The shame of being a Nigerian

I was forced to remember it when I made an overview of the numerous opinions aired by individuals and organizations, on Nigeria’s decision to abstain from that crucial vote at the UN Security Council last Tuesday. The views were mainly extolling Nigeria’s glorious foreign policy past; they celebrated an era when our country stood with […]

I was forced to remember it when I made an overview of the numerous opinions aired by individuals and organizations, on Nigeria’s decision to abstain from that crucial vote at the UN Security Council last Tuesday. The views were mainly extolling Nigeria’s glorious foreign policy past; they celebrated an era when our country stood with the oppressed and the downtrodden. They remembered a time when our nation was the voice of the underdog.
And these lamentations were understandable. Despite the abundance of bad news that comes from our country everyday, last Thursday’s headlines that Nigeria’s abstention quashed Palestinian statehood dreams, was the only time I felt ashamed to be a Nigerian. That cowardly, shameful deed was not what our dear fatherland was known for. So deep was Nigeria’s interest in and solidarity with the plight of all oppressed people’s and nations that in Africa alone, Angolans, Namibians, South Africans and Zimbabweans cannot write the story of their lives without special chapters on how Nigeria stood by them.
Indeed so deep was Nigeria’s commitment to the cause of fellow African nations that our compatriots were easily mobilized towards the same goal. I remember that just before their independence in 1990, Nigerians held solidarity and fundraising rallies for Namibia. At the Kano version of the event, which attracted a mammoth crowd to the Kano Race Course, one incident made it indelible in my memory.
The late Sheikh Isa Waziri, who was then the chief imam of Murtala Memorial Mosque, had offered the opening prayer for the success of the event. He later rose to donate to the fund. After his donation, the chairman of the event, Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule, Dan Masanin Kano, made this humorous remark. ‘Allah sarki Isa Waziri, ga addu’a, ga naira dari biyar.’ (Poor Isa Waziri, he didn’t just offer the prayers he also donated of N500). I was following the live event from the safety of my family home in Tarauni, but I couldn’t help laughing at the remark. Of course N500 was a princely sum in 1989 but such was our love and commitment to our brothers’ cause that even the clergy were not averse to contributing to secular issues.
Yes those were the days when Nigeria was her brother’s keeper, at the United Nations and elsewhere. Right from its inception several decades ago, The Palestine Liberation Organization found a ready home in Nigeria. And we were at the forefront of the diplomatic boycott of Israel and the apartheid republic of South Africa. But that was a ‘can-do’ Nigeria; a Nigeria with principles and moral consciousness, a Nigeria that was fearless, proud and able to hold its own in the comity of nations.
Today we live in a ‘can’t do’ Nigeria, a nation that couldn’t even free it’s abducted school girls nine months after they were taken, supposedly to a forest that is neither dense enough nor big enough to be impregnable. Didn’t we all see that placard carried by a Chibok mother some months ago? It simply said ‘Mr President, how big is Sambisa?’ North-Easterners who know the terrain well have said that the Nigerian airforce could have freed those schoolgirls long ago if they had the will, because Sambisa isn’t even a dense forest.
But we live in a ‘can’t do’ Nigeria so even the insurgency that is devouring lives by the day will not be handled the right way because there are many who benefit from it. Our authorities continue to play politics with this orchestrated insurgency because it serves the wishes of some people to have the carnage last. A country in which hunters and vigilante youths perform better than trained military personnel because they lack the weapons with which to fight, is not a nation that can stand up for other nations.
It should therefore not be a surprise to us that while the world watched, in high expectancy, Nigeria denied the decisive vote that would have changed Palestinian fortunes. We are, after all the citizens of a ‘can’t do’ nation which would rather do the biddings of Apartheid Israel than heed the call of the moral majority. Every alive and aware Nigerian knows that Israel has grown stronger and more influential in the affairs of this country under the Jonathan administration. What started with Israeli security outfits are guarding the president soon became a lord and servant relationship. The guards became the masters.
We now know that they have everything to do with our security situation or lack of it. When three men landed in South Africa with lose to ten million dollar cash, in order to illegally purchase arms and bring to our bloodied nation, two were Nigerians, the third an Israeli. The modified Star of David on our new 100 naira note did not land there because we lack enough security symbols on our currency, it is there because our government can wait to show undying solidarity with Apartheid Israel through its adoption of that Jewish symbol.
And Israel had always wanted to feature on our national symbols, even long before even our independence from Britain. According to late Sheikh Abubakar Mahmud Gumi in his autobiograghy ‘Where I stand’ and incident that happened when he went to Hajj in the 1950s demonstrated this fact. It was during the camping ritual at Mina and all countries of the world were expected to raise their flag where their delegation was hosted. Sheikh Gumi recalled that as soon as the Nigerian delegation raised their flag, there was a commotion because the Arabs nearby all rose in protest. Abubakar Gumi and his colleagues asked what the protest was all about and they were told that the Nigerian flag had a Jewish symbol on it. Of course the Nigerian team wasn’t aware what the Jewish symbol was and when it was shown to them, they assured the Arabs that they didn’t know and will do whatever is necessary to remove it.
On his return to Nigeria after the pilgrimage, Sheikh Gumi said he travelled all the way to Lagos to inform the Prime Minister, late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa about the incident. That was how the Jewish symbol was removed from our national flag. If the intention was to make Nigeria a vassal of the Jewish state, the attempt failed at that stage. And luckily for us all subsequent Nigerian governments resisted their overtures. Indeed when the occasion called for it, Nigeria was ready to cut off ties with Israel. But that was a Nigeria we were proud to identify with.     
Our Nigeria of today is beset with such advanced moral leprosy that the ability of our leadership to differentiate right from wrong is greatly hampered by it. The rot and corruption that permeates every sector of the Nigerian nation will make most leaders hide in shame but our clueless leadership and its band of sycophantic advisers will see no evil and hear no evil, because it’s an inconvenience.
So the minister who spent hundreds of millions buying two cars and the one who wouldn’t condescend to explain where our 20 billion dollars oil revenue have gone, are still revered cohorts of the presidency. One is getting set to return to government as a senator, the other is the powerful occupant of the petroleum ministry portfolio. With this poor record of governance, it wouldn’t be possible to expect a Nigeria that can rise to the expectations of the world and save victims of man’s inhumanity to man.
Our leadership today is happier being seen with the likes of serial mass murderer, Benjamin Netanyahu, than with those who believe Palestinians deserve to live out of bondage like all other people on Planet Earth. But what they need to know is that Israelis have never been grateful to anyone for whatever sacrifices made for them. These words of Ariel Sharon, in his description of Americans, should be enough warning for anyone willing to damn the world and please Israel. ‘We own the banks and the media. Without us they are a stupid people.’
Surely if Sharon can say this of United States, which has been their protector since World War II, you can imagine what they will say about the sacrifices of poor Black Nigeria. And so help us God.