us now or before and work towards the Nigeria we want for our future.
But first, let’s define our terms. What is great? Many dictionary entries of great can be good or bad. E.g. “great crisis” or “great work of art.” The dictionary definition of great which we can’t spin either way is “very good.” Therefore, something is great if it is very good. But for our purposes and in other to make our thesis arguable, this definition is ignored. We’re going to work with our own. This one: a status which inspires the following comment: I want to be like him. Imagine a (regular) family of many siblings. Who do they look up to? Who inspires envy or deserves to be emulated? If this is a reasonable family, they would look up to the one who responds well to set-backs, who succeeds despite great odds, who is able to solve his own problems, who has a large heart and is kind to people.
And since we’re discussing a nation, the definition necessitates that we include an element of patriotism. So in our great sibling analogy, that brother must have the love of family “and willingness to sacrifice for it.” Following from the above, we can extract two questions: was there a time when other countries aspired to be like Nigeria the way other countries want to be like the United States, Japan and Singapore? Two, was there a time during which our people and the leaders were willing to sacrifice for the nation?
To be continued.
PTAD pay my father’s pension
I’ve visited PTAD’s office a good number of times. The first time, I visited, I actually succeeded in finishing the verification for him, but not before I went back to Bida to print account statements of many months and brought other credentials. So we were told to wait three months and my dad would automatically resume receiving his pension. Nothing happened. Since then, every time I’m told that a verification of some description was happening by state or zone and to wait the turn of Niger State. Since it was a national project, I waited.
Then I realized that since I started visiting PTAD’s office two years ago, submitting one paper or the other, they were actually verifying pensioners individually, putting them on their register and paying them their monthly pension. Now I desire that my father should be treated the same way.
He retired from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture in 1999. Since that was before the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), he qualified for the Defined Benefit Scheme.
At the time of retirement, my father had no trouble collecting his gratuity and the pension came monthly and regularly. It was sometime in 2009, that it stopped coming all together; and it hasn’t resumed since. That means for six years he hasn’t been paid anything.
Seeing that my previous method of visiting PTAD hasn’t worked, I decided to employ another method. I’ll be appending this appeal to my column (and social media postings) regularly, with the hope that the new PTAD boss, Madam Sharon will do something urgent and positive for federal pensioners all over Nigeria.