Patriotism is found in citizenship, and is in truth, the greatest height and level to which nations inspire their citizens, in the quest to excel as a collective. The unique problem of the Nigerian patriot, is the lie that he has believed, before embracing the illusion of his patriotism. He is not a citizen, and Nigeria is not a nation.
Nigeria is not a nation, it is a mere geographical expression. There are no “Nigerians” in the same sense as there are “English” or “Welsh” or “French”. … Nigeria’s unity is only a British intention for the country.” Chief. Obafemi Awolowo.
I was something of a bookworm in my youth. I was happiest when left to my own devices and allowed to read whatever I pleased. The Children’s Library at Abadina Village cemented my love for books, and I started cutting classes in Primary 4, in order to spend the day ensconced in that childhood dreamland. I remained the same, if not worse, by the time I got to Fiditi. I rarely left the school library until I had finished reading every book of fiction in the place, and then the nonfiction, and then the encyclopedias. I was a contradiction: cutting classes to spend time reading books, and reading just about everything but the prescribed textbooks.
Before long, I had nothing left to hold my attention in the school library, and was soon done with the Hardley Chase novels, the African Writers Series, and tomes on commonwealth and American literature. Then came Harold Robbins, and the other fat tomes. I found the dream writer in James Clavell. Clavell’s books were set in Asia, and they were big. I loved voluminous books. The bigger the book, the more I loved it, and James Clavell’s books were monsters. He introduced me to the Ronin, in his epic; Shogun.
The book is set in medieval Japan. It was in the age before European influence overtook the world, and Japan was ruled by the emperor and the samurai class. The Ronin is a samurai without allegiance to a feudal lord or liege, either as a result of his master’s death, or because of a loss of his master’s favor, and a refusal of the privilege of seppuku. To the Japanese in the age described by Clavell, Bushido is the way of the warrior, and a samurai is bound by oath to his liege lord. He dies at his lord’s command, and in death is his honor restored. Every Samurai, is bound to a lord, and the unbound samurai, is the one deemed a Ronin. A masterless warrior, unbound, wasted, and devoid of purpose. The Nigerian patriot is not unlike the ronin.
Patriotism is found in citizenship, and is in truth, the greatest height and level to which nations inspire their citizens, in the quest to excel as a collective. The unique problem of the Nigerian patriot, is the lie that he has believed, before embracing the illusion of his patriotism. He is not a citizen, and Nigeria is not a nation.
Citizenship is found on equality, and equality is found on the rule of law. Nigeria is incapable of treating the peoples it tags citizens as being equal, and cannot allow for the law to apply equally to all, and cannot therefore allow the law to rule, and cannot therefore, be a nation in the true meaning of the word, and cannot, as a consequence, be said to have patriots.
To be a patriot, you must be a citizen. The Nigerian patriot is a ronin, citizen of an imaginary nation. Before those that would be patriots might lay claims to that lofty office, they have to birth the Nigerian nation of their dreams, and evolve a generic definition of citizenship, that is shorn of the several systemic devices of divisions, that our rapacious and wicked rulers have employed to entrench themselves in power, and ensure that whilst the Nigerian state has become stronger than ever, the Nigerian nation is dying.
We cannot birth the Nigerian nation until enough of us become wise to the truth of the fact that ethnicity, religion, and all the other divisions, are only relevant to the Nigerian peoples, and matters nothing to the Nigerian rulers. We can never birth the Nigerian nation, when we fail to grasp the truth of the existential poverty, that afflicts the peoples in whose names, each and every one of our rulers, purport to rule. We cannot birth the Nigerian nation, for as long as we refuse to see, that there are only two classes of Nigerians; the ruled, and the rulers. The more privileges that have been reserved to a people, the richer, have become, those that have claimed, to speak on their behalf.
The need to preserve unjust and unconscionable advantages, first demanded, appropriated, and reserved in the name, and on behalf of a people, and or class, has led to the normalization of a system of injustice, in the cauldron of which has been birthed a state bred on the steroid of impunity, and rendered rapaciously feudalistic in nature. The law is pliant, justice unknown, citizenship a lie, and patriotism a delusion, when the law is the instrument for the protection of the rulers, and the oppression of the ruled.
Patriotism in Nigeria is an oxymoron, and is either a lie, or a bye word for complicity.
DF
