Horus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z__TQAXBe8

Nigerians Task Leaders to Imitate Mandela

BluIvy:
I will leave you at that. I am sure once you have cooled down from your stupidity you will have a clear revelation of who the foolish one is between us two.
No, its not nairaland or randland but "Pulaland"

vicoloni: I had refrained from joining any school of thought on Nigeria's political arena for many reasons but after reading this piece I am forced to express my utter disappointment and disgust in the way Mr. President is running the affairs of this great nation called Nigeria.
Even under military rule, Nigeria used to be much feared and respected by other African countries and most western states but what do we have today? Widespread disdain for anything Nigeria even among the ranks of its citizens.

In a saner society, the 'vote of no confidence' letter written by Mr. Obasanjo alone is more than enough to make a president resign!

My 10 cents!!

Built2last: why are you surprised? its not a new thing under heaven for you to help people and they turn arround and pay you with evil. Not Just civil servants contributed. they came to my primary school back then under Shagari that we should contribute. I remember giving the 50 kobo i had on me that day. Even when i never knew what the struggle was all about.

South Africa in recent times has seen Nigeria as a rival in everything. i am not surprised at all.

nnenna.1:



Asides quelling apartheid (which Nigeria never experienced) and trying to reconcile whites and blacks, what specific leadership qualities in Mandela should Nigerian leaders imitate?

Please don't say anything about transparency and anti-corruption because many other leaders in the world are just as imitable in those areas.

We just like to do follow follow with everybody.

Sowhizy:

Re u crazy? Must u show ur ugly face evrywia? Blockin my way mgbe obuna

ebucha: We African are the ones debasing ourselves. A french man can never insult a fellow french man for not speaking fluent spanish, but here, we so much glorify the queen of England that fluent English is misconstrued for intelligence. If Germans, the fastest growing economy in europe and china, the worlds fastest growing economy had dissipated much time on Flawless english, I doubt if they will be where they are today. I know my fellow country men will crucify me here for this statement, but as you type on your device, remember that 90% of the components of your device are mathematical derivatives/programmes.

Promhize: .....When you are doing good, you do it because you know its the right thing not because of the praise you would receive.
Whether they acknowledge or not, we did what was right and if the chance comes again, we do what's right. That's all that matters. Acknowledgement shouldn't.

safarigirl: .....When you help someone out, you need not continually remind them of that help, because they won't have any reason to appreciate that help anymore. We've done our part, they may not thank us because we're not having the best of times currently, but let posterity judge us all, whether they recognise us or not won't affect our economy or end the rot in our education system.

We pushed “our” Mandela back into the arms of his jailers even after he had been set free from a physical prison because he realised that African leaders may be parading themselves around in luxury cars and private jets but they were still ideologically imprisoned.

BluIvy:

Do not demote Mandela's struggle to be about Africans, the man went beyond Africanism but humanity.

Promhize:

Checked your posts, what I saw was quite sad, that you are a lady makes it worse.

Anyway, are you disputing the fact that we helped, supported Mandela, ANC and South-Africa??

BluIvy:

So did we and many other countries but you do not see us throwing this at their faces at everyturn, using it as some kind of insult, blackmail or an opportunity to make them feel indebted to us. We have never demanded a payback or recognition from SA becouse we did what we did, they never begged us to do it. If Botswana, Nigeria or any other country did not help someone else would have. This my bone of contention with how most Nigerians think. Nothing personal, really.

dedons: I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift,nor the battle to the strong,neither yet bread to the wise,nor yet riches to men of understanding,nor yet favour to men of skill;but time and chance happens to them all.

This is my time to be FIRST TO COMMENT.

you better rejoice with me so that your own time will also come.
U r very stupid

CLICK LIKE if you believe that you'll achieve your near dreams before the end of this year.

Bank Manager: That's why we ought to concentrate more on "National Policy" than "Foreign Policy"..There were many challenges in Nigeria from the 70s upward.Even though we had a buoyant economy,instead of developing our country FIRST,we started helping others.
Not that it's wrong but we spent millions of dollars fighting colonialists in South Africa,Mozambique,Angola and a host of others.
Today,SA is more developed than Nigeria.They played host to the world cup years ago while we are still dragging to host cadet competitions like the U-17 Championship.Their schools are world class yet,here in Nigeria,we are still battling with strike,dragging for who will fund our schools..The same FG that started helping others in the 70's took over our "regional varsities" and started "under-funding" them.No thanks to the Military men who never knew the value of education.We posed a GIANT POSTURE to other countries yet we failed to apply the principle of "NIGERIA FIRST before others."Our roads,health and power sectors are nothing to write home about..It's high time the Nigerian govt rise up to it's challenges.It's never too late to turn things around.It's hign time we kick away ethnicity,come together,build a national government we all can be proud of and above all,retain our status as the true giant of Africa..!

satowind: @op is regrettable what nigeria as a country have to pass through because of the fact that nigerians are greedy. Makes me wana cry but I won't cause today is my birthday....happy birthday to me.
Y was I banned for 1 week for uploading my pic I can't see were is an offense in nairaland rules

eaglechild:

Judging from your pic, you are old enough to realize that this is nairaland not facebook.
Pls spare us the agony of having to see your pictures.
Apparently you get a hard on by looking at your pictures on the internet so you have decided to inundate all topics whether related or not with them.
If you want to post your pics pls open a thread, and waank away.

Ojowanle: It’s amusing to see the same people who jailed Mandela several years ago falling over themselves to eulogise him at his death. This is not only because he showed in his life time that he is made of better material than all of them put together but also because we Africans allowed them to take centre stage.

Africans always allow Europeans and their American cousins to call the shots. It was Europeans who sent Mandela to jail and the same Europeans released him after he was considered more dangerous locked up than free.

They dismantled apartheid when it became an embarrassment to them.

Now they are the ones telling us Mandela’s life story and all the efforts other African countries, especially Nigeria, played to set him free have been carefully deleted from history.

A wise man once said, “history is merely a piece of fiction written by the Victors”.

When Mandela left prison a wiser and more matured man than when he was thrown into jail he confounded his captors who quickly switched gears and became his best friends.

On the other hand, a disappointed Mandela was hoping to find an independent Africa with progressive leadership but what he discovered was that most African countries were actually in a worse state than they were under colonial leadership when he went to jail.

It was only natural for him to become best friends with the same people who jailed him especially after he discovered that the economies of most African countries were still tied to the apron strings of their former colonial masters.

If Nelson Mandela died with any regrets it’s probably the fact that he was the only African leader that Europeans and Americans had any respect for.

Take for instance his memorial service where America’s president was given centre stage to read an eulogy. President Jonathan was at the same memorial service but no major media organisation acknowledged his presence.

Yeah, nobody acknowledged the presence of Goodluck Jonathan, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria at Mandela’s memorial.
Nobody remembers that Nigeria spent millions of Dollars to support the African National Congress (ANC) members in exile.

It was Nigeria that led a successful boycott of the 1986 Commonwealth Games in protest against the attitude of the Thatcher led Conservative government to apartheid South Africa.

Nigerian passports were issued to opponents of the apartheid regime so that they could travel around the world and drum support for release of Nelson Mandela and dismantle apartheid when the South African government wouldn’t issue them passports.

For several years, Nigerian Civil Servants were contributing a part of their salaries to support the struggle against apartheid.

What we got paid in return is not appreciation but a complete airbrush from history and it’s not because Mandela and South Africans are ungrateful but because they are too ashamed to associate themselves with our leaders.

Mandela would sooner travel to a country where there is stable power supply and security; make friends with Clinton and Blair, who were held accountable to the people they governed, than hang around those who would treat him like a god while oppressing the people who elected them to office.

Mandela would rather associate himself with a country where a cabinet minister resigned over accusations he insulted Policemen on duty than hang around a President who refused to sack a minister facing legislative probe for spending $1.5 million dollars on bullet proof luxury cars.

Madiba avoided Africa because the state of affairs in so many African countries reminded him of how black South Africans were treated by white South African only worse because it’s now black Africans oppressing other black Africans.

When the tide turned around for Mandela, the organised western world – the same people who jailed him – made a decision to claim his legacy while his African brothers, who paid a price to get him freed, were busy tearing down the good work they built.

The same way he realised that the way forward for South Africa was forgiveness and reconciliation he also realised that the sensible thing to do was to fraternise with the people who jailed him and not the profligate and corruption ridden African leadership.

We pushed “our” Mandela back into the arms of his jailers even after he had been set free from a physical prison because he realised that African leaders may be parading themselves around in luxury cars and private jets but they were still ideologically imprisoned.

Since he didn’t want to go back to any kind of prison he aligned himself with those who put him in jail because they did not only set him free from a physical prison they also had the power to set him free from the ideological prison that other African leaders were still trapped in.

They are now the ones re-writing Mandela’s life story and thanks to our leaders our children will probably never know the role we played in setting him free from jail and South Africa from an evil political system.



- See more at: http://www.urnaija.com/nigeria-airbrushed-out-of-mandelas-life-story/

DerideGull:
You could not be more correct. In addition, Africans are sentimental goats and can never match the deftness of Europeans especially on the propaganda front. Europeans made sure Mandela parted ways with Winnie and arranged a waste pipe for him as a wife.

ImHotep-X:
Let me just conclude with this post.

In the last few days, I've done a proper analysis of the great icon, Nelson Mandela, and I believe I kind of rate him more than I used to. I believe if I were in his shoes - I would have done the same thing. If I had gone to prison for 27 years, only to come out to see a continent that was in a worse state under indigeneous rule than it was under colonialism. Civil wars everwhere. Military tyrants enslaving their own people. Extreme corruption, hunger, poverty and underdevelopment as the face of post-colonial Africa. Africa's only hope, Nigeria, in a state of anarchy. And a South Africa under apartheid rule as the only shinning light of the continent, with a lot to gain from a compromise - even if it meant being slaves under minority rule. I would have compromised and titled towards being a slave in "heaven" than being free in "hell." Let's be honest - the black race is accursed! I guess that was why he had to settle for less and embrace the status quo, with the hope that future generations in South Africa would turn it around when they become educated enough to understand the necessary steps in taking power.

I doubt Nelson Mandela would be angry with the omission of Nigeria from his story because if there was any country he hated, that country has to be Nigeria. I believe that stems from seeing a country with so much potentials in ruin is enough for anyone to hate such a country. Especially when at one point in history, the hope and destiny of a whole race was tied to that country. He never hid his hatred for Nigeria. And that was a man in which hatred/hate was foreign to - so you lot need to understand why you need to smack yourselves rather than pointing fingers everywhere.

Also, despite how Mugabe was painted black everywhere - Mandela and South Africa indirectly supported everything he did. Mugabe's like a god in South Africa. Mandela was also an upright/upstanding man - and he's the type that would never deny his "friends" regardless of what anyone says. A very loyal icon. Nelson Mandela described Fidel Castro as, “In all my years in prison, Cuba was an inspiration and Fidel Castro a tower of strength.” Go read about the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola 1988 and how it was the turning point for apartheid South Africa. That was Cuba's contribution. Nelson Mandela once described Muammar Gaddafi as "Brother Leader" and said this to those who had something negative to say about his bromance with Muammar Gaddafi: "Those who feel irritated by our friendship with President Gaddafi can go jump in the pool." Then went further in 1999 by saying this: "No-one can deny that the friendship and trust between South Africa and Libya played a significant part in arriving at this solution. It vindicates our view that talking to one another and searching for peaceful solutions remain the surest way to resolve differences and advance peace and progress in the world. It was pure expediency to call on democratic South Africa to turn its back on Libya and Gaddafi, who had assisted us in obtaining democracy." Heck, one of his grand sons was named Gaddafi after the late Libyan leader. That was Nelson Mandela for you. Very loyal to his friends.

So before we critique the man's legacy - we need to understand the reasons and circumstances in which he made whatever decision(s) he made. And why he wouldn't want his legacy to be associated with Nigeria.

Finally, no matter what you lot say on here - nothing can negate his status as the most celebrated and accomplished black hero ever! Only Michael Jackson was close. Maybe, Obama and Muhammed Ali would also be close when it's all said and done. The most important thing is that the man never complained about the celebrity status those who jailed him gave him. He loved and embraced it. I went to his statue at the Parliament Square two days ago to pay my last respect to him. And loads of people were also there despite the cold weather and the frost.

Mitch D Leo: This is the problem Nigeria is facing. All we do is criticize each other.