BOBSON GBINIJE
Our country, right or wrong.
When right, to be kept right;
When wrong, to be put right.
Carl Schurz (1829-1906)
My affections are first for my own country,
And then, generally for all mankind.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
The growth and development of any nation, state and collectivity must be silhouetted on the transcendental imperative and fundamental matrix of patriotism. Patriotism is the locus classicus and the initium et finis, which every nation needs to move forward. Hence, in his inauguration address on the 20th January, 1961, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy said “And so, my fellow Americans; ask not what your country can do for you –ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man”.
Patriotism is self-abnegation in the interest of one’s nation or country etc. It is love of the fatherland and a form of political, socio-economic pasagaldic and nationalistic Zeitgeist. It is a chauvinistic force and catalyst that propelled Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Herbert Macaulay, Nwafor Orizu, Stephen Osadebe, Oba Overawen, Jaja of Opobo, Pa Micheal Imoudu, chief P.A. Gbinije ,Tai solarin, Fela Kuti, Gani Fawhinmi and Chief. Mukoro Mowoe etc to lay down their lives for the political and economic liberation of their nation and people.
Patriotism is the unconditional humdinger for de-constructing political languosity and social cynicism in any collectivity. It was patriotism that stimulated Augustus Caesar to avow that, “I met Rome of bricks, but shall leave it of Marble”. And the youths of Athens to assert that, “in our native land we will not leave a diminished heritage, but greater and better than when we received it”. It was patriotism that gingered Isaac Adaka Jasper Boro, Ken Saro Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine, Monday Obataire, Raymond Pemu, Victor Atiri and Frank Ovie Kokori to fight for the economic liberation of the Niger Delta Area and the Nigerian workers from the strangle hold of the powers that be.
Now, it must be noted that there is a hazy and nebulous line of demarcation, a red herring of equivocation between patriotism and the vaunting of greedy and solipsistic élan. We must be careful not to mistake one for the other. It is glaringly clear that from independence in 1960 till date very few Nigerian leaders have been patriotic. That is why Nigeria remains a political hyperboreal and contemporary socio- economic Siberia, a concrete jungle, a rebarbative terra firma sunken in teratoid incognitio and a Cinderella in the comity of Nations.
Nigeria has a leadership and it is a nation that has made corruption a sop opera, a grandiloquent bodyguard and a religion. A nation where nothing works. The leadership luxuriates and wallows in the labyrinth of unspeakable corruption, prebendalistic graft, unpatriotic theatricalization of superfluity, nepotistic proclivities, hegemonistic jingoism, ethnic bigotry and religious fundamentalism etc.
If our leaders were patriotic and committed to the fatherland, Nigeria and Nigerians would have been freed from the dehumanizing gridlocks and cliffhangers of poverty. if our leaders had imbibed the principles of Bamthamism and Aristotelianism, which positis that, “The prime and cardinal purpose of any government and good leadership is the pursuit of the greatest good for the largest number”. There is no leadership vision and hence no blue prints and roadmaps have been put in place at National, State and local government levels to turn Nigeria around. But one must concede that if multidimensional strategies are mapped out by a patriotic leader at fighting corruption and enhancing the welfare of the citizenry, it could impact positively if pursued with Spartan equanimity, foresight and Trojan vigour.
It actually takes two to tango. We should not just expect the leadership alone to be patriotic. If fellow Nigerians are, and or were patriotic our nation would have not been the pestiferous mausoleum sunken in the sarcophagus of nauseating rottenness that it is today. Nigerians justify their depraved attitudes on the grounds and with the excuse that our leaders are corrupt so we have to be corrupt too. This is a sacrosanct truism. But if we are driven by patriotism we will not join them if we can’t beat them. We will rather strategize out of the love of the fatherland and start a fight against them and not joining them to ruin our father land. It was Rameses II, the Late Pharaoh of Egypt that said” Let us flicker the fly off the ear of our horse without changing the rhythm of its drive”.
We call on Nigerians to heed this great and clarion call to be patriotic at all levels of our endeavors. Let us put Nigeria first. If we continue to be unpatriotic it cannot give us the moral integrity and diplomatic finesse to start a fight or call an authentic revolution against the leadership class. We call on the leadership to give us a genuine sense of direction through patriotism and let Nigerians follow suit. Let us grow beyond the era of buck passing. Let the leadership set the good standards and all will follow. The heights reached and attained by great nations were not achieved by sudden flights, for whilst other nations sank themselves in the oubliette of unpatriotic actions and graft, they have glorious all – embracing development to show. Let us imbibe the concept of “my country, right or wrong.
Let the PDP – led Federal Government show the way, let President Goodluck Jonathan, our Governors, and Legislators show transparency in governance. Let all our leaders follow suit and lead out of patriotism. Let journalist write and report out of patriotism and not pecuniary inducements. Let critics criticize out of patriotism and love of our fatherland. Let teachers, lectures, engineers, carpenters, tailors, cooks, students, drivers, policemen, army men, naval officers, air force men, customs, immigration officers, housewives, pastors, bishops, cleaners, doctors, nurses, gatemen and the totality of Nigerians act of patriotism and love of our fatherland. Nigeria and Nigerians will never be the same again if we act out of patriotism. Patriotism is not about pious declarations or empty pronouncements. It is the intense love and unquestioning loyalty to one’s nation.
In his historical and powerful submission to the Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Mines of Nigeria at it’s First Annual Conference in 1967, the sage Obafemi Awolowo Admonished them on the modus operandi of entrenching all-embracing development into the Nigerian system; he said
Let us do it right for once-after 47 years of independence. It is a shame that a nation with over 75 Universities and over 30,000 “…..all these are by no means dreams. These broad national objectives and aspirations are goals which are well within our power to attain within the next two decades. But in order to succeed in attaining these ends, we need a powerful national motivation generated by an intense, absorbing, and unflagging desire to advance our own economic interest, backed by clear-headed forward planning, hardwork, and the constant application of acute and disciplined minds dedicated to accomplishment of our declared objective”.Let us do it right for once – as we prepare for the 2015 general elections. It is a shame that a nation with over 75 universities and over 10,000 professors and over 40 million graduates and undergraduates can still not put its house in other. There are no hard-and-fast fules, no spaghetti junctions and no contradictions in being frank to ourselves about the role we have to play in our decided recourse for nation building. The English playwright, William Shakespeare admonished us thus “To thine own self be true as the night and the day, for thenst thou cannot be false to any other man”. There must be a recrudescence and the renaissance of patriotism in Nigeria.
Finally, we need no ghost to tell us that the virtues of integrity and patriotism will be put to its greatest test before, during and after the 2015 general elections. We call on all our politicians, the citizenry and Nigerians at large to display a very high sense of patriotism to move Nigeria forward. In the words of the essayist J.B Priestley, he said “we should behave towards our country as women behave towards the men they love. A loving wife will do any thing for her husband except stop criticizing and trying to improve him. We should cast the same affectionate but sharp glance at our country.” Patriotism is the key to unlock all Nigeria’s problems before, during and after the 2015 elections. POLITICIANS BEWARE.
CHIEF BOBSON GBINIJE
MANDATE AGAINST POVERTY (MAP)
Warri: 08023250378
