Over the past five weeks, we have looked at attributes that the next Nigerian president should possess if the future of the country would be different from its present and immediate past. This series is predicated on the belief that voting for the right leader is the civic duty of every Nigerian. If the Nigerian collective fails to elect the right person to the office of president, the Nigerian people would lose the right to complain of misrule and underdevelopment since no one can give what he lacks. So, getting the right person who will represent our collective aspiration as a people, someone who is imbued with the capacity to translate our dream into a sustainable reality should be our focus as we go into election next year.
So, in 2023 Nigerians should elect a broadminded person as president.
Nigeria is divided along religious and ethnic lines. These lines are the major albatross to the country’s development because Nigerians don’t see as one, don’t move as one and don’t act as one. The groups in the country rather than work together to build a great nation have turned into centrifugal forces pulling the country apart, sabotaging the country and shortchanging the people.
These fault lines have been poorly managed over the years to the extent that Nigerians see themselves first as Northerners or Southerners; Christians or Muslims; Fulani or Hausa; Igbo or Efik; Yoruba or Ijaw and never as wholly Nigerians. Consequently in Nigeria, religion and ethnic considerations always colour every decision. The Yoruba are always suspicious of every move of the Fulani and vice versa, while the Hausa are always wary of every activity of the Igbo and vice versa. So, in Nigeria, everyone is out to beat everyone and no one is interested in helping anyone. In Nigeria, everyone is interested in besting everyone and no one bothers about bettering the lot of anyone. How can a country with that mentality experience prosperity? How can a country whose people fail to collaborate ever witness development?
So, to have a different narrative as from 2023, Nigerians should elect a president who is neither provincial nor a bigot. We need a president who is neither a religious fanatic nor a tribal champion but someone who will be fanatically Nigerian and unrepentantly nationalistic. We need a liberal president who will be blind to region and indifferent about religion. We need a president who will not be at the mercy of his tribal kin nor his religious acolytes. We need a leader who is tolerant and not given to any primordial sentiments. We need a leader who is so Nigerian that he will champion the birth of a culture that would encourage nationalism and patriotism in Nigerians.
Nationalism is a call for ethnic nationalities and religious adherents to give up their tribal or religious culture with the hope of adopting a new one. By asking citizens who see themselves primarily as Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, Ibibio, Fulani, Christians or Muslims to imbibe the principle of nationalism, what the leader is invariably saying is that they should surrender their tribal culture for another one. This has not worked in Nigeria because the leaders who want the people with tribal loyalties and religious bigotry to drop such adherence for something else have failed to show what that something else is. In other words, there is no national dream to which Nigerians can aspire. Nationalism is built around a dream that is greater, better and superior to ethnic or religious dreams.
The American society is largely an integrated one because there is an American Dream which is far better than the African-American, Hispanic-American, Jewish-American or any other tribal American aspiration. Therefore, it is not difficult for all Americans to subjugate their primordial considerations for the national dream. In spite of their differences, Americans are united around the American Dream. We need a president who will birth a Nigerian Dream. The Nigerian Dream will be the new culture that the Nigerian people will replace their tribal and religious culture with.
According to Hofstede, culture is a collective programming of the mind. This then means that the president we need is one who can de-programme the minds of Nigerians from their tribal and religious culture and re-programme with the Nigerian Dream, the new culture. It is then that nationalism can be taken seriously by Nigerians.
For the people to buy into this, the president must be seen as a leader of the country; not a northern or southern leader, not a Christian or Muslim leader. The question those aspiring to lead our country should ask themselves is what good has religion done for us in Nigeria? They should answer the question, what good has ethnicity done for Nigeria? These two have put us apart more than they have united us. Why then should we elevate factors that are threatening our unity? Therefore, the next president must be one who will make his religion a personal matter and not an issue of national discourse. The next president must be someone who will not subjugate other ethnic groups to his. What business of the president is it if anyone chooses to go to Paradise or Aljanah or decides not to go to either? So, why should that determine state policy? What does it matter if the best person to run an agency is Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Fulani or Efik as long as he delivers on agreed terms? What does it matter the region from which the Minister of Finance as long as the nation’s treasury is well managed?
So, in 2023, Nigeria needs a president that is clearly above religious and ethnic sentiments, a leader who will not run the country based on his regional or religious proclivities.
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