NIGERIA@60: CHAIRMAN YOUNG LAWYERS FORUM, NBA-BENIN WRITES)

Today makes it 60 years since Nigeria’s proclamation of independence from British Rule. As a people, we all ordinarily should hold such an important day dear and treat same as one worth celebrating. However, that is not entirely the caes as we still find many fellow countrymen from different sections of the country who, on every 1st day of October, feel nothing but bitterness. A day to celebrate the most populous black nation on the surface of the earth has turned into a day to remember all the unending woes facing the nation; many of which have defied proposed and tested solutions.

How can the diverse and multifaceted people of Nigeria be kept united and satisfied?

This was the greatest hurdle faced in the first decade of Nigeria's independence - and it continues to be the case some 60 years later.

The country is currently wriggling in a mire of ethno-religous, socio-political and economic cesspool. Today’s 60th anniversary celebration is not being done in one accord. For the first time, some people from two of the three major ethnic groups in the country are singing discordant tunes of self-secession as cracks of disunity widen.

Nigeria is a country in dire need of good leadership with a clear purpose and a clearly mapped out direction. The country needs to go back to the time she practices fiscal federalism where the federating units of the Federation exercised considerable powers alongside the centre. Thus, some of items on the Exclusive Legislative List in the Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended needs to be taken to the Concurrent Legislative List. This will enable the states to grow at their own pace and further play a more active role in building our Country. As a matter of urgency, the devolution of some of those items on the Exclusive List to the states needs to be effected. The economy needs to be determined by economic principles, not policies and principles driven by political, religious and ethnic sentiments. The federating units must learn or forcefully be thought how to fish and provide for themselves. The Robin Hood philosophy of economics where you take from the working rich and give to the idle poor who has refused to till the earth is not really fostering oneness and equality. As a fact, all that this unholy act of generosity does is creating more poor people and in a larger scale.

I will not give in to the temptation to think that I have the solution to the myriads of problems bedevilling Nigeria. Even if I did, I am convinced that the biggest problem is that the solution will be resisted by some groups even at the pain of death.

Nigeria is 60 today, despite all the fine paintings of green and white, and the heart-soothing celebratory words employed by poets, what is visible are raging insecurity (senseless killings, kidnapping, organized terrorism, militancy, police brutality and killings), corruption, leadership deficiency, nepotism, wicked and insensitive leaders, enthic and religious bogotry, and most obvious of all is our pitiless and cruel misgovernance.

Instead of hoping upon hope that "Nigeria go better", we need to stand up and deliberately change the narratives. We need to fight against this lawlessness and huge misappropriation of national fortune. We need to rise against political enslavement by a few at the helms of affairs and by a section of the country. Only when we stand up to change the narratives and fight for a better Nigeria can we begin to be hopeful for the Nigeria of our dreams.

The greatest question of our time will be decided, not by speeches and resolutions of the majorities, but by a change in the mentality and psychology of the people, by deliberate and conscious efforts to change the narrative, and perhaps by iron and blood.

God bless Nigeria!

OSAYUKI KING AGBONGHAE ESQ.
(CHAIRMAN YOUNG LAWYERS FORUM, NBA-BENIN)