Nigeria is the most populous African country and the most popular one in the African continent. A nation with immense natural resources, Nigeria occupies a prime niche in the African economy. Having said all that, one who isn't conversant with the recent happenings within it's borders might be tempted to assume that all must be well with her domiciled citizens which is very far from the truth.
Were I an artist and I should paint on the canvass of reality the true portrait of the entity known as Nigeria, my own country, I must confess that it would be the most horrifying, ugly and sinister work of art ever done by any sane minded artist. It is a shame to say the least that the foreigners whom made us, country and citizenry their colony had a holier plan for Nigeria as a nation. In other words our political actors cries and struggle for independence was nothing short of hypocrisy in it's most debased form.
One would think and expect that with independent rule, we ought to have been far more developed as a nation by now than we were in the colonial era. After all if the United States of America a former colony of the British Empire could make good use of independent rule as to be presently as advanced as a nation by all ramifications as their former colonial masters, why can't Nigeria follow the same positive developmental trends and be presently ranked amongst the most prosperous nations of the world? After all it has the two basic ingredients for a recipe for progressive nationhood in it's pantry, namely human resources and valuable natural resources.
WHERE DID WE GET IT WRONG?
To start with, I'll love to state as a matter of aphorism that a nation is 100% responsible for it's successes and failures. To add to that I'll also state as a matter of fact that the successes or failures of a nation are the consequences of the psychological make-up of the better majority of it's people. To this end I'll state that the preponderance of two psychological states are a major determinant of it's overall successes or failures. They are none other than the selfish mindset and the selfless one.
Selfishness is a destructive trait that makes a parasite of men, in the beginning it seems to benefit the partaker of such tendencies to the detriment of the victim (host in this case sadly speaking, the Nigerian entity) but in the long run it destroys not only the host but the parasite. The me-first syndrome makes predators of men whom make prey of their nearest, dearest and most vulnerable neighbours. When individuals with the selfish trait superintend offices of national interest they bring destruction, death and decay to such institutions.
Now we have an understanding of selfishness and how it negatively impacts nationhood development so we will want to consider the inverse of selfishness, and here we mean the progressive and constructive trait of selflessness which if brought to bear in a nations political sphere, it's consequences are progress, unity and better living conditions for all individuals of it's overall ecosystem. With selfishness there is a taking away, a rending and a tearing at the center while with selflessness there is a stronger bond of cohesion at the centre. There is a looking out for ones nearest, dearest and most vulnerable neighbours.
To state with clarity of purpose where we got it wrong we must understand that as a nation, Nigeria is presently in a retrograde state not because the majority of her people are of a selfish mindset, far from it. Infact amongst the kindest people I've met in real life and in virtual reality, Nigerians number most amongst all. The selfishness is not in Nigerians, it is in the Nigerian political class whom have established it as a destructive culture and a part of our political life to live selfishly like the lower lifefoms who strive day and night for nothing but the satiation of selfish appetites. Corruption is a norm among a selfish and anti-progressive political circle but same is an anathema amongst a selfless political class with strong proclivities for progress.
IMPOVERISHMENT AS A CORRUPT TOOL OF CONTROL.
Hunger is a very unbearable condition that could make a beast out of an otherwise sane and respectable human and no one on Earth knows better of this grim fact than the corrupt Nigerian politicians. The corrupt Nigerian politician like a veritable and dangerous parasite has three goals to achieving political control over the electorate. The first is to win elections through corrupt means, the second is to steal and amass wealth from government offices with a consequential thining down of available resources to the electorate thereby inducing starvation and the third goal is to intimidate the electorate with his massive and illegally gotten wealth reducing the electorate to the state of beggarhood.
RAMIFICATIONS OF USE OF STARVATION AS A POLITICAL TOOL OF CONTROL.
So far since independence till the present day, decade by decade Nigeria has sank lower and farther away from the progressive state of nationhood. There is a rot brought upon the economy and security of lives and properties of the citizens, ramifications of wide spread and unbridled corruption by political actors. The Political class are cannibalising the electorate and now it's an absolute dog eat dog situation with everybody preying on the nearest and most vulnerable person.
Years of abuse of governmental power by the executive, the judiciary, the military and law enforcement has lead to pockets of rebellion with terrorist inclinations. After all in this dog eat dog world of ours, the Nigerian government is the biggest dog so every dissidents are simply learning to live like the Big dog to number amongst the survivors of the fittest. And now even the smaller dogs are not only barking, they are biting at the Big dog leaving it with festering and rabies infected wounds.
CONCLUSION
To get it right, we must rid our political atmosphere of the selfish me-first syndrome of the pioneer political class and we must know that politics as a great determinant of the progress of a Nation must be treated with as much selflessness to make it the hallowed institution it ought to be.