A NEW YEAR LETTER TO FELLOW NIGERIANS

 Security of lives and property is of paramount importance, writes

 John Segun Odeyemi

Fellow citizens, it is customary for family and friends to extend good wishes to each other for a new year. It is not usual to have one who will hold public wishes for fellow citizens or an entire country. Except of course, if one were to remember the usual presidential speeches and the very stoic educationist from Ikene, the great Tai Solarin. Back then, his annual national wish for a rough road resounded around the nation. He premised his salutation on a philosophical assumption that a life filled with active challenges is the life worth living.

 As a nation, we have drifted into deeper waters surpassing rough roads into the stormy and turbulent waters of maiming and killing fields. Therefore, in very somber reflection, looking back at Nigeria of my childhood in the 1970s into the early 80s, and seeing the decay, one cannot but lament the state of affairs. Without any kind of attempt at obscurantism, I write to you my fellow citizens and the political class my wish for the New Year 2023.
My first wish is for the security of human lives and property without which we cannot have peace or progress. Even as we cast a glance to a history of our nation that is not too far behind, I look on with a sense of dread as the core leadership of my country squabble, like two parents seeking a divorce. Instead of finding a lasting solution to mayhem and mass murdering across our nation, our leadership seems to be comatose, fabricating lies of phantom success in the fight against
insurgencies. Accusations are made publicly about those who fund and are instigators of violence, yet no one is arrested or questioned. The price we have paid in the blood of fellow citizens for the unity of our country is much. In our history, we spilled precious blood during our Civil War; unfortunately, we seem not to have learnt our lessons. Killings have become so commonplace that most people no longer feel repulsed after the carnage and the subsequent splashing of gory pictures on social media. In my mind, this is a pointer to the fact that we are beginning to lose the basic sense of human civility and decency. Put more succinctly, we are

turning into a banana republic. Here the most savage hold sway.
I wish also, that as a nation we would have the courage to challenge the structures of injustices we have enthroned to marginalize one another. There are too many to be itemized but there is need to address some fundamental questions of our federation such as; our current constitution, issues of endemic poverty, children who are out of school, and insurgencies in the North, etc. We can no longer ignore questions such as the separation of religion and the civil state, which will include

the OIC issues, Sharia, government sponsored pilgrimages, and protection for practitioners of traditional religions under the law. The nation must ask serious questions about the management of our crude oil by the government and take seriously penalties against anyone found to have been pilfering from our common wealth. The nation must be decisive in addressing graft, by making examples of those in the highest seats in government. We must be willing to query our excessively large government and the annual profligacy of what it accrues to those in government. We know now by experience that we need to decentralize power and return to regionalization for us to grow. If we do not have the courage and the desire for truth, it will mean
our inability to ever procure sustainable development of human and natural resources.

I wish that as a nation, we would take seriously to heart the question of government borrowing and expenditure. As a nation which depends solely on oil, and lack the diversity of production and export, our fiscal indebtedness sinks us deeper in the mire. Those who are approving of the borrowing are well aware that they will not be responsible for the repayment when time comes.
In addition, for now, do we understand the terms by which these loans have been given? I am not an economist, but if our successive governments managed our resources even averagely, borrowing should be off the table. I therefore wish Nigeria would have the temerity to be self-disciplined, to learn to live within our own means. To grow, the nation must learn to reduce its importation of goods to the barest minimum, thereby forcing and encouraging local production, creating jobs, and increasing the annual GDP. We can reverse the now popular “brain drain” if government supports local industrial, agricultural and entrepreneurial efforts of Nigerians. All of

which is tied to security of life and property.
Among the various and much touted infrastructural needs of any nation, education and health care should be at the forefront of our to do list. It does not make sense that our curriculum from elementary to secondary school is not uniform. It makes less sense if our universities are on strike for eight months within one year and our government and the universities’ governing bodies cannot come to a resolution. I have no words to describe a nation where its upper class go on medical tourism across the globe without a care for fellow citizens who cannot afford whatever makeshift healthcare system we have locally. If we were a right-thinking people, the pandemic should have thought us a lesson; that a situation may arise where we are all forced to
use what we have. I wish we could truly care about each other’s welfare by making the necessities of life available for everyone. This is not luxury, this is not asking for a favor. It is the birthright of every Nigerian and it should be given to them.

Finally, I wish that in the year 2023, public servants and every citizen of Nigeria would experience a deeply heartfelt conversion, a turning away from sectionalism, ethnic and religious bigotry and the all-pervasive corruption of minds, hearts and character. Perhaps, if leadership and followership in Nigeria will take time to reflect on how history judges us all, maybe it will encourage patriotism, altruism and nationalist fervor. From Yoruba philosophy, we are reminded; “The king whose reign is peaceful, will not be forgotten. And the king under whose reign the polis falls into ruins will also be remembered.” The question is simply, how will our generation be remembered when the history of Nigeria is written? We must all keep in mind that to destroy is far easier than to build. Every flagrant act of vandalism against the nation sets us back at least a decade. While social and cultural reconstruction is always a work in progress, 2023 is the year to start in view of a new (and hopefully a truly) democratic process. I strongly
believe that if we get it wrong, this might be the last straw that pushes our hitherto tethering nation over the cliff. This is not an option we would like to imagine or consider.

We have no neighboring nations that can accommodate our numbers if we become refugees or displaced persons. It is my wish and hope that in 2023, even if by a miraculous divine intervention, we shall be able to conquer our demons. If after the elections, we continue business as usual, then we would have signed our own death warrant. Another year in our lives is another chance for us to try to accomplish what seems impossible; to transform our dreams of a united country into reality, to love our country and fellow citizens “though tribe and tongue may differ,” to become better citizens. “May the labors of our heroes’ past not be in vain,” so that as the New Year dawns, linking our hands, forging a common front, we can say to our fraudsters that enough is enough.
No one is coming to save us. We will have to save ourselves or perish if we remain aloof and complacent. May we as a nation have the strength to stand united, against all that divides us, or distracts us from the good. May a new light of dawn shine and illumine the darkness and suffering we have brought upon our nation. Our lives can be happier and better, it is a task long overdue, because ultimately, there is nothing wrong with Nigeria that cannot be fixed by those things that are noble and egalitarian in Nigerians.
I do not wish anyone a happy new year. Happiness has become a relative interpretative term. Rather, I wish every Nigerian the courage to build a nation that makes happiness possible for all.

Fr. Odeyemi is of the Xavier University of Louisiana, New Orleans, USA