These days, whenever I visit Nairaland, I become more convinced that there is no hope for NIgeria. My fear is not because of what our leaders have done to us. My fear grows because of the vile and bitter evil that young Nigerians do and say about themselves.

I see young(I believe) intelligent people like Eko-Ile (male or female, I know not) who write brilliant evil about Igbo people and anything anti-ACN. For them nothing is too sacred to be left unwritten. They write any and everything. They write hate-inspired words that can only fuel rage and bitterness in any sane soul.

And then there are the others like ak47mann who write that the yoruba people are the source of all the problems in the world. They have signed up their conscience and strength to defend any and everything Igbo and Ojukwu even when it flies against common sense.

My biggest fear however is the wholesale labelling of other ethnic groups. Most cases of ethnic cleansing and wholesale murderous campaigns of other ethnic groups in the past have often started with labelling people of other groups. It makes it easier to kill other people when you say all Igbos are criminals, all Yorubas are traitors who will betray you and all Northerners are almajiris and potential bombers. There may be snippets of seeming evidence to support these jaundiced views but when we use these views as the basis of hate sermons online, we are doing evil to ourselves.

Why are we like this? Why should we allow "ancient wars" fought by previous generations to make us hate ourselves so much? History is important, yes. But when the quest to resolve history or to tell a better story from the past makes us blind to the opportunities that can bind us together, we are in trouble.

Ojukwu said. No he didn't. Awolowo said. No he didn't. Sardauna said. No he didn't. We are still debating this years after these guys have long gone.

When will we come together as young people and tell new stories instead of rehashing the same old lines from our founding fathers who have played their parts and left?

We sigh and cry bitterly about the killings of the Aluu 4. But before we sound too self-righteous, perhaps someone like Eko-Ile would have given some petrol to burn them if this happened in his/her village and if s/he learnt that the people who were caught were some petty thieves who were "omo Igbo" by tribe. And I am sure an ak47mann would have provided some match sticks if s/he heard the people caught were some "Yoruba Yoruba" petty thieves.

Our eloquent hatred for each other is currently channeled through anonymous online vitriols at people from other tribes. Tomorrow, we may be better armed with guns and cudgels instead of our current internet access and evil grammar. And then we will see a re-making of Rwanda; normal people transformed overnight into murderous neighbours. It starts from hatred until it becomes insane murder.

My fear increases however when I see that even more intelligent people are now forced to take sides. Suspension of conscience and common sense seems to have set in. So the likes of the Gbawe's, Katsumoto's, and other such great minds who ordinarily give me hope that Nigeria may yet be good, once in a while join the fray of us against them.

I'm afraid for a Nigeria whose young people refuse to write their own scripts but instead focus on acting out the scripts of a previous generation who ironically wrote their own scripts when they were young men.

We are in trouble.

We all have our tears to shed. . .for our fears.
Nigeria is NOT one of mine.
OP. . . Pele o!

all these nairaland people too dey curse sef. una don let the o.p. dye fear for Nigeria. make una repent b4 una let the o.p. fear turn to afraid oh.

Callotti: We all have our tears to shed. . .for our fears.
Nigeria is NOT one of mine.
OP. . . Pele o!

I guess I can safely assume you have given up hope on NIgeria. Is that perhaps a reason why many of us make the kind of comments we make on NL? Is it a reflection of our hopelessness?

Any sensible person who still has hope in a cursed and hopeless entity like niGERia needs his/her examined.


My 50 cents.

chosen04: Any sensible person who still has hope in a cursed and hopeless entity like niGERia needs his/her examined.


My 50 cents.

Just went through some of your recent posts and I see most of them are about Nigeria.

You sure spend a lot of time posting about and discussing a country you have no hope in.

To the OP, I reached the conclusion that life deserves better than the ugliness displayed here. If you care to look at my posting history, it might show I hadly post here anymore and have been on a long posting hiatus. I mainly lurk here and ignore the bile-filled threads. Life is good.

Now, the good news ... I have actually never experienced these level of animosity and division in my daily interactions in Nigeria and with Nigerians. There is an unspoken commonality with my people in real life so I do not recognize a lot of the hate displayed here. Sure, life is tough, we all have issues to deal with but ethincity or rampant tribalism has never been high on the list of things confronting me in my daily struggles.

You see, anonymity conferred by the internet allow people to act our their fantasies and neatly slot into roles they would not otherwise be comfortable with in overt life. Another reason why porn sites are abundant on the net but I digress.

When you enter a room in real life, you wipe your feet but you never leave the values your parents taught you by the doorway. Same here when you login.

JNdupu: To the OP, I reached the conclusion that life deserves better than the ugliness displayed here. If you care to look at my posting history, it might show I hadly post here anymore and have been on a long posting hiatus. I mainly lurk here and ignore the bile-filled threads. Life is good.
quote]

You are right. It's a shame that NL has become a polluted by vile and foul posters. It used to be a site for robust discussions and exchange of ideas.

[quote author=JNdupu]Now, the good news ... I have actually never experienced these level of animosity and division in my daily interactions in Nigeria and with Nigerians. There is an unspoken commonality with my people in real life so I do not recognize a lot of the hate displayed here. Sure, life is tough, we all have issues to deal with but ethincity or rampant tribalism has never been high on the list of things confronting me in my daily struggles.

I do not totally agree with you here. I think the hate revealed on this site is a reflection of the state of mind of the posters and many Nigerians. We may not be acting it out yet because the opportunity to express the hate has not yet revealed itself. Like the example I gave in my original post, how does explain how nice neighbours became murderous savages in Rwanda?

JNdupu: When you enter a room in real life, you wipe your feet but you never leave the values your parents taught you by the doorway. Same here when you login.

This is vintage wisdom from you. Very true words. Beautiful analogy; beautiful truth