WHY THEY HATE NIGERIA

WHY THEY HATE NIGERIA

Four stories on Nigeria which were widely circulated in the international media within a period of twenty-four hours last week are the immediate inspiration for this piece. Generally, I do not pay much attention to the so-called foreign media when it comes to spreading negative news about the country. This is because the only news about Nigeria worthy of their report is that which perpetuates the myth of a cursed nation where both the ruler and the ruled operate in accordance with antediluvian crudity, moral turpitude and unmitigated savagery. The impression one gets from such editorial disposition is that of unrestrained Nigeria bashing by writers who know very little about the country.

I concede that with typologies like the late Abacha and his equally depraved predecessors, Babangida and Buhari, performing so badly in the hallowed vocation of national governance without any moral or systemic restraints, it is often an uphill task trying to educate foreigners that Nigerians do not deserve the extreme negativism that they have been subjected to by a world system evidently determined to see them put down for ever. Nigerians themselves are not yet aware that their country occupies a unique position in the global alignment of racial and systemic forces. In a world order rigidly bifurcated by racial and imperialistic superiority instincts, the desire to see Nigeria go under is very real, persistent and widespread. Our oppressors are conscious of the great historical injustices they have inflicted on Africa, from slavery to colonialism and now, into the so-called globalisation as defined by the American propelled unipolarism. They therefore have an interest in not allowing a voice, strong enough to demand any redress or reparation on her behalf, to arise from the African continent.

The emergence of the Nigerian State in the comity of nations in 1960 did not live up to the expectations of the Black race which had hoped that the long awaited Big Brother on whose strength they would tap on for their individual and communal salvation in Nigeria never materialised. The late Kwame Nkrumah and a whole lot of early Africanists had the will to project the African world but they lacked the muscles and geo-political advantages of Nigeria to effect their dreams. The tragedy that stared the African world in the face was that the same Nigeria inexplicably opted to play the ignoble role of the sleeping giant and, at times, manifesting the traits of a reactionary paper tiger. One fact that has emerged in contemporary African studies is that the fate of the Black man worldwide is tied to that of Nigeria. In simple terms, anyone who is desirous of uplifting the black race must start with Nigeria and anyone equally against the success of the black man must first of all destroy Nigeria. That much was well articulated for the skeptical world by the wholesale commitment to a Black revival through phenomenal like FESTAC. That should explain why many would want Nigeria to be down forever.

When we routinely regret the failure of the Nigerian State at home, we do no often take into account the legitimate lamentation of all Black people on the continent and in the Diaspora who earnestly thought that with Nigeria ahead, they could safely match behind her and pull themselves up from their present low status among the other races into one of dignity and hope. Right from the inception, what came out of Nigeria was awfully disappointing incompetence and naiveté in the face of the daunting challenges of racism, colonialism and general underdevelopment. Rather than fight for a progressive African collaboration for a continental response to the problems of that era, our leaders opted to play the philosophically bankrupt role of the "moderates" and forging wrongful alliances in a world fiercely engaged in a struggle for dominance. If the first republican Nigeria leadership failed to appreciate the historical obligations imposed on the nation ab initio, the subsequent descent into military dictatorship further diminished the nation's capacity to act as a backbone for the black race. Even with this institutional disability that the nation found herself in, the few occasions that our leaders attempted to act as the leader of Africa could not be ignored. The cases of Angola, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Liberia, Sierra Leone and South Africa are clear examples. By a reversed logic, the point could be validly made that if Nigeria had asserted herself and acted in accordance with her historical obligations diligently all along, the fortunes of the black man would have been a lot better today

We started with what we called the four stories as the stereotype with which the West likes to define today’s Nigeria. I have only digressed to put them in proper perspective.

Story one. American industrial visitors to Nigeria last week had to run back to their country when they were attacked by robbers on their very first encounter with the air of Nigeria outside the airport. Implication: Nigeria is not safe for business.

Story two: Closely related to the first. Armed robbers attacked the Otta home of the number one citizen. Implication: if you think that the case of the Americans was a ruse, how about the close shave of the President himself?

Story three: Hungry Lagosians descended on the carcass of a whale washed ashore and feasted on it like the Jews did to Manna from heaven. Implication: life in the country is so bad that they would eat just anything including a dead whale whose predicament and origin they don’t know about.

Story four: A Nigerian asylum seeker in far away Canada told his unreceptive hosts that he is on the run from home because he did not want to participate in cannibalism which he alleged was an integral part of his family (based in Benin City) cultural practice. If he was a lady he would easily have pleaded fugitive of female genital mutilation (FGM) portrayed in the most gory form possible as if the African woman by circumcision is simply cruelly ripped apart and turn into a sexual junk or something worse. Implication: things are so bad that any excuse for citizens to escape the country, no matter how incredulous, are desperately contrived before the Good Samaritans of the West.

These stories might be true on the surface but the motives for their unduly loud rendition are far deeper. They are designed to prove chronic inability or failure on the part of the Nigerian leadership and by implication, the Black man There is nothing in those stories that does not have their counterparts in America with greater moral depravity, barbarism and criminality. But when they report them, they are usually tucked away, far into the inner pages, and routinely explained away as personal delict like alcoholism or as simply due to ‘depression’ or carefully dressed up in some fanciful terminology in criminal science. In the case of Africa, such similar events are routinely boldly reported as typical racial or communal failure laced generously with degrading adjectives. They are portrayed as standard indices for the continent’s civility. Such double standards are truly troubling.

No doubt, these negative stories were unduly highlighted for the sole purpose of degrading the rising profile of Nigeria as a constitutional democracy. The illusion continues to exist amongst certain western circles that the Black man cannot run a system as complicated as democracy. Hence they did not see the aberration the Mobutus and Abacha represented as long as raw materials continue to flow out to service their economy at less than there fair market prices. At about the same time the GSM story is breaking in Nigeria, when power supply is getting better in Lagos, human rights being restored to the populace, democracy is germinating, it has become fashionable to headline any little negative news about the country, true or false.

Yes, bad news sells well but that should not be at the expense of the positive ones. No one nation has a monopoly of bad news. The words "crime" and "corruption" are not African terms, neither is the idea they convey limited to any particular society. We are not unaware that not a few people are unhappy that Nigeria is on her way to both political and economic recovery. It is for that reason that everything must be done to safeguard whatever the nation has gained so far. We are very far from the ideal but we shall not get anywhere if we don’t start from somewhere. Only a fool would think that Nigeria has arrived at the desired kingdom but it equally requires some ill-motivated falsehood to deny the good in her.