No nation I know on the continent of Africa have such brilliant destiny like Nigeria.
Such abundant optimism may not have hinged on any rational, empirical evidence. Through the evolutionary histories of nations, we learn of such dark and frosty moments, when, they could not see beyond the veil of their national challenges. They braved their own odds, and made their own day as well.
It is rather unwise, as Nigerians, to hope for such a time, when our big day as a nation will come, too soon for that matter, yet defy such practical laws, responsible for our salvation.
But hope and faith which are natural spiritual articles have a certain reality of some kind, which may not necessarily; agree with the order of practical laws.
They can, indeed empower such people, who exercise their virtues, with uncommon energy and dexterity, to do their best, towards achieving such visions of greatness, which they hold in their subconscious realties.
Nigeria is such a contradiction, embodying plenty of painful realities and beautiful dreams. Dreams of a great nation, sitting among the best of the world’s best. Stunted on the other side, by the reality of her persistent failure to strap up her innate potentials, and take a flight to its appointed place in glory.
Such unfortunate records which stare the Nigerian people in the face, now and again, have a crippling capacity, able to push them into the pit of despair and resignation. To cast insults and bitter remarks on Nigeria, by her own citizens is not unexpected. Nigerians have borne for a long time the hazards and burden of a broken nation.
But Nigerians are also capable of pulling their nation up, from the brink.
Disasters and recoveries are landmarks of world history. The shattered landmass of the British Empire after the Second World War was not any better, compared with the deplorable state of things in most African countries today.
Britain may not have had back then, the social records of poverty and corruption like we now have, but such comparison can only form an imagination on our minds, which explains that recovery can even happen, not minding the scale and range of the physical, morale and spiritual devastations that may take place in people’s lives as they march along .
Britain at that point was at its lowest ebb, morale wise and economically.
They lost a sizeable portion of their fighting population. The ideological war in Europe was fast taking shape-and America took their long-coming chance to cement its hold and establish itself as a natural super power, pushing Britain behind.
This kind of challenge was a national one.
Britain had to reach down to itself, and summoned all its energies, and forged a common national goal to rebuild its wasteland and was to regain its place as a flourishing world power. She extended invitations to other countries and continents like West Indies, Bangladesh, India, China and Europe, and progressively America, Africa and others to join restore the glory of their land.
Such amazing miracles did take place in Germany, Russia, and Israel- for these were nations that sustained facial injuries, and morale blows on account of the war. How about Israel that lost 6 million of its elite, productive and common citizens in the gory holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi empire? They had their first sporting chance of becoming a nation just after the Second World War.
Such historic national losses had the weight and intensity of decimating Israel’s national existence. It could have, but never did.
Germany which received the collective military pounding of the whole world, losing important diplomatic and spiritual goodwill and recognitions, as an aftermath of the war, in time had to fight through the fog and backlash of economic depression into becoming once more a world power.
The thread, almost present in these historical illustrations, is the abundant presence of national will and its vital propensity of re-igniting national consciousness, wheeling the people, the prime movers of the enterprise of nation building into productive action.
Nigeria had had a civil war of three years with all the losses and resulting contradictions. Nigeria is today pitched against a strong internal enemy of tribalism, corruption and collective ineptitude.
Can these obstacles stand in scale and magnitude with the odds other nations were faced with in their bad times?
It may seem a simplistic or even an isolated comparison, but, the people, the essential structure that hold the weight of their national enterprises, decides what happens. The will of the people can blunt the brazenness of gun totters and mongers of weapons.
It challenges the treachery and backhandedness of political intrigues. It conquers the fear of death and the terror of oppressors. The will of the people can build a common bridge; forge a common language of national identity able to win the day. The will of the people can overthrow the menace of human exploitations- like in Animal farm, when animals rose to oust the band of humans who they saw as subverting their communal aspirations.
What the will can do is too great to be quantified.
Odds may differ, but they have a common element, that is, to challenge the tenacity and courage of the people and prop them into active collective responses.
Nigeria can indeed come out of the ditch of despair and wretch, to ascend to new heights. If the country could still be heard, and seen, even in the most metaphorical sense of it, after the trauma and devastation of its civil war, has infinite ability to step into meaningful progress.
Nigeria needs a collective response. Such an accord can be facilitated by the braveness and vision of its leaders.
It is such an unfortunate thing that many of Nigeria’s leaders are the ones leading the crusade to the destruction of their own nation. But the will of the people once it finds its pitch can push against any odds.
This can happen even in our times. It is my earnest prayer it happens speedily.
Steve Orji
