FEATURE ARTICLE

Yahaya BalogunSunday, July 23, 2017
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Arizona, USA

FAILURE OF IMAGINATION IN POSTMODERNISM OF NIGERIA

hat do Nigerians really want? A million dollar question! I am dwarfed to make any preachment on how people should live their lives, as a concerned citizens of Nigeria, I am only impassioned, obligated and socially responsible to love my country and want the best for its inhabitants. But the future of Nigerians is in the hands of Nigerians. A nation cannot live pretentious lifestyles under corruption and expect growth and development; or in anticipatory of her doubted integrity to remain intact.

Mind is a terrible thing to waste..!!! Poverty of mind is an affliction invading the psychology of our people in Nigeria. It is fast eroding the remnants of our old good value system. The remnants of our rectitude of judgment; rightness of principle and conduct, moral virtue and good values are being thrown into the wind. It is a season of anomie in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the rich, the poor and educated minds are not exempted from what I call national shenanigans. Corruption is firmly rooted in every mind, home, community, religious organization, academia etc. We have so many obtuse minds clogging the road to rewrite our present and the ugly history. Those who are educated with liberal mind are abstruse in the presentation and representation of ideas that concern our nation. We are all in crushing guilt and naughtiness of deliberate indifference or ignorance of our current situation. Poverty of mind; poverty of everything is in Nigeria. I think, it is an epidemic and it is fast metastasizing all facets of national lives in Nigeria. No one is being immune from it, we are all in deep trouble in that part of the world.

There is a failure of imagination in the postmodernism of Nigeria. Every mind is dotted with opportunism and instant gratification. Nigerian problems are correlation of its causation. The cause of Nigerian problems and the mind of her people are not mutually exclusive. Everything is in free fall, the central can no longer hold. Truths and nothing but truths are a scarce essential political commodity in Nigeria. A wasteland with fertile ground for breeding tugs, lies, terrorists, rogues, militants and political charlatans. A nation where if you behave normal, you're seen as an abnormal being. Abnormal behavior is a new normal in Nigeria.

Nigeria population is more than 170 millions people. Nigerian youth constitutes more than 75% of the population, from these dwellers, less than 100 thousands of her multifaceted leaders continue to mortgage the lives and future of the generation of this population. Why are Nigerians suffering from Stockholm syndrome? This is a mysterious question that can only be answered by Nigerians. A nation that is indifferent to her past, with nauseating nonchalant to her present is irreedemably doomed to an unending failure.

This writer and others have been misled and naively stereotyped that religion is our problem in Nigeria, I think I am being morphed from this sacrilegious misconception. Religion is a culprit befouled by corruption. Corruption is a national cancer. It has destroyed the fabrics of the following nuances: family, religion, politics, economy, social interaction, national security and development. When corruption enters the house of God, the congregation of this vineyard will be corrupted if the Shepard of the house closes his eyes to the graft activities of the sheep among the congregation. When corruption enters a family, the future of the family is existentially and indirectly doomed. When corruption enters a socially knitted group or groups of friends or people, the group is on its way to cataclysm.

Corruption and underdevelopment are intertwined, the two have never produced any meaningful development anywhere. Henceforth, religion should be absolved from the plagues of the nation. Religion itself is a victim of corruption in a wealthy nation with crisis of rightness of principle and moral rectitude. A victimized religion and warped youth have been weaponized to destroy the socioeconomic welfare of Nigerians.

Moreover, we can continue to write epistles for a nation that does not read from now to eternity, if Nigerians are not morally rearmed or wake up from deep slumber to take their country back from these political vultures, we will continue in this macabre danse to political and socioeconomic nothingness. The poor Nigerians should start to scout for Nigerians from humble background who were born in slums but the slums are not born in them. The present Nigerian elites are sociopaths with mindless stance. They are only motivated by instant gratification and lust for void luxuries.

Our political space is littered with political opportunists and grandstanders waiting like vulture to swoop the nation's resources. All winners of election in Nigeria believe that winning an election is a license to eke stupendously from the national cake. Nigerian voters should break this mythology of victory of politicians to secure their future and the future of their children.

As I rest my case, let me reiterate again that thousands of Buhari will be ineffectual in a nation with utter confusion and nauseating contradictions. As I empathize with President Buhari for his sacrifices and the imminent botched of his vision for Nigeria, I wish him speedy recovery and sweet reunion with his lovely family, and with the remaining conscientised and good people of Nigeria.

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