Interesting Opinion: Nigerian crisis of leadership

Posted by admin Headlines Monday, February 13th, 2012

February 13, 2012 by Emeka Ugwuonye

What does it mean to be a Nigerian in today’s world? For anyone not born in Nigeria, but who is Nigerian by parentage, full or partial, or who associates with Nigerians either because you are dating or married or just befriending one of them, you must ask the question as well – what does it mean to be a Nigerian-connected person? If you are, say, a United States citizen in a high profile or sensitive job for the US government or its military or intelligence institutions, and you recently started dating a Nigerian, you must confront that question. Why is it that though the Nigerian person you are involved with is a wonderful, law-abiding individual, you still worry about having to explain even the most tenuous Nigerian connection in your security clearance procedures or even to your American family and friends? In all, doesn’t that devalue every Nigerian person in the eyes of everybody else in the world?

If you are approaching a foreign immigration counter with a Nigerian passport, do you feel some concern that you would answer additional questions than would your Ghanaian colleagues travelling with you? And as a Nigerian, how do you feel thanking others in your travel party for waiting for you while you went through additional screening at virtually every important point in your journey? If you are working for an American company, say a bank, do you feel the need to deemphasise your Nigerian connection to avoid attracting suspicion to yourself? Do you feel generally that being a Nigerian is likely to place on you some additional burden than if you were, say, an Ivorian or a Ghanaian? Once outside Nigeria, how many times do you wish that you were not Nigerian-connected, that you could draw attention away from that country when people encounter you? Do you feel the unwelcoming stare, the suspicion and the distance from non-Nigerians around you?

If you are a Nigerian living in a foreign country, how many times have you gone to the Nigerian Embassy in such a country for help and anybody really attended to you in a meaningful and effective manner? On common matters such as consular services – your passport renewal needs, for instance – can you trust the officials of Nigerian Embassy to act diligently, respectfully and otherwise professionally? Would you trust the Nigerian Ambassador in your country of residence? Or do you suspect that he is in his office only for himself and his family, and that he would not hesitate to make money at your expense?

Whether you can openly admit it or not, the truth is that being a Nigerian or associating with Nigeria is an enormous burden that could ultimately destroy you. Despite any denials and pretences to the contrary, the fact remains that you fear that your Nigerian connection would undermine your wellbeing and hinder your children’s progress. Yet, just as you would wish away being a Nigerian, you are very eager to be an Igbo or a Yoruba or an Hausa/Fulani, or Efik, etc. So, it is really not that you are not proud of your heritage or culture. It is simply the practical matter of the country, Nigeria, being more harmful to you than it benefits it.

As a Nigerian who has lived in America for 20 years, and as a lawyer who has worked with many Nigerians in America and elsewhere as they have tried to cope with the burden of being Nigerians, I have given a lot of thought to this phenomenon of pain, shame and embarrassment of being a Nigerian or a person with Nigerian connection. I once encountered a high profile Nigerian who wanted to naturalise in a foreign country as a citizen. That person understood such an act might be in the way of certain political ambitions in Nigeria, but he/she confessed to me that he/she was fed up with the embarrassment he/she encountered internationally while travelling on a Nigerian passport. (That person is now a key minister in President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.)

Whatever the level of your connection with the country, Nigeria, there is really no known benefit for being a Nigerian. In Nigeria, the police and Nigerian leaders would be harsher on you, as a Nigerian, than they would on a foreigner. The only country that castigates its citizens rather than defends them overseas is Nigeria. In every other country, your senator, your Congressman, your ambassador, your government officials would come to your aid if anything were to happen to you in a foreign land. For Nigerians everywhere in the world, the opposite is the case. The Nigerian officials would sell out Nigerians. They would accuse you even before a foreign government ever does. Indeed, in many cases, a Nigerian has to rely on the governments of foreign countries to protect him or her from harm being caused by Nigerian officials. Indeed, an Afghan or an Iraqi would receive greater consular protection in America and Europe than a Nigerian would ever receive from Nigerian consulates. So, whether you are in Nigeria or outside Nigeria, in practical terms, it is a terrible burden to be a Nigerian. The question, therefore, is: How would any Nigerian be expected to place his life at risk for the sake of Nigeria? It would seem foolish for anybody to incur any pains, any inconvenience or risks for the sake of Nigeria. This is the crisis of the Nigerian citizenship, which can no longer be ignored.

Permit me one more personal example. My son, Udechukwu, plays competitive sports in our city of Rockville, Maryland. As far back as he was able to talk, he understood he was a Nigerian. He had a younger sister, Ego. When Ego was one-year-old, Udechukwu was four. As a four-year-old, he once surprised me and his mother by what he said. He suddenly said to everybody’s hearing: “Ego is from God, but I am from Nigeria.” The four-year-old had heard many times the notion that children were from God, and in his mind, he treated God as an alternative country or place from which people could come. He also understood that he, himself, was from Nigeria. As time went by, I had to repeatedly remind my children that they were also Americans because they seemed to think that they were exclusively Nigerians. At their school, they would always introduce themselves as Nigerians. Indeed, when my son was 10-years-old and playing in the Rockville Junior Football League, he once confided in me quite poignantly. He said: “Dad, when I grow up, I shall play for Nigeria in the Olympics, but if they don’t accept me, I will play for America.”

Ugwuonye is a lawyer based in Rockville, Maryland, United States and writes via emekaugwuonye@aol.com

These were my son’s first encounters with being a Nigerian. Now he has been forced to know more about his beloved country. By his 12th birthday, the students of his sixth grade class at the Holy Cross Elementary, as part of their social studies project, were asked to each choose an embassy of any country and send a letter to the ambassador. Each child was to send a letter to the ambassador, expressing interest in the country in question and requesting basic facts about such country. Naturally, my son chose Nigeria and was to send a letter to the Nigerian Embassy and the ambassador. He was so excited that he finally had his first opportunity to let the Nigerian ambassador know how happy he was to be a Nigerian and how much he loved being a Nigerian. He had indeed been bragging about his country, Nigeria, to his school and classmates. The school helped the children to draft a standard letter for the embassies. My son came home that afternoon so excited. And he said: “Dad, I got a letter for the Nigerian ambassador. Look at it.” The letter was just a plain nice children’s letter to an ambassador, starting with all the respect and courtesies and protocols, and then leading to his being interesting in knowing more about Nigeria and Nigerian peoples, basic country statistics and the cultures and languages. Like other children, my son’s letter was mailed to the Ambassador to the right address. Even though the school had made sure the address was correct, I could confirm the address to be correct.

Within two weeks of the children sending out their letters to various embassies, the respective ambassadors responded, each warming up positively to the children and encouraging them to try to know more about his or her country. Some even offered to send their representatives to talk to the class about their countries. My son was the only child who did not get any response from his chosen embassy. Two weeks passed, but no response came. A month passed and nothing came. Now there was a problem. Each child was going to get a score in the social studies class once there was some demonstrable proof that he sent the letter to the embassy. And the best evidence was the response from the embassy. I was not surprised that the Nigerian ambassador and the Nigerian embassy did not respond to my son’s letter. It was just that I did not know how to tell my son that it was a big mistake to have chosen Nigeria. I had spent years letting my children know that Nigeria was their country. How could I now tell my son that Nigerian officials could not be trusted at all? So, I allowed him to try, even though I was praying for God to perform a miracle.

But we had to show that my son sent the letter. Otherwise, he would get no score for that important project. We had to resend the same letter to the ambassador, using registered mail with delivery confirmation and return receipt of acknowledgement. Lo and behold, the ambassador’s secretary signed for the letter. Two months after that, the Embassy of Nigeria never responded to my son. It is now over two years and the Embassy of Nigeria is yet to respond to my son’s letter, and that was the only embassy that failed to respond to the children’s letters.

I went through the above examples to illustrate the point that being a Nigerian is a curse and a burden on all of us, particularly our children. And the problem has too long been with the leadership. All essence of good values, principles, ethics and morality has been systematically eroded by the conduct of Nigerian leaders. As a result, Nigerians suffer terribly everywhere in the world. I hear of Nigerian students suffering in Asia and Nigerian immigrants suffering all across Europe and North Africa. Even in Libya, during its recent descent to chaos and darkness, Nigerians were the favourite targets for bloodthirsty massacres and gross human rights abuses. No one cared about Nigerians because they had no honest government and no honest leaders.

So, we really have to face the truth at two levels. At the first level, we have to move away from this grand illusion and world of utopia, in which we try to paint these golden images of Nigeria in the minds of our children. At the other level, Nigerians all over the world must prepare to struggle to save Nigeria. We must prepare to confront the monsters that rule Nigeria today. We must be prepared to demand accountability at all levels. We must not be too afraid to say to them: Énough is enough’.

We want a country that is not viewed as a rogue state. We want leaders that are not certified crooks with proven stolen properties. If not, our children would continue to suffer and be shamed generation after generation.

-Punchwp_posts

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