A reflection on apathy and inaction in Nigeria

THE easiest and most attractive national pastime is buck-passing, especially with the bunch of leaders that we have, who can hardly peel a banana or wash an already white handkerchief. Not many of us want to take responsibility for anything, from personal to family or national life. The blame is on the system. We do not need to create demons out of our leaders because they are already specimens of demons, so we hang our sins on them appropriately and inappropriately, too. And unfortunately, their behavior has made it easy for the critics to descend on them. We, at most, talk, write, and discuss the Nigerian myth with a sense of fatalism. If everyone thought as much as I did about justice and fairness, life would be better. I am a critic, but I am also the critics’ critic, the unrepentant believer that the best way to keep the government on its toes is to keep harping on their flaws so they can improve. Often, I say I believe the things I write about are as important for our nation as they are for other nations, but when it appears to me, Nigerians, especially those in authority, do not react to these issues as people in other lands do, I repeat them in new essays to remind old readers and recruit new ones to participate in the continuing dialogue.

So today, I address the real nonsense people: citizens, apologists, and the crooks called politicians in Nigeria where nothing works and no one cares. When it works, it is because someone’s interest is about to be served or being served, not the people’s interest. We talk about our institutions despairingly. Our leaders do not watch network news any longer except when their faces are there on the occasion of their sons/daughters’ weddings or such. They do not need the newspapers anymore because it is full of their lies, paid adverts, and the critics’ truth, the bitter truth. Government bashing is a national issue, and every drinking joint and any suya spot has a sitting parliament with an expert on every and any issue, but we forget that no matter the input if the politicians and actors in our national scene have questionable lives both on a personal and domestic level, nothing will change. The best government policy cannot change the individual. It is because the policies are formulated on a bad foundation and by people with warped thinking.

We do not need the government to teach us to stop treating ourselves like animals. Do we need the government to teach us that we demand responsible leadership and representation? We should know that and act in a fashion that depicts that we demand more than what we are getting.  So, let me tell us, this tale by an unknown author. It is originally called the pebble and the ripples. A man was sitting by a lake. He was throwing small pebbles into it from time to time. A young boy happened to cross by. He was intrigued to see that after every few minutes or so, the man would toss a pebble into the lake. The boy went up to the man and said, “Good pastime, this stone-throwing?” “Hmmm, said the man. He seemed to be deep in thought and did not wish to be disturbed. Sometime later, the man said softly, “Look at the water, it is still.” The boy said, “Yeah, it is.” The man tossed a pebble into the water and continued, only till I toss a pebble into it now, do you see the ripples?” Yeah, said the boy, “they spread further and further.” “And soon, the water is still again, offered” the man.

The boy said. “Sure, it becomes quiet after a while.” The man continued: “What if we want to stop the ripples? The root cause of the ripples is the stone. Let’s take the stone out. Go ahead and look for it.” The boy put his hand into the water and tried to take the stone out. But he only succeeded in making more ripples. He was able to take the stone out, but the number of ripples that were made in the process was a lot more than before. The wise man said, “It is not possible to stop the movement of the water once a pebble has been thrown into it. But if we can stop ourselves from throwing the pebble in the first place, the ripples can be avoided altogether!”

So, too, it is with our minds. If a thought enters into it, it creates ripples. The only way to save the mind from getting disturbed is to block and ban the entry of every superfluous thought that could be a potential cause for disturbance. If a disturbance has entered into the mind, it will take its own time to die down. Too many conflicting thoughts just cause more and more disturbances. Once the disturbance has been caused, it takes time to ebb out. Even trying to forcibly remove the thought may further increase the turmoil in the mind. We have exhibited in the last few weeks again that there is a continued forced political marriage in this entity called Nigeria, we do not know whether we want the accident of history called Nigeria to remain or whether we want to go our separate ways; that is if we even can agree which way it is? The tax bills that have been temporarily put to rest have again raised questions—Are we, at best, simply cohabiting without any mutuality, or is it just a union of the very wild poor at the bottom and the very rich on top? Again, our comments have shown that we are a symmetrically antagonistic group trying hard to find a melting pot other than soccer, corruption, and neglect by those we call leaders.

There is no clear blueprint to address the developmental and poverty issues in the North, such as security, education, water, agriculture, health care, desertification, Niger River dredging, jobs, housing, etc. and sadly, these are issues also in the Southern part of the nation. The critic’s anthem would be my end to this essay; it has always inspired me by H.G. Wells: “We are going to write about it all. We are going to write about business and finance and politics and pretenses and pretentiousness, and decorum and indecorum until a thousand pretenses and ten thousand impostors shrivel in the cold, …we are going to write about wasted opportunities and latent beauties, until a thousand new ways of life open to men and women. We are going to appeal to the young, and the hopeful, and the curious against—the established, the dignified, and the defensive.”

• Dickson, PhD, is Team Lead, The Tattaaunawa Roundtable Initiative (TRICentre)

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