By George Kushi
Those sufficiently acquainted with the history of Nigeria cannot deny the existence of tribalism in a more dispassionate perspective in our society. Nigeria is a tribal society and most people feel more at home among members of their own tribe than in any company.
Even today communities feel honoured such that when a member of their group is appointed to high office, a goodwill delegation goes to the President/Governor thank him for the singular honour done to their clan and pray him to keep the clan’s name in his good books.
This communal sharing of joy and happiness is very normal under normal circumstances. But in a multi -tribal country like Nigeria, it is a formidable stumbling block.
Poverty with its concomitant low standard of living lends more to this instincts. People see the tribe as an island of survival in a seething socio- economic sea.
This attitudes are are deeply ingrained in the minds of the people and will take several generations to erase. It is wrong to suppose that only the poorly educated have these notions.
To get a job, one have to be or pretend that one belonged to the big tribe having of course learnt the language as thoroughly as one could.
One has to lie of belonging by obtaining spurious indigenization documents, lay claim to false background references and even effect change of Names or surnames JUST TO FIT IN.
It is important to note that until very recent years, no tribe made any concerted effort to dominate others or subject them to privations.
People merely did their best for their tribes though in the process the smaller tribes suffered. For the smaller tribes it is domination, for the bigger tribes it is progress. Today when smaller tribes talk of domination, people from the big tribes become honestly baffled. They are convinced that people get jobs by merit. It is not easy to imagine what it is like to belong to a small tribe of less than a quarter of a million people.
It is futile in this vain to blame this tribe or that. The herd instinct was powerful, is and still will be vital because it operates subconsciously and persistently.
But why do people support their own kind? Is it because they look forward a reciprocal gesture of kindness and protection? Or is it because of an unconscious desire for group immortality since individual immortality is impossible? The herd instinct is deeply rooted in life process itself.
Unitary government is supposed to be an ideal which should go far beyond the moral capabilities the leaders of our nation. Maybe our leaders are too parochial and uneducated after all. Parochial in that they are only conscious of the need of their immediate families and uneducated in that their sense of value is grievously warped.
Money is everything. The KLEPTOMANIAC who spends his time in the office looting money from the treasury always earn applauses so the miserable faces he sees by the road side as he drives in his air conditioned car have no message for him.
It is hoped that education and more education would improve matters. To everybody’s dismay our youth abandon their idealism as soon as they leave the university and plunge into the search for money and yet more money. What is wrong?
I believe the explanation lies in the fact that example is more powerful than precept. To be great in the eye of the nation, one has to be rich. No one has ever been acclaimed by the nation for naked honesty, hard work or sacrifice.
Truly, Nigeria had never seen her Abraham Lincoln, Ghandi or Mandela.
What can the young do but to copy the prevailing standard of the day? There is nothing wrong with our education. People simply lack the courage to break new moral grounds in the teeth of strong opposition.
How can one be a commissioner, a minister a legislator or a top government functionary without magnificent houses, a garage of fleet cars or a fat over sea account?
One would be jeered at for one’s stupidity. As an indigent public figure, one cannot look anyone in the face, one cannot bear the resentment of one’s family.
Even some politicians who came with a genuine desire to right the wrongs of the nation end up ravaging her instead all for lack of courage. This reluctance to break new grounds and not a lack of interest has kept us far behind the developed nations in the art of governance, in technology and even in art.
Again there is the believe that we need not exercise initiatives in these things until we have caught up with the technologically advanced nations by copying every single achievement of theirs.
Well, we will never catch up that way. We too must contribute original ideas to earn the gratitude and respect of the world. As it is, a lot of political programmes are being fashioned on fallacious premises, the country seems to be lurching dangerously out of control setting off concerns about the new inflationary boost in the prices of consumer goods and this is causing a souring relationship between government and the ordinary people (masses).
It is more than fifty years since Nigeria gained independence. One nagging question is would vivid criticism right now retard reconciliation between government and the people and all these conflicting issues that wants to tear us apart? I think not!!
In any case, the part to full national maturity lies through the fearsome jungle of self criticism. It Is verily correct to say “CHANGE BEGINS WITH ME”, and the sooner we take this part genuinely, the better.
What today is grim and agonizing may be amusing, even hilarious tomorrow. LET US NOT DENY POSTERITY A GOOD LAUGH!!!!
( George Kushi is a journalist and a former reporter for AIT. He is the Press Secretary to Adamawa state Deputy Governor.)