I HATE THIS COUNTRY.

This is a rant. As a 24 years old graduate in this country, I believe I’m a voice of a section, if not all, of youths crisscrossing the length and breath of this country of ours which is still dawdling in a child state at the age of 96 (counting from 1914).

Firstly, I would like to tell all Nigerians above the age of 40 to PLEASE stop casting aspersions at the youths of this country for lacking initiative and being given to pettiness such as cultism and hedonism instead of leading a renewed sense of nation-building. “The glory of the latter shall surpass that of the former” says The Bible and its manifestation is in the present crop of youths permeating this country. We are a product of the last generation. If we fail in having any leadership qualities, a la IBB, it is because the preceding generations have failed to give us role models in whose shoes we would have loved to follow. We are left to our whims and caprices, and we are trying our very best to bequeath a better future to our children than the ones our fathers gave us – that of being reduced to a feudalistic existence, with its various trappings such as ethnic jingoism and mental servitude. The failure of a child can be traced to his father. An apple never falls far from the tree.

Our fathers have failed us. People like Gani Fawehinmi, Ken Saro Wiwa and Abubakar Rimi fought for the masses of this country with their blood, sweat and tears yet at the crucial time when they needed the same masses to back them up at crucial times – during Gani and Ken’s numerous arrests and incarcerations, during the unconstitutional impeachment of Rimi – the youths then, our fathers, refused to back them up with civil disobedience so we now have this present season of anomie when the worst of us are ruling the best of us. When bad men congregate, good men are condemned to associate else the fate of the world is doomed. Yet in Nigeria, we give our tacit and implicit consent to vultures when we keep silent as they strip us naked in the market like our house of representathieves are wont to do now and then. Our fathers have refused to be good role models.

The worst thing about the government of the day, at all levels, is its lack of urgency. The problems in Nigeria are huge yet the people in power behaves as if there is no fire on the mountain, rather they party away with shindigs in London for 50th anniversary of independence, Harvard training jamboree and World Cup Owambe. There are 40 million youths between the ages of 18 and 40 who are unemployed or underemployed, yet we play politics with everything. People were dying on the streets queuing for petrol, like the late UPS Chairman, while the presidency, national assembly and ministers played politics with the sickness of late Umaru Yar’adua. For over 6 months, we watched as they danced around, doing nothing for the youths whose unemployed graduate ranks swelled up by another 200,000 approx. during the period. Now they are dancing galala around a Jonathan 2011 Presidency while 98 % of the future of this country is basking in the throes of failure if NECO is to be believed.

Must we play politics with everything? We all know that Sani Kaita and Yakubu Aiyegbeni were in the 2010 tea party to World Cup 2010 because of one thing – quota system. This system which enables mediocre and charlatans to parade themselves as Nigeria’s finest can be held as the singular government policy that has held us back from the Jet Age and responsible for our woes. What more motivation will a sixteen year old girl need to believe that hard work and competency has no reward than to be denied admission in OAU after scoring 250 in JAMB because she’s from the north while she see admission go to an Oyo state boy of the same age with a score of 210? What will the boy, the beneficiary of the admission think if not that one’s fate is sealed by the accident of birth rather than by the work of his hands? We’ve made promotion of mediocrity a state policy, when what we need is competency in no matter garb, yet we are still wondering why we are in this quagmire called Nigeria.

STOP THE POLITICS! START THE GOVERNANCE! I hate this country because of the state of it. I hate this country because of its lack of vision and its rudderless stirring towards the edge of the world. I hate this country so much because I can see its potential and it grieves my heart to see it being wasted on the altars of mundane politicking that should be combined to the dustbin of 20th century. This country prides itself in frustrating its brightest and killing its youngest, so I hate it. I hate the fact that a Norwegian life anywhere on earth is reported to worth $2 million while the life of a Nigerian is worth absolutely nothing. I hate the fact that in this country one cannot progress, both in the private and public sector, without knowing the subtle art of palm-greasing. I hate the fact that the police that should protect me from armed robbers and kidnappers is now in competition with them, collecting N20 every time he sees me on the road. I hate the fact that there is no support for entrepreneurs at all in this nation like what obtain in others, yet we continue to harangue youths to create jobs for themselves.

If we continue in this course, we will fall off the face of the earth with terrible repercussion for all of us, home or abroad. The black race which looks on to Nigeria to get its act right in order to lead it out of slavery, both mental and physical, will be doomed to bondage in perpetuity.

Another thing I hate about this country is the marriage of religion and the state. Pray, why do we go to churches and mosques to do thanksgiving for Nigeria’s first coup in the guise of Armed Forces Remembrance Day? Why must we go through this same self-congratulation on October 1st when we have nothing to celebrate except poverty and corruption? Since these unelected clerics are given such undeserved attention, we are forced to live with a situation where they are the doctors that tell us if our President is dead or not. That is why a Boko Haram will be linked to a Governor. That is why a Senator, whose first wife is a doctor and must know about VVF, will divorce a fifteen year old Nigerian girl who just gave birth to his child (I’m sure she now has VVF that’s why) and bring a thirteen year old Egyptian to marry in Nigeria (which he cannot do in the girl’s father’s house) and some clerics will say it does not contravene their beliefs when such is illegal even in more Islamic countries like Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. They do not care if the laws of the land are contravened to serve the rabid serial paedophile. Pray, if I turn an Ogun worshipper tomorrow and my Ogun wants human blood of a defenceless baby, what stops me in buying one and slaughtering such? Will I have the luxury of having the National Assembly bus to convey my acolytes masquerading as market women to come and demonstrate in my favour at the same assembly?

We cannot continue like this. Change must come. Change is coming. Nature abhors inconsistency and so works to correct any anomaly. However, change can be of two nature, violent or non-violent. Non-violent change occurs when the causative agents of the anomaly understand that change must occur and work in consonance with it whilst violent change occurs when the agents insisted on preserving the old order. Anyone who makes non-violent change impossible will make violent change inevitable. Anybody walking on the streets of Lagos, Kano, or Aba will know that the time of change is near. The only determinants of whether it will be violent or non-violent are the people in government. It is only they who must make non-violent change possible; else we will plunge head-on into a season of violence, spontaneous, unplanned, sporadic and country wide.

I would like to finish my rant by contributing my two-pence to non-violent change in Nigeria. We all know what is wrong with Nigeria but we lack the political will to correct it. Governance is not rocket science. It is not throwing committees and money to problems and challenges. It is simple: Let us put round pegs in round holes.

We need two approaches to this: one, a short term and the other, long term. The short term starts from the elections next years as the present bunch of power-capturing politicians are too inept to grasp the essentiality of urgency of getting Nigeria moving. We must elect proficient professionals with known deep-seated distaste for bureaucratic shenanigans and ethnic-religious bigotry. I would trump up Nigerian professionals that have performed excellently well in foreign lands as they performed well, for example Okonjo-Iwealla and Ezekwesilli, but we can also find ones that have excelled well here, especially in face of the numerous adversity we face daily in this country. However, we do not just elect them and go to sleep; rather we engage them on daily, weekly and monthly basis to make sure that they have their sleeves rolled up to tackle the problems. They must know that if they will not respond to our problems and situations like Obama is doing to the BP’s oil spill, they will meet us on the streets like the red shirts of Thailand.

The long term approach to solving the Nigerian perfidy is education. It is only a people with an emancipated mind that can know that they deserve the best and demand it as their legitimate, God-giving right. We need to replace the present examination system with an educational system. If we continue to add more exams as speed breakers in front of our children, a la post-UTME, we are just playing the ostrich. These kids need to be encouraged starting from their young age while we look out for their peculiar talents and natural gifts. They should then be tutored in that line. A situation where a child reads medicine then after graduating found that he was more cut out for banking or literature is totally a waste of time and talent that could have been better enhanced. We must also as a mid-term project of rehabilitating the battered youths of this country be setting up vibrant youth development centres in all major town and cities, in order for them to be able to work off their aggression more constructively for the betterment of the nation. We must also embark on massive job creation for the youths by making sure our industries work. We are not an independent nation; we are still dependent on other nation, through importation, for everything. Spending $2.6 billion last year to import rice is pure madness when we have willing hands and suitable lands to produce such.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. If we fail to do the above, we are doomed as a people and condemned as a nation. We will all suffer it: rich, poor or in-between. The madness in this country has gone on for far too long. We must stop this descent into barbarism or God will never forgive Nigeria. He has already blessed us. Let us use His blessing judiciously.


Femi Johnson
Coordinator
Positive Change Network

well spoken

OP please don't take this the wrong way but do u reside in nigeria or outside the country? The reason I ask is to know if the average Nigerian feel the same way we (ppl who post on NL) do? And if they do why aren't we more proactive. I'm beginning to think that maybe it's impossible to bring about change in Nigeria. Or has everyone just found a way to manage? Just curious.

Another thing I hate about this country is the marriage of religion and the state. Pray, why do we go to churches and mosques to do thanksgiving for Nigeria’s first coup in the guise of Armed Forces Remembrance Day? Why must we go through this same self-congratulation on October 1st when we have nothing to celebrate except poverty and corruption?

Well put.

do you hate the country or do you hate the bad people in it and bad things in general?
why confuse the two.
you can't say i hate the country and get mad that ppl are keeping it from getting better cause that would mean you want it to get better.

2011 election is around the corner so everyone want to be relevant. Do you want IBB phone no, he is recruiting political association to help him for his presidential bid.

YOU HATE THIS COUNTRY, then you formed organisation name POSITIVE CHANGE NETWORK. What are you changing. Naira to Dollar, Ghana must to Bank account.

Start the change from yourself. Change the hate to love. How can you change something with negative mind (hate). As a man thinketh so he is. If you hate Nigeria then what do you think you are.

I feel you Mr Poster.
Change is not easy to effect by one person.

@OP, I'm with you on that hate - I hate Nigeria!

By Nigeria, I mean all the people who benefit from the oppression of the poor and exploitation of the resources. May God punish them forever.

Cohomology:

@OP, I'm with you on that hate - I hate Nigeria!

By Nigeria, I mean all the people who benefit from the oppression of the poor and exploitation of the resources. May God punish them forever.

Seriously people, we may agree and disagree, shout and reshout, but hating Nigeria in a general outburst is silly.

You can hate some people that are misguding us, intimidating us, corrupting us, pillaging us, but c'
mon, hating Nigeria