Nigeria: Of Patriots, Activists And Citizens

By Joseph Rotimi

The majority of Nigerians, while assuming the citizenship of the federal republic, do not care much about issues that affect them because their assumptions are more comfortable and comforting than tedious self-analysis. During so-called free and fair elections, bags of rice, salt, other grains and bales of clothes, are used to cheapen the worth of citizenship.

Perhaps Nigerians should not be entirely blamed because the leadership has deliberately disempowered them through cynical divide and rule tactics coupled with religious fatalism. The leaders have resisted nationhood and sacrificed unity on the altar of greed, parochialism and deliberate institution of mediocrity.

The average Nigerian citizen has been reduced to being aware of just one sense – that of survival, and is compelled to do everything possible to survive, irrespective of status. Recently, a so-called elder statesman from the Niger Delta, whom Nigerians knew as a close confidant of the former president of Nigeria, turned quisling, by denouncing his political protégé.

In a bid to survive or gain some relevance in the new dispensation, Edwin Clark suggested that former President Jonathan lacked the guts to tackle Nigeria’s institutional corruption. Coming from a man who publicly declared that Jonathan was the best thing to have happened to Nigeria is to say the least, pathetic. It is deplorable when people assume high-sounding titles such as ‘elder statesmen’ but are in reality ethnic champions who use available federal opportunities to feather their nests – especially their bank balances.

While Edwin Clark was condemning his so-called political son, he was esteeming and kissing up to PMB. Mr Edwin Clark thus clearly proved that he is just an ordinary citizen trying to survive the enigma called Nigeria. Someone said – “the man is entitled to his opinion” especially in the dog-eat-dog political arena of Nigeria. But Mr Clark’s posturing as a principled activist or patriot is maddening. He might be an elder but he is certainly no statesman.

In a swift reaction to Mr Clark’s assertions, Reuben Abati, who witnessed the old man’s obsequiousness at close quarters when Jonathan was in power offered a comprehensive retort. Reuben Abati was a respected columnist and writer before his appointment as image-maker for the administration of former President Jonathan. While some feel that Mr Abati betrayed his vaunted brilliance and integrity by joining such an inept government, I think he simply did what he had to do, in order to survive, when the opportunity presented itself – and so would many of his critics, hypocritical self-righteousness aside.

Mr Abati’s dilemma is the fact that activists are not necessarily patriots. He wrote as an activist who understood the truth and was able to accurately gauge its impact on a largely reprobate society such as Nigeria. The next step for Abati after his activism should have been patriotism but this proved too daunting. The paucity of true patriots in Nigeria’s socio-political space has proven inimical to building a true nation.

Under sufficient aura of power and privilege the idealism of activists usually fades, their feelings become soothed, rationalization takes over and they begin to exhibit the same human foibles they were once critical of in others. The same barbs of a ‘sell out’ were thrown at Adeniyi who worked under the late President Yar’adua, but one wonders what ‘sell out’ means – do we expect these guys to go into Aso Villa to unseat or oppose their principals? That is not their job.

As long as they are part of government, they must defend it, unless they quit in righteous indignation – a lost art in Nigeria’s governance. The problem here is that Nigerians on the average are either survivalist citizens or pliable activists pretending to be patriots. A patriot strives to protect his nation against its government, because the most important asset of a country is its people.

Once patriots are convinced of a vision, they live and breathe it, for as long as it takes, to bring about its fulfilment. Fidel Castro is a good example of a man who rose from the lower ledges of activism to the pinnacles of patriotism at a price most of us would shy away from. His focus and dogged determination redeemed a nation’s soul and kept out a super power, just ninety miles away, for the better part of fifty years. Africa is in need of a new wave of patriots – men and women with nothing to lose, ready to give their lives for the struggle.

At independence, there were idealistic Africans, who could have taken the continent to greater heights but most were exiled, jailed or killed by their compatriots in active connivance with external forces. The real tragedy is that in today’s Africa, patriots are rarer to find than a pearl in a dustbin while those same malevolent external forces are still welcomed with open arms. “Africa will come of age when it stops the rage against itself” -JR

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