‘Think not what your Country can do for you BUT think what you can do for your Country’ – John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Growing up in a Country with a chequered history and a profuse loyalty to region rather than Nation; with ethnic and egocentric prejudices as King over ethical and egalitarian precepts; with religious bias as Lord over nationhood and brotherhood; and with the jingoism of creed and clan diminishing returns on patriotism, this effort is not only timely but imperative, curative and patriotic.
Countrymen and women, when we look at the ills of governance and locate our pain at the doorstep of region or religion we offend logic and afflict posterity with a bile of unresolved contradictions. I know that the successive regimes that looted this country dry were amalgams of people of different tribes and faith.
When in unison they looted, stole from and depleted our collective till their Iboness, Yorubaness, Hausaness, Ibibioness, Jukunness et al were never in issue, when they festered the decay of our ethical and moral plexus our religious difference counted for nothing. But when they lose power and are denied the key to our collective patrimony they seek to shoot down Nigeria form tribal, regional, religious and partisan trenches. Sad.
They so quickly forget that the reason we are where we are is because we lowered the bar of our collective engagement as a nation to the banal estate that salutes tribal jingoists over patriots and nationalists. It didn’t start today, we lost it from the start.
We must rebuild our union and make Nigeria work, but we must commit ourselves first to reworking the fabrics of this union. We must make fairness, equity and justice the minimum margin of our interaction as a people and as a nation.
When we give our best to Country, our Country will work and the basic quid pro quo will be better life for all.
God Bless Nigeria.
COUNTRY FIRST II
“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
To move a nation forward there must be a conscious resolve by her citizens to subsume ‘I’ with ‘WE'; to diminish ‘ME’ with ‘US'; and to make the core of governmental trust better life for the people. Chiefly there must be rectitude in governance, and leadership must slay sleaze.
When we eschew corruption and malfeasance. When we serve our union indiscriminate of creed or clan. When we water the tree of patriotism. And when we honour Statesmen above Tribesmen, our voyage to the nation of our dreams shall become real.
In this era of CHANGE I believe that for COUNTRY the Senate of Federal Republic of Nigeria should look beyond the witch-hunt, ghost-hunt or man-hunt of the Senate President Bukola Saraki and ask him to resign, the moral standing of the Senate should count more than the ambition of one man. First it was the forging of House Rules, then corruption charges against his wife, and now corruption charges before the Code of Conduct Tribunal. We must raise the moral bar above the conspiracy theorem and ask him to step down.
Compatriots, we must begin an overhaul of our collective morality. We must rise beyond the ‘pawn in a chess-board’ cadre and refuse to be drawn into defending or excusing politrickcal and political conflict, Nigeria must come first, for me therefore if Senator Bukola Saraki feels witch-hunted he should step down and square up with those witch-hunting him lest governance suffers.
We must congregate at the place where loyalty to nation dwarfs our partisan prejudices.
God Bless Nigeria.
COUNTRY FIRST III
“A nation that ignores her children will suffer spiritual atrophy; a leadership that ignores the young condemns the future to an era of inexperience; and a ruling class that ignores the youth plans to fail. Nations are the aggregation of every social strata, to succeed it must be about Country, about the people not about personal egos and ids.” – Prof Chris Nwaokobia Jnr.
I read that 50 Senators want the Senate President to stay on, they are urging and nudging him on, they argue that the goings on at the CCT is a witch hunt, so Saraki can flaunt and disobey the Laws of the Land. Sad!
He can undermine Court summons, he goes to the Court of Appeal to vacate an Order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, gets a NO from the Court of Appeal alas unknown to him the times have CHANGED. Sadly, Lawmakers have become Law-breakers.
Some defend this because they consider the process a witch hunt. Wait a minute, is the witch hunt or ghost hunt responsible for the anticipatory declaration of properties that were not owned by Bukola Saraki as his? Was the witch hunt responsible for the corruption for which he is charged? Was the witch hunt the reason the House Rules were forged? If his hands are clean would there be a charge? Why is he scared of the Legal Process?
This generation must cease to applaud the politrickal games of politicians and raise our collective moral margin. Witch hunt or manhunt, it must be COUNTRY FIRST, let Saraki resign so he can face the Courts and tackle those witch-hunting him, governance must not suffer because he must remain Senate President, and by the way the integrity of this Senate is on a nose dive.
God Save Nigeria.
COUNTRY FIRST IV
“I do not see how he survives, why he is not crushed and torn to pieces. Without him I should be destroyed. He performs his task superhumanly.” – Abraham Lincoln on Edwin Stanton his Secretary of War who was first his hater and arch-critic.
Noah Brooks a Journalist said that Stanton was known as a ‘bull-head’ that is to say ‘opinionated, implacable, and not easily turned from any purpose’. The LESSON is Stanton was not particularly likable – yet President Lincoln liked him.
A good Leader must overcome the ids of revenge. He must put Country First and surround himself not with jesters and praise singers but those who at all times can say the truth to Power. Public Office holders must subsume egos and ids by learning some Lincoln leadership tact.
To Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, I must say that some of us of South South and South East extraction who stock our necks out in the electoral effort that brought you to power have become recipients of a barrage of hate calls and diatribe since your list of Special Assistants and Commissioner designates was sent to the House of Assembly.
It has been a spate of cynical and skeptical attack on us your supporters as your list does not have a non-yoruba name on it. Tinubu worked with some non-indigene/non-Yoruba Commissioners and S.As and so did Fashola, BUT your Ambode has chosen to return Lagos to the dark days of ethnic divide and exclusion, they argue.
Sir, the ideological brush we had with some Igbo Leaders during the campaigns should not deny Lagos the cosmopolitan beauty that your Predecessors made of it, inclusion is it. THINK.
God Bless Nigeria.
COUNTRY FIRST V
“The worth of a state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.”- John Stuart Mill 1806-73.
I have unwavering confidence that someday this nation shall overcome the dichotomy of creed and clan and congregate at the parlour of brotherhood where parlous loyalty to tribe and religion will diminish.
I have doubtless confidence that this union will someday become a veritable reference of inter-tribal harmony and shall someday pave the highway to the long sought inter-religious global family.
My unyielding confidence in the strength of this union devolves on the faith that this regime shall employ commensurate verve in etching a new national orientation paradigm as it does our foreign policy. We must rebuild confidence and trust at home as we do overseas.
As our 55th Anniversary approaches, we must deepen all that epitomizes our ability to soar. We must repudiate sleaze and corruption, and redefine our moral margins. We must remove from strict partisanship and walk the talk of patriotism. We must re-ignite our faith in the GREEN WHITE GREEN and pull down all walls of nepotism and regional prejudice. And we must arise as compatriots knowing that though tongues and tribes differ in brotherhood, we stand.
Countrymen and women, if and when leadership teaches us to think and put COUNTRY FIRST, our union shall foster, we shall discover how fleeting our differences are. And then shall the Eagle soar yet again.
God Bless Nigeria.
COUNTRY FIRST VI
Countrymen and women, NOW is the time to make NIGERIA work, and this challenge is a collective, indiscriminate of the prejudice of creed and clan, indiscriminate of partisanship, and regardless of regional and religious dichotomies, to make this union great it must always be COUNTRY FIRST.
This clarion call devolves on the seven incontrovertible normative I here present to you my Compatriots.
1. PEACE is priceless because no matter how well intentioned leadership is, in an atmosphere of rancour and conflict nothing will work, and the expected CHANGE would become a mirage. May we therefore cease to disparage and threaten our union.
2. LOVE is key to the survival of any union or nation. We must take a cue from Mr President who has consistently recognised the role Ex-President Jonathan played in sustaining this union by conceding defeat at the polls, and sheath the sword. PDP/APC and PMB/GEJ supporters must realize that in the end NIGERIA is the winner.
3. DUTIES AND OBLIGATIONS are incumbent on citizenship. Leaders and the led must therefore commit to the minimum margins of discipline and responsible conduct. Leadership must be responsible and responsive knowing that governance is a social contract, and the led must not only place demands on leadership but obey Laws and discharge their civic duties without let or hindrance. Arise O’ Compatriots!
COUNTRY FIRST VII
Nationhood is the sum total of the socio-political variables I shall highlight in my subsequent piece. However nation building thrives on the praxis I set out in Part VI, here is the last four of the seven point normative on which a new national reawakening must devolve.
4. UNITY is fundamental for national development, no matter how well intentioned leadership is, without deepening the frontiers of national cohesion and unity, efforts at making real the promises of democracy shall at best be fleeting. The best men can do naught in an atmosphere of distrust and disunity.
5. FORGIVENESS is key for national integration and brotherhood, and we must realize that at some point in our chequered union we have offended each other, therefore hate and revenge must be jettisoned for this Country to grow. Partisan and parochial prejudice will do us no good my Compatriots.
6. PATRIOTISM is the none negotiable minimum for progress. Without loyalty to nation, we can do little. A new national orientation paradigm that must inspire hope and faith in the GREEN WHITE GREEN is thus imperative for the Eagle to soar.
7. SERVICE is no doubt what we owe our nation and indeed each other. We must be disciplined and dedicated to the service of fatherland as such is the way to go.
COUNTRY FIRST VIII
I could not have wished for any nationality but Nigerian. Here I’m not being preposterous or idealistic but frank and factual. I see uniqueness in the over 200 languages and cultures that define this nation.
I see beauty in the variegated tendencies of our people confident that this union is not happenstance but divinely orchestrated. Yes, nothing can be truer, knowing how in the 101years of this union, we survived the mischief of colonialism; we survived a pogrom; we survived a 30months fratricidal war; we survived internecine conflicts and carnage; we survived the Niger-Delta militancy; and we shall make the Boko Haram insurgency history.
We are a nation fashioned by God to lead Africa and the Black Race to the pinnacle of the New World. We are relentless offshoots of Patriarchal greats like Azikiwe, Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello, Adaka Boro, Tarka, Osadebe et al. We are kindred of Phillip Emeagwali and Gabriel Oyibo paladin of Modern Science. We are folks of Nobel Laureate and literary greats like Soyinka, Achebe, Saro Wiwa, Yerima amongst others. And we are a nation of geniuses and creators.
Compatriots, now is the time to put COUNTRY FIRST and build upon the halcyon feats of our history to make Nigeria truly great. YES WE CAN.
TO BE CONT’D.
God Bless Nigeria.
Prof. Chris Nwaokobia Jnr.
DG CHANGE AMBASSADORS OF NIGERIA CAN.
Pin:5588BE17
Pin:565B7A78
Twitter@CNWAOKOBIAJNR
FB: PUNDIT DR-CHRIS
Instagram: @CHRISNWAOKOBIAJNRII
Comments
Post a Comment