Nigeria at 52

As October 1st draws near, Nigerians are faced with the challenge of celebrating our independence. Since 1960, celebrating our independence with 24hour festivities has never really been the norm because October 1st has always been a time of sober reflection. More often than not, we find ourselves comparing our Nation to other countries about our age. The vast difference technologically and otherwise usually sends Nigerians into the spiral of blame games. Rather than logical self examinations to find the root of our challenges so as to proffer practical solutions, we look for whom to blame but can anyone blame us really for doing that?

At our 50th national celebration, Nigerians adorned themselves in the national colours – green white green- ran through the streets and celebrated the beginning of a new era where democracy meant we would get involved in government decision making, where things would start anew and get better for the masses. After the untimely passing of President Umaru Yar'Adua on 5th of May 2010, his successor, Goodluck Jonathan stepped up to the plate intermittently till his official election on the 16th of April 2011. For once our presidential election was free and fair; people had hope that an un-ambitious president would do more in our favour. But in the past two years, things have not become the fairy tale Nigerians hoped for.

Imagine being greeted on 2012 New Years’ day with the news of fuel scarcity because the government had removed the fuel subsidy claiming it could no longer afford to subsidize fuel if it had to save our economy in the years to come. The life of the masses became more expensive and difficult causing protests all over the nation. Officials came on television telling the people for months how it would be in their best interest and by April this year, a compromise which was still higher than the masses would have wanted was reached. A few months later, we were told there had been a scam and the money to be reserved (1.6trillion or so) was no longer available and the culprits were being investigated.

Another move that got the Nigerian public displeased was the seemingly forceful cashless society scheme. The plan was to reduce the amount of money spent printing currency notes. With so much wrong in the country, the last thing on Nigerians’ mind is to walk around with no visible cash in hand. Imagine going to an ATM machine with your card in a store and finding out the network is down. Does that mean you don’t get to buy what you need because your bank’s network is faulty? It’s one thing to deal with the embarrassment, it’s quite another to walk away from a purchase empty handed because there was no POS machine or functional ATM network to purchase you needs. Nigerians were not having that. So the matter of how feasible it would be to practice the scheme remained debatable.

Also, imagine how insulted the Nigerian populace felt when we were told (after our currency was renovated to polymer to cut cost and going cashless was less expensive) that the Central Bank of Nigeria wanted to introduce a new currency (the N5000 note), redesign currency notes (N50 - N1000) and convert lower denominations (N5 - N20) to coins. knowing that doing so would cost the country over N40billion, the common man was left wondering how that was a less wasteful economic plan. The worst part was the government has now made it its style to approve policies and plans without asking the opinion of the people or trying to sensitize the people before implementation. Then we hear the present administration feels they are the most criticized by the Nigerian people. Why won’t they be when the people had so much hope in them and so far nothing has changed? Bottom line, our systems are still faulty and majority of the motivation to improve the nation are born from personal money making schemes.

Infrastructure has still not improved and with the recent climate changes, Riverine settlements like Lekki in Lagos State, Markurdi in Benue State and Lokoja in Kogi state are now dealing with intense flooding issues. By-pass roads that have been neglected have now become potential death traps. Death toll this year has been uprising. Not to forget the amount of property damage caused by Boko Haram, Niger Delta militants, violent riots and aviation mishaps. Amidst all these chaos, the House of Reps recently were asking for N7 million increase in their pay packet. Why on earth would they feel the need to say so when the president tried to cut the expenses of the Executive arm of government to show the masses its commitment to selfless national development? It’s like our leaders have not known the nature of the people they are ruling. What Lord Lugard deduced during his analysis of Nigeria in 1912 – 1916, our leaders still grapple with till date.

All our leaders have to do is go back in time and learn the act of self-examination/analysis of a people from a man (Lord Lugard) who knew how to get the diverse cultures of people to work towards one goal of national unity. We, Nigerians, need to know what can work for us and how to harness the best out of what we already have. Lord Lugard’s analysis can be seen from his book, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa which was published in 1926. There he talked about the strategies needed to govern the African people as at that time. These days Africans have evolved especially Nigerians and it’s too bad our leaders are still just as he described centuries ago. Here’s an excerpt that (emphasis: I believe) still rings true about all who get into power in Nigeria: they lack, “....self control, discipline, and foresight ... full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity (my emphasis: honesty). His thoughts are concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future or grief for the past. He lacks the power of organization, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business. He loves the display of power, but fails to realize its responsibility...”

There has been a bit of good news in our history as a people despite our many challenges. For once, our government has tried to show its ability to visualize the future needs of the people and is currently working towards it; needs such as stable power supply, repairing of our national image, enhancement of tourism, reformations in the banking and aviation sectors just to mention a few. Another good thing about Nigerians that can see us through all our challenges till we become better is our dependence on religion. Irrespective of religious preferences, we tend to commit our nation into the hands of a Deity we believe can help. That is why October 1st has always been a day dedicated to National prayers by every religion in the country. As our challenges evolve as a people, so do our prayer points and recently, the reality that everyone needs to act one way or the other to make Nigeria great has become a daily truth.

We, the children, who were called the leaders of tomorrow, are today aware of the national transformation needed to lead our country to greater heights. At age 52, Nigeria has become a more mature nation who does away with wishful thinking and tackles the reality of the challenges ahead. It is our prayer that as we grow nationally, we would look beyond our selfish interests and do what’s best for the future our people. Happy Independence Day Nigeria!

Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Summer Olympics (aka A Symphony of British Music)

So by now you’re wondering why I’m still writing on the past London 2012 Summer Olympics. Well, I do like to finish anything and start and if I could tell how it started and what happened in between, I think I owe you a conclusion to that journey for all those who missed it due to our country’s epileptic power sector. As you know, electricity in Nigeria is never really constant and this has a way of affecting everything from business to personal enjoyment of entertainment. Such disappointing moments with lack of electricity did affect my viewing of the closing ceremony as directed by Kim Gavin and David Arnold a great deal.

But from what I did see, I could tell that it was concluded with a few countries like Brazil receiving their gold medals before the musical fan fare began. It was such a pity we couldn’t glimpse Queen Elizabeth 11’s scowl but at least she was represented by the jolly Prince Harry and the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton who were more than happy to be there. With a worldwide viewership of 750 million people (a few millions shy of the opening ceremony’s 1 billion people viewership), it was a night meant to be remembered.

The stadium glowed with the colours of the British flag (a tribute to the Union Jack) – and I’ve got to say, the lighting effects for both opening and closing ceremonies were spectacular – and the floor was covered in what looked like newspaper clippings. Once again, comic relief was provided but by a fat looking batman and an elderly robin character. Once the jokes were over, it was party time.

The crowd not only went wild as a series of popular British acts playing rock, rap, pop, etc hit the stage but they also sang along filling the arena with a thunderous chorus and applause. As for me, certain performances stood out. First on the list was Scottish singer, Emeli Sande’s vocal excellence as she sang an acoustic version of her song, "Read all about it". Next was the drum-roll of the street percussion group with drummers beating on aluminum dustbin bins/covers with drum sticks while the stomp and acrobatic dancers did moves that left me with one word ‘wow’. Unfortunately this moment was disrupted for me when Ryan Davis’ performance followed. Yeah I had lots of down moments but let’s stick to the good ones for now. I also was pleasantly surprised by the open party scene with volunteers wearing colourful plaid outfits, party hats, abstract fashion pieces and colour-coded suits as well as the royal guards trumpeting.

Lots of musicians made guest appearances and I was glad I could catch a glimpse of One Direction singing on what seemed to me like a dismantled truck. Spice girls made a grand entrance on moving vehicles and sang their signature songs, as did Jesse J, Tairo Cruz and Tinie Tempah who also came in moving cars. Other singers include: Madness, Pet Shop Boys, George Michael, Ed Sheena, Take That, etc.
Amidst the musical concert, the athletes were paraded one last time bearing their national flag. It was nice to see countries truly celebrating because they were returning home with gold medals like USA and China who walked away with the highest amount of medals won in the 2012 Olympics (104 and 88 medals respectively). Jamaicans had a lot to celebrate besides able to hold on to their world records; as the closing ceremonies coincided with their country’s 50th anniversary. On the other hand, Brazilians were excited about the prospects of hosting the next Olympic Games (Rio 2016).

I wasn’t too psyched to see Nigeria’s parade especially when we were coming back home empty handed. My disappointed was shared by so many other Nigerians on twitter, some of which made sarcastic jokes about the team. The word Nigeria was trendy that day on twitter as Nigerians vented their anger at seeing a fellow athlete dancing during parade of nations. Everyone felt our team should hang their head in shame especially when the disabled team did so well at the Summer Para-Olympics.

Let’s get back to the closing ceremony shall we? Talking of Nigeria could start a long chain of issues relating to what ails this ‘failed state’ as diagnosed by *a CIA report predicting our disintegration by 2015. Since we are on low moments, might I say I was irked by Jessie J’s off key as she made her way to sing with Tinie Tempah and Tairo Cruz. Thank God she redeemed herself by the time she sang a classic rock song “We will Rock you”with Bryan May. Beady Eye’s rock piece with Liam Gallagher, from Oasis band, had such a nasal pitch to it I almost wished PHCN had seized the light during his performance.
I’m sure glad I had no electricity to watch Russell Brand’s musical performance though (being divorced from a popular pop musician did not qualify him to imagine he could actually sing and if that was meant to be funny, I doubt it was). Think happy thoughts, happy thoughts *fore-fingers to my temple with eyes closed. Then I take in a deep breath*.

*Smile on my face, commence conversation*. Once again the spirit of emotional freedom to cry was celebrated as pictures of athletes crying tears of joy and pain were displayed on projector screens, proving that it was now socially accepted in Europe to express emotion in public. Homage was also paid to minority groups like British Indians, though the gladiator’s dance part was lost on me sha. Don’t forget the stunts like the person who walked on a tight rope above the stadium or the human cannon ball. The London welsh choir performed the Olympic theme, soothing our ears and cleansing our memory from bad vocal performances of the night. Tribute was made to the Union Jack, Winston Churchill, Models and British fashion designers. Extinguishing of the Olympic torch which was the last feature of the celebrations was as glamorous as its lighting at the opening ceremony.

It would be hard to forget the London 2012 games especially since most of the clothes – t-shirts, leggings, jackets, etc –bearing the British flag which were used during the games will no doubt find its way to Nigeria in the form of Okrika. Or shall I say second clothing?

Credit: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images, Copyright: Owen Humphreys/PA Wire/Press Association Images.

London 2012 Summer Olympics (article continued)

A lot happened during this year’s Olympics games. The games started 2 days before the actual opening ceremony (July 27th) with preliminary matches for the Women and Men’s football respectively. From that first event till the very last day (August 12th), records were being broken, new world records were being set and emotions were running sky high. Like Cristiane Rozeira de Souza Silva of the Brazil’s women’s football team who set the record for the most goals scored by a woman in the Olympics when she scored her 11th Olympic goal on the 25th of July.

Her record was closely followed by South Korean team that not only set a new world record for men’s Archery competition but also produced the individual world record (by Im Dong-Hyun - legally blind competitor) of 699 points for 72 arrows on the day of the opening ceremony. Let’s not forget the athletes that got disqualified and sent home for tweeting unpleasant comments about other competing athletes and the many drug-tests to ensure athletes were not depending on performance enhancement drugs. But what people were looking forward to was which country would go home with the most medals and if their country would get medals in the particular sports they participated in.

As a Nigerian, I was proud to see we had our first ever Kayak representative (Jonathan Akinyemi) and a Basketball team in addition to the usual squads of athletes for athletics, wrestling, Taekwando, Boxing, Table Tennis and weightlifting categories. Most of our athletes held great promise (like Blessing Okagbare who was Africa’s fastest female athlete in the 100m category), but in the end, we were left a tad bit disappointed as none of our finest athletes were able to clench a single medal in this year’s Summer Olympics.

Nigerians vented their disappointment through various social media but little did we know we would have a second chance with the just concluded London 2012 Para-Olympics. We won 13 medals (6 gold, 5 silver and 2 bronze) in Power lifting and set new world records through athletes such as Yakubu Adosokan, Esther Oyema, Joy Onaolapo and Folashade Oluwafemiayo. (more on this later). Too bad we can’t participate in the London 2012 Winter Olympics since we experience no winter season in Nigeria.

Now back to the London 2012 Summer Games. Our basketball didn’t do too badly, despite the record breaking match played against the USA. While the American team made the record of the most points ever scored in an Olympics basketball game, Nigeria made the record of the highest scores ever earned by an African Basketball team in an Olympic match.

Don’t forget we also had player with the second highest score by an individual (Ike Diogu-27points) in that particular game even though an American Player (Carmelo Anthony -37points) broke the former Olympic record of the most points scored by an individual which was set in 1988 by a Brazilian player ( -31points). What I hated most was when some of the athletes suddenly began admitting that they were not home based players and blaming their poor performance on the poor support from the Nigerian government as if that would excuse their failure in securing a gold medal.

From what I saw, the athletes who did exceedingly well in the games were people who had a personal stake in their success like Michael Phelps, Usain Bolts and even 16-year old Shiwen Ye. Anyway, like I said on twitter, we (Nigerians) should be grateful we even had a team to represent the country at such an international sporting event.