Who wants to die for Nigeria?

Fola Ojo

This question bolts out of the blues sporadically from curious Nigerians who are either unsure of the depth of their love and commitment to their country, or who strive to ascertain the same of others. In today’s Nigeria, which is believed to be exclusively an oil of gladness for a privileged few, and the water of affliction for the rest of the stock, this patriotism test question may be appropriate. When a nation and its leadership are going adrift and the dividends of democracy are only yielding fruits into the pockets of a few elite families and their privies, the deprived will bawl and brawl in understandable opposition to unjust treatments and unfairness. Sometimes, it gets ugly and violent leading to the loss of lives.

Revolting against a system that pummels and pulverises the masses always costs lives. In 1787, America’s Thomas Jefferson spoke thus: “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing for America”. Jefferson felt that the angry farmers in Massachusetts’ Shays’ Rebellion of 1786 had a right to express their grievances against the government, even if those grievances might take the form of violent action.

The 2011 Egyptian Revolution in Cairo, Alexandra, and other Egyptian cities cost 846 lives. The Jasmine Revolution  in Tunisia, December 2010, was an intensive campaign of civil resistance that ousted longtime President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011.The Orange Revolution in Ukraine that ended in January 2005 also has a record of lost lives. As I argued in my last intervention on this page two weeks ago, violence as a means of addressing Nigeria’s many ills is not the right approach; but it is important for all of us to learn from history. People protest unfairness because days of captivity on the calendar of the captor have no expiration date. It behoves the captive to either choose life or death fighting for liberty or remain in tormenting domination and control in the prison of life. One ace musician wrote: “Better to die fighting for freedom than be a prisoner all the days of your life.”  A man can shut down a fight by putting up his own fight. Revolution may bring about a lasting change; the flip side is that people die in the process. But who wants to die for Nigeria? Those who put up a fight do so truly believing that their country is worth fighting and dying for.I had asked an American friend if he would die for his country and he said; “My country has given me the base to a good life and I don’t have a way to repay it enough for that. If I die fighting for this nation, it is a worthy death”. Why do thousands of Nigerian boys and girls enlist en-masse in the US military almost immediately they immigrate to the country? These young people are convinced that America is worth dying for. In Nigeria, joining the military was a suicide and fruitless mission to them.

Who wants to die for Nigeria? In the quarterly media chat with President Goodluck Jonathan a couple of days ago, Nigerians wanted to know why he had not to date led an army of warriors against Boko Haram. My President responded: “If I should go close to Boko Haram territory, they will kill me.” I am sure that no one expects a sitting president to physically lead a platoon to claw down terrorists. Obama was in Washington DC when Osama bin Laden was killed, George W. Bush was playing golf in Texas when Sadam Hussein was caught and executed. But the answer Jonathan gave still chants this question harder: Who wants to die for Nigeria?Even for the man who presides over 170 million Nigerians home and abroad, who possesses a potent authority over an expanse of land that measures 923,768 km, a GDP of about $510bn, active duty personnel in three armed services, totalling approximately 200,000 troops and 300,000 paramilitary personnel with military equipment of small arms, artillery, missiles and recoilless rifles, armoured vehicles, and air defence, and the leader of the giant of Africa, voluntary death is not an option.

Who wants to die for Nigeria? Definitely not the man or woman from the hamlet of Ogoni whose river has been polluted, whose land has been seized, and whose oil is stolen daily and its proceeds locked up in the hands of strangers. Not that man from the rustic region of Bayelsa State or the woman from the slumbering village of Yenagoa, or the young man from the defiled and pillaged townships of the Niger Delta. Not the guy who graduated with a  first class from the university, but has to work as a measly chauffeur to some unlearned billionaire opportunists who are hooked up to some big goons  in government. Not the young man whose friends and loved ones got trampled to death at the Abuja stadium in search of paltry jobs they had hoped would give them life; not those hopeless unemployed who believe that their leaders have driven the country to an ignominious, ominous, and perilous precipice. Not those citizens who know that it is the Nigerian genome for our culprit leaders and their privies not to take responsibility for their irresponsibility. There is no voluntary foot-soldier who wants his life eviscerated for Nigeria because everyone is already dying of an illness called NIGERIA. Many are dying of Nigeria that has almost become a killer-disease. Poor villagers and city-dwellers are dying daily of avoidable deaths. It’s like death lives in Nigeria and pounding on the nation with frequent, tumultuous guerilla visitations. Nigeria is seen by Nigerians as an affliction, a sickening bad-breath that will make you disgorge, a belch from the gastro-intestine of hell, and a country furbellowed with deliberate disapprobation and depravity. Many around the world believe we are like the axis of tragedy, horror and infamy, an amalgamate of mess, degeneracy and turpitude. Who wants to die for Nigeria? Not the loved ones of those innocent girls yanked off their bunk-beds at midnight and taken into a forest while our leaders opt for shameless fiestas. The reactions from some of our leaders to the reprehensible abduction of our girls are not believed to be from the heart but an after-thought verbal emission of garbage meant only to deceitfully pacify an angry and befuddled citizenry. We now see crooked crocodile tears that dry off as soon as they are shed, and hypocritical promises of help that touched down too late in a Hollywood/Nolywood melodramatic show of shamelessness.

Our leaders’ minds are depraved. People die for countries that exist for them, not for a few segregated sacred cows that God will eventually take to the abattoir of an inevitable judgment. A close friend of mine had asked this same question on his Facebook page recently and a woman retorted that Nigerians have already “over-died’ with the prevalent general inhuman and harsh economic climate. Nigerians are done dying because there is nothing else living in them.People don’t know where to hide from the menace. A report by the Human Rights Watch says, “Oil revenues have been misused, undermining democracy” up to $20bn missing within 19 months, and anyone expects some Nigerians to volunteer to die while others loot and live? These oil revenues are supposed to provide all of us amenities that will give the people a good life.

It is an understatement that both the glad and the sad in Nigeria may not be prepared to lay down their lives for the nation which is now on life-support. Dying for a country actually means sacrificing for the same. Millions of us love Nigeria but abhor our leaders’ behaviours. We are a nation of immeasurable and mind-boggling potential; we can realise this potential. Paraphrasing a popular Bible passage, whatever we need to work, we must work now while it is yet day, for the night is coming when no man can work.