he rejoinder posted by Mr. Ejukwa Osam on Nigeriaworld on “Ignorance of World History, the Failure of Nigerian Socio-Political Critics” in reaction to the earlier notion shared in the article penned by Alponsus Nwadike spoke a lot of volume in the life and the history of Nigeria and Nigerians.
Frankly speaking, Nigeria and Nigerians have grown above the whims and caprices of such ideologies shared by Mr. Alphonsus Nwadike which is likened to those still living in the hegemonic age. I lack enough words to express my joy after reading the piece done by Mr. Ejikwa Osam where he used all manner of wisdom, intelligence, maturity and knowledge to over write the draconian views of Mr. Nwadike. If I am not mistaking, this should be the second major article posted by Mr. Nwadike on the Nigerianworld.co, the first entitled (Unconstructive criticisms, the bane of our nation), an insulting article posted as a rejoinder to the article made by one Dr. Yekpabo. Just as Mr. Osam did, I tried rebuking him for trying to close and shout people down for their personal opinion but he remained adamant throughout our discussion. Below was part of my email to him:
“Mr Nwadike, from your write up, you sounded like a scholar, with your succinct eloquence, choice of words and counter attacks and accusations levelled against Dr. Yekpabo, incidentally and unfortunately your so much acclaimed intelligence seemed to have beclouded your sense of reasoning so much so that you could not reason properly and come up with a constructive criticism. By the way, had you in the past written any article for public interest where your ideas were meant to enlighten the people and probably lend hands in their capacity building of some sorts or succeeding in making people have a better thinking orientation after reading your article? I doubt if you had ever from what I could imagine from your sinister article of hate and attack on Dr. Yekpabo. When I read your rejoinder, I almost wept aloud because I thought that our Nigeria people who have gone out a little bit farther from the nation’s shores and having seen better ways and means of doing things in other countries could go home and address the ills and malaise of their country by applying such formulas but here we are, getting such words, thoughts and feelings from someone who portends to be enlightened. Indeed, Nigeria is sick and may not get out of this maladie in our generation when people of your type are still alive. You know what Mr. Nwadike, I would have felt better if you had been sent by the Minister of information, the rebranding woman specialist to post this article, and would have concluded that this is one of the gimmicks of the government to divert people’s attention, but to have learnt that you, out of your right thinking senses have come up with such an article meant that you are very much demented and need the assistance of a psychiatrist. I have now changed my conclusion to be that you may have been one of those old felas who have received the government sponsorships, grants or something and would never see anything bad in today Nigeria.
In my elementary knowledge of change, I had thought that when a patriot observes anything that is not palatable or that militates against the development of one’s nation and criticizes it/them, then another thought is provoked to its correction. This is not same with some people like you who will never see anything wrong in our bastardized country and would want the status quo to remain because of their selfish reasons irrespective of the robust opportunities in the country to eke a change. Why should I not presume that you may be one of the conduit pipes of the federal government representatives who siphon our monies outside the country, this is because I ran into one of them sometime ago who explained to me what takes place in the country; how they use private jets or chartered flights to carry the government officials’ loots abroad and the percentage payable to them. I am happy for this man because he has since repented and left the sick system. So it is high time you repented and gorge the system of the ills that you have helped to unleash. It is a big shame that in our country of today, we are still battling with epileptic power supply, no good roads, no portable clean water, no good health care facilities, insecurity is on the increase, mediocrity overshadowing meritocracy, undemocratic institutions abound, the rate of corruption is high places, poverty pauperism growing by the day, northern marginalization against the south with religious attacks and you sat there, may be in your condo or basement attacking those who seem to be ashamed of the deplorable state of the nation who may also have one way or another to attend to these ailments. You must count yourself very lucky to have written this article virtually and not in the open as to address any audience face-to-face otherwise you may have been mobbed by these same social critics. For your information, all hands are on deck to exhume and unearth the ills done to this great nation before meaningful healing could be restored. If you do not know, wickedness of our own heart is the bane of the nation, not criticisms because under a democratic system, such criticisms give way to good, better and healthy governance”.
From the look of things and my above response, Mr. Nwadike has yet to depart from his reactionary thoughts, his first and second article have similar tone and meaning. He has not repented yet.
One thing I do know is that Nigerians are blessed with so many different talents one could ever imagine under the earth, the only but in it is that these highly talented people are waiting to be discovered. This discovery may not have immediately taken place within the ambits of the country hence the mass exodus out of the country which I think to a reasonable extent has tremendously paid off in multiples, the repatriation of huge proceeds to loved ones to ameliorate the hardship back home amongst others. Apart from the monetary aspect, there are lots of Nigerians in the Diaspora who have brought some investors into the country, this incidentally answers Mr. Nwadike’s quoted J. F Kennedy’s famous quote – what one could do for his/her country.
Mr. Nwadike has decided to pick on our social critics for speaking the truth and for writing and suggesting how our great country could be better managed in the face of her rich natural resources besides human capital. I could not still comprehend how people like Mr. Nwadike still remain quite comfortable looking at Nigeria and its back and forth stages of development. Perhaps, what he has failed to realize or understand is that Nigeria is comparatively very backward in most of its important areas of life a country could bequeath to her citizen. I doubt if any of our social critics is asking why an airplane and or car has not been manufactured in Nigeria but all that has been said and what the so-called social critics have been advocating and asking for is just a basic standard of life to be enjoyed by all in the country. May be Mr. Nwadike’s problem and concern is the comparison of the state of Nigeria with those of the western world, people who did that were just trying to posit and share their views on the way things are done in the developed world which Nigeria has failed to imitate. Now, let us forget about these western countries, and come down to African countries, this time leave South Africa out of this for obvious reasons and concentrate on countries like Kenya, Ghana, Botswana, Angola, Rwanda etc. In these countries, there is no visit you make after one or two months that you will not find any new improvement on the infrastructural facilities for the betterment of the lives of the citizens. These developments span from road construction and maintenance, pipe-borne water, telecommunications and telephony services, healthcare, justice and education systems, aviation, security, police services to name but a few. I have carefully left out the electricity services because of the rigours in attaining the required megawatts. I stand to be corrected; I have hardly seen any much improvement in Nigeria in any of the items above for the past two to three years, yet these are the kind of services a government could easily procure within a period of few months. It is no more a shocking news that Nigerians now massively run to Ghana either for the education of their wards or for investment. This is a total show of shame to the country because I remember how these Ghanaians migrated in their numbers in the 80s to Nigeria begging for survival; today more than 20 years after, Nigeria is suffering a reversal effect. Mr. Nwadike, this is the point of departure by your so-called social critics.
I was in Nigeria about five weeks ago and had planned to narrate my experience to all in the Nigeriawolrd.com but later dropped the idea for reasons I cannot even remember. One significant fact we should note is that our dear country is on a retrogressive path because I could hardly notice any changes from what I saw in my last year’s visit. The federal Lagos/Benin/Asaba road is in a horrible state, it took me about 13 hours to get to Asaba from Lagos, a journey that ordinarily would have taken about 5 to 6 hours. I tried recording the police checkpoints on the road and I got 19 in Ogun, 33 in Ondo, 14 in Edo and 11 in Delta, a total of 77 check points. At any of these checkpoints, so many ignoble treatments are exhibited to both private and commercial vehicle occupants. One very dirty incident that I experienced was when one mobile police constable without a name tag stopped us and demanded to know what was in a particular bag, but as soon as one of the passengers in the car, the owner of the bag declared that he was a retired customs officer and that he has about 70 pieces of Nigeria wax clothing materials for his late mother’s burial in the bag, to show some dissatisfaction in not getting anything and in display of anger, the officer immediately cocked his gun and asked the Delta line driver to surrender his car key because he was carrying some contra-banned goods, he forced the keys out of the driver and disappeared into the bush only to appear after two and half hours. I doubt if this kind of arrant madness could be encountered in any of the African poorest countries even under the military regime.
I briefly narrated the above experience because Mr. Nwadike is full of praises or wants everyone to be full of praises for the country in the name of patriotism and not to call a spade a spade, this is also likened to the way the senate president, Mark disgraced himself sometime ago when he said people should keep quiet if they do not have anything good to say instead of criticising the country. I do not have any iota of doubt that Mr. Nwadike must be one of the government officials who has benefitted from the support he gives to the government with this kind of attacks and a praise singer who may have come for a few years training course in the States otherwise why should he castigate those living outside the country like him? As Mr. Nwadike has failed to see any reason for Nigerian government to wake up from its slumber, so have the government officials who are entrusted with remedying the deplorable state of infrastructures failed and ended up in misappropriating the funds. Look at the road project for instant, about N300 billion was released for the construction and repairs of the bad roads that is still claiming hundreds of lives on monthly basis, no jail sentence or other kinds of punishment has been meted to the people that diverted the monies. It is only in Nigeria you could hear that such a huge amount of money is released for failed public project without a trace and the government would do nothing about it as in their midst it is a normal white elephant project, the reason is that these government officials are simply the celebrated conduit pipes to the awarding sectors.
Perhaps, one needs to take permission from Mr. Nwadike to discuss on the deplorable security situation in the country to avoid his castigation. I would not know what his opinion would be concerning the extra-judicial murder of one of the best journalists few weeks ago in a broad day light. The assassins brazenly came in a sedan car on Sunday morning and went straight to the house of the journalist with the lady who purportedly lady hired the assassins, they shot in the air as they entered the house, killed their target and immediately drove off in a registered car which witnesses may have given full detailed information that could enable an amateur police crime detector to unravel the case but up till this time of writing the killers still remain at large. Who in his/her right senses would hear this and still insist on returning to the country to establish or invest. I am a very small fish in the river but each time I am in Nigeria, I go into hiding and under cover because as soon as the news of someone abroad circulates, you stand to be kidnapped or face armed robbers, they do not care if you are a beggar wherever you live outside the country. I could hear Mr. Nwadike say it is a normal crime that could take place in any country in Africa, this is true but how that normal crime is handled is what makes the difference.
Mr. Nwadike, please wake up from your slumber and repent of your perception that Nigeria would attain 200 years first before any meaningful development comparable with those of the western countries could be seen. You would definitely be disappointed.
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