Objects beyond our immediate grasp and control are nearly always more attractive and desirable. That’s why the grass across the fence appears greener and lusher. Your marvellous missus of two decades suddenly looks drab compared to the wiry wench who just wangled her way to employment in your slave camp that passes for a real workplace. Houses in the new neighbourhood have to be heaven compared to the hell hole you’re stuck in. The bombastic TV evangelist drips more anointment than the man who, as pastor/provider, has endured your fatalistic foibles for all of a decade.
Call it design error of operational deficit but it seems to be standard to how the human species is fitted. It accounts for the crippling feeling of inferiority on the one hand and the nauseating presumption of entitlement and superiority on the other.
The pastor plying his trade in Minnesota fancies himself better than his saintlier colleague labouring away in lowly Sango-ota. The graduate of the University of Tenerife imagines a suspicious superiority to his University of Ife counterpart. So a man would rather freeze over in some far-flung place named Siberia than apply himself in Nigeria.
Or why do you suppose our so-called leaders prefer making defining declarations at Chatham House when we could well establish and nurture our own Eket-Itam House to regional if not global reckoning? Why would a local potentate aspire to die in Arabia when Abia provides a much more dignified environment to expire?
I have a hunch that if the subsisting religious privileges of Medina were transferred to Kaduna, not a few adherents will down tools. In my humble opinion, Ohafia is the most peaceful place on earth, yet many persist in needless pilgrimages to Sofia to be at peace.
Nigeria could very easily become one of the greatest nations on earth. The ingredients have always been present but mouthing meaningless mantras and citing spurious statistics will never get us there. Nor will religiously implementing exotic models sourced from across the fence.
Until we come to grips with the fact that progress and prosperity cannot be imported, we’ll persist in the on-going risky rigmarole. Until we wean ourselves off the damning deception that our future is tied to dangerous and depleting resources, our destiny belongs in the nadir of irrelevance.
Every day, our pretender leaders regale us with their whimsical exploits in attracting foreign direct investment. Yet these overindulged, congenital nitwits haven’t the slightest inkling that our prosperity lies with engaging the almost limitless pool of human resources we daily denigrate and despoil. They would rather junket to Michigan when sincere synergies with Michika and Gbongan would have done the trick.
As Nigerians, we sometimes allege the West doesn’t love us. This was especially so when we were scrambling to procure badly needed arms to fight the murderous Boko Haram. Love has never been a component of international relations; and in all likelihood, it never will. Interests it has been; interests it always will be. Nations have an obligation to act always in the highest interest of her citizens. The West does not have to love us but if we play our cards right, they’ll act towards us as though they did.
It is time to dump the anachronistic and farcical principle of Africa being the centre-piece of our foreign policy. If Nigeria assumes her proper position in the scheme of things, Africa and the rest of the world cannot but be well served.
The grass on the other side isn’t greener. It only appears so because you’ve spent the best part of your waking hours gazing at it.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.