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inauspicious ruminations
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Your Homeland, Our Homeland
Posted Aug 20, 2009 at 04:33 PM by Auspicious
Tags citizen, emigration, homeland, immigrant, nigeria
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The Blog below was inspired by THIS NVS article.
Let us face the truth.
All of us Nigerians - every single one of us, especially those of us who deserted the land for "abroad" - contributed to the disintegration of the land we call our Homeland. For the most part, we deal with Nigeria with a hands-off attitude. Just picture it this way: we live in a house and refuse to partake in the maintanance of that house, and nobody is saying or doing anything about it besides complaining about the state of the house.
Of course, the house will only begin to deteriorate over time. And, even worse, as the deterioration progresses, everybody begins to move out of the house in droves, leaving the bullies behind to roam around the house like Baboons on Ganja. Back when we all lived there, these Baboons still cared enough to act with some civility, as they weren't as recklessly belligerent as they now are around this same house.
Now, they roam around naked in the house without a care in the world, hanging from celing fans, shiting in the hall ways, removng the louvre blades and selling them to buy more booze and ganja. A homeless dude has moved into the garage from Niger Republic, where he hosts fundamentalist meetings with his fellow homeless dudes. Your former co-habitants don't give a damn about anything anymore; they are simply basking in the freedom to do as they wish.
That is your house. It is my house, too. The only reason it is like that today, overgrown with weeds and falling apart, is because you and I refused to get the rest of us to join hands to make it a decent place to live in. We wanted to continue to benefit of the privilege of a roof over our heads without investing in its maintanance at all. We didn't clean it, we didn't carry out any periodical refurbushings as all homes demand. Nobody cared. And if we did, it never really showed in our actions.
Of course, there was a time when that house stood new and strong, appearing to have a bright future ahead to mature and grow in value like any well-maintained property does anywhere. But we didn't care as much as we should for this house. Nobody needed to be told that owning a house comes with responsibilities, but we practically neglected our responsibility to that house, and when we didn't, we only made half-attempts, and focused more on looking for something big to gain from our conveninent investments.
And the only reason why we could afford to be so unconcerned was because we had alternatives. Yup, alternatives. We had Canada. We had the United Kingdom. We had Spain. We had Brazil. We had the good old USA etcetera. Some amongst us are actually citizens of these places, too. So we didn't care. We simply sought to get out for better comfort elsewhere and forgot about our homeland. And those who didn't leave, simply minded their business, living in Nigeria by the rules of the game.
We have been had by those who are more developed than us, as they continue to lure us away from making our homeland as good as theirs. If we really think about it, it should gut our hearts out - badly. Everyday, young, bright Nigerian men and women (and some older ones too) arrive the shores of those developed lands, where they settle-in to live for the next Donkey's Years, contributing to these societies and generally helping the economies and fortunes of these societies to grow. In many situations, we leave the robust jobs at home to come and be disrespected here, forgetting that a man is forvever a King in his own Hut - thatched roof or corrugated roof.
You meet your fellow country men and women and all you have for casual conversation is talk about the backwardness of your homeland. I have never known a time when we were generally proud of our country besides those occassional fake moments of patriotism that we witness during soccer tournaments. It is so bad, it has become like a social thing for us - to greet ourselves and chat about a failing homeland. We sit here and pretend that this is our home, feigning an accent that isn't ours even as our kids say "No, it's my Dad who is Nigerian; I am British/American/Canadian".
At recent occassion in Canada, I disconnected from the moment and studied the scene before me. With me at the occassion to celebrate the life of an immigrant Nigerian senior-citizen were all these Nigerians from all walks of life; the engineer, the doctor, the nurse, the pharmacist, the scholar and academician, the party-organizer, the RCMP cop - and of course, the funny man beside me, who reminds me of a career transporter back home, who just wouldn't shut-up about some young girl he saw needing to lose weight. He, too, is happy to be "abroad", forget that he talks and acts like he never saw the refinement that abroad has afforded not a few.
So there I sat, looking at my fellow party-people. Somehow, I felt something that I still can't put my finger upon to date - something I still haven't found the right words to describe accurately. It was like the whole scene was a make-believe; it was unreal unlike the case would be at a similar event in Nigeria. I saw young adults trying to announce the last names of their cousins on the microphone, murdering the names in the attempt to pronounce it right. I saw some confused parents straddling two cultures unsuccessfully. I don't know what it is, but the whole aura was just a poor immitation of our rich cultural heritage back home.
I felt something missing in the smiles and general interactions I was witnessing; I felt that even as these men and women and their children were somewhat at peace and possibly more comfortable than they could ever be at home, there was this certain feeling that they aren't fully adjusted - or completely fulfilled. And something told me that there was no way that these folks could ever truly 'adjust', no matter how much they pretend to have adjusted. But it was like they had accepted this fate, and would rather live that fantasy for a hundred years if they get to live that long. Their children on the other hand won't have to go through such though, afterall "My Dad is Nigerian, I am Canadian".
You look at the passion of Americans debating the current healthcare reform issue in their country, and you wonder if Nigerians too can be as passionate about issues concerning their Homeland. You see these Americans on TV, almost having a melt-down because they are "afraid", wether for good or evil, that Barack wants to "take (their) country" away from them - as subjective or misguided as their fears may often be! Perhaps it is because, unlike us, these people had to fight and bleed for their freedoms; perhaps it is because, unlike us, they have nowhere else to go (though some of them like to pretend they'd run to Canada if McCain and Sarahcudda had made it), but whatever it is, these people still fight tooth and nail for what is theirs.
Hey, I understand that it is a natural thing for humans (and all living things, as a matter of fact) to gravitate towards where there is sunshine and hope hope for a better life - afterall, the current majority in places like America, Canada and Australia came from elsewhere, too (and later massacred the original inhabitants). So maybe, just maybe, ours is natural as well. But I don't think those folks left their homelands without a fight, and I don't think they left en-masse like we did and are doing. It really is sad how we are so used to living with and saying nasty stuff about our Homeland. I am not exempted from this; I confess that I do the same, too. No country can progress under such circumstances - none!
Nigeria and countries like her will NEVER rise from her current ashes as long as our attitude remains the same - meaning, as long as that country simply continues to be the machine that produces and nurtures us just so we can take-off like bird-chicks that eventually fly away from their mother's nest. No, the country will never amount to anything like that. We have all deserted that country and left it for the crooks to run. It is sad. Yet, there is nowhere you travel to in places like the USA where you don't find Nigerians in every major discipline that you can imagine - you name it! No matter the speciality, no matter the field, no matter how high or how low, a Nigerian done been there and done that! We are so talented its not even a joke!
Which is why we dont have any excuse for our house being in such miserable state of disrepair. We seem not to appreciate how much expectation that the world had for us in recent memory. What we had in expectation from the world makes whatever hopes and optimism that people have for Ghana today look like Child's Play. We were supposed to be the Central Nervous System of Africa, the Brain and the Heart together, beating as one and ensuring stability in the entire region, from South Africa all the way up to the North. It wasn't too high an expectation, for we had the manpower and intellect and the massive resources, 300 billion worth of which has been stolen over the last 'X' years.
And so here we are, reading day-in and day-out about our impending doom. Of course, this much is true; the house that remains unmaintained will only deteriorate over time, and eventually fall. The house that we deserted as we headed out for greener pastures elsewhere will simply rot - plain and simple. The house we continue to use and dump -- and join the abusers in abusing the privilege it affords us -- will ultimately crumble. The house that gave us "a chance to call a place home" but which we hardly treat as any home should be treated -- this home that rarely causes us to react like one would react to issues concerning one's homeland -- will ultimately disintegrate. There's no doubt about that.
That is what is happening to your homeland - our homeland. And the real culprits in all these, if we must be honest with ourselves, is not just Yar'Adua or Obasanjo or Babangida and the rest of them, but the whole lot of us. Maybe if we didn't have America or Canada to run to for shelter, we would sit tight and fight to make this homeland called Nigeria a better place to live; maybe we would make Ekiti grind to a stand-still whenever baastards come to impose thieves on us; maybe we would chase the Waziris out of town and chase Ribadu with her if he is found to be wanting too; maybe we would pressure our legislators to impeach Yar'Adua for flouting the federal character rules for appointing government officials.
But, as it is, New York and London and Brisbane and Copenhagen offer nice sanctuaries for us to run to, likewise our quiet Villages and Farms and Jobs across the country, from whence we can pretend not to know what is going on, or simply spend our days bemoaning the Nigerian Reality till "His Coming". Nigeria is the outcome of our collective opportunist use-and-dump; she gave us an identity since birth that we hardly cherished except at the Airport - or when we feature in the next World Cup, or when Chinua Achebe is in town, or when Soyinka or Chimamanda respectively win another Nobel or Booker Prize - or when another Nigerian gets asphyxiated by Spanish immigration agents.
Yup, that is your Homeland - our Homeland. Poor Nigeria!
Auspicious.
The Blog below was inspired by THIS NVS article.
Let us face the truth.
All of us Nigerians - every single one of us, especially those of us who deserted the land for "abroad" - contributed to the disintegration of the land we call our Homeland. For the most part, we deal with Nigeria with a hands-off attitude. Just picture it this way: we live in a house and refuse to partake in the maintanance of that house, and nobody is saying or doing anything about it besides complaining about the state of the house.
Of course, the house will only begin to deteriorate over time. And, even worse, as the deterioration progresses, everybody begins to move out of the house in droves, leaving the bullies behind to roam around the house like Baboons on Ganja. Back when we all lived there, these Baboons still cared enough to act with some civility, as they weren't as recklessly belligerent as they now are around this same house.
Now, they roam around naked in the house without a care in the world, hanging from celing fans, shiting in the hall ways, removng the louvre blades and selling them to buy more booze and ganja. A homeless dude has moved into the garage from Niger Republic, where he hosts fundamentalist meetings with his fellow homeless dudes. Your former co-habitants don't give a damn about anything anymore; they are simply basking in the freedom to do as they wish.
That is your house. It is my house, too. The only reason it is like that today, overgrown with weeds and falling apart, is because you and I refused to get the rest of us to join hands to make it a decent place to live in. We wanted to continue to benefit of the privilege of a roof over our heads without investing in its maintanance at all. We didn't clean it, we didn't carry out any periodical refurbushings as all homes demand. Nobody cared. And if we did, it never really showed in our actions.
Of course, there was a time when that house stood new and strong, appearing to have a bright future ahead to mature and grow in value like any well-maintained property does anywhere. But we didn't care as much as we should for this house. Nobody needed to be told that owning a house comes with responsibilities, but we practically neglected our responsibility to that house, and when we didn't, we only made half-attempts, and focused more on looking for something big to gain from our conveninent investments.
And the only reason why we could afford to be so unconcerned was because we had alternatives. Yup, alternatives. We had Canada. We had the United Kingdom. We had Spain. We had Brazil. We had the good old USA etcetera. Some amongst us are actually citizens of these places, too. So we didn't care. We simply sought to get out for better comfort elsewhere and forgot about our homeland. And those who didn't leave, simply minded their business, living in Nigeria by the rules of the game.
We have been had by those who are more developed than us, as they continue to lure us away from making our homeland as good as theirs. If we really think about it, it should gut our hearts out - badly. Everyday, young, bright Nigerian men and women (and some older ones too) arrive the shores of those developed lands, where they settle-in to live for the next Donkey's Years, contributing to these societies and generally helping the economies and fortunes of these societies to grow. In many situations, we leave the robust jobs at home to come and be disrespected here, forgetting that a man is forvever a King in his own Hut - thatched roof or corrugated roof.
You meet your fellow country men and women and all you have for casual conversation is talk about the backwardness of your homeland. I have never known a time when we were generally proud of our country besides those occassional fake moments of patriotism that we witness during soccer tournaments. It is so bad, it has become like a social thing for us - to greet ourselves and chat about a failing homeland. We sit here and pretend that this is our home, feigning an accent that isn't ours even as our kids say "No, it's my Dad who is Nigerian; I am British/American/Canadian".
At recent occassion in Canada, I disconnected from the moment and studied the scene before me. With me at the occassion to celebrate the life of an immigrant Nigerian senior-citizen were all these Nigerians from all walks of life; the engineer, the doctor, the nurse, the pharmacist, the scholar and academician, the party-organizer, the RCMP cop - and of course, the funny man beside me, who reminds me of a career transporter back home, who just wouldn't shut-up about some young girl he saw needing to lose weight. He, too, is happy to be "abroad", forget that he talks and acts like he never saw the refinement that abroad has afforded not a few.
So there I sat, looking at my fellow party-people. Somehow, I felt something that I still can't put my finger upon to date - something I still haven't found the right words to describe accurately. It was like the whole scene was a make-believe; it was unreal unlike the case would be at a similar event in Nigeria. I saw young adults trying to announce the last names of their cousins on the microphone, murdering the names in the attempt to pronounce it right. I saw some confused parents straddling two cultures unsuccessfully. I don't know what it is, but the whole aura was just a poor immitation of our rich cultural heritage back home.
I felt something missing in the smiles and general interactions I was witnessing; I felt that even as these men and women and their children were somewhat at peace and possibly more comfortable than they could ever be at home, there was this certain feeling that they aren't fully adjusted - or completely fulfilled. And something told me that there was no way that these folks could ever truly 'adjust', no matter how much they pretend to have adjusted. But it was like they had accepted this fate, and would rather live that fantasy for a hundred years if they get to live that long. Their children on the other hand won't have to go through such though, afterall "My Dad is Nigerian, I am Canadian".
You look at the passion of Americans debating the current healthcare reform issue in their country, and you wonder if Nigerians too can be as passionate about issues concerning their Homeland. You see these Americans on TV, almost having a melt-down because they are "afraid", wether for good or evil, that Barack wants to "take (their) country" away from them - as subjective or misguided as their fears may often be! Perhaps it is because, unlike us, these people had to fight and bleed for their freedoms; perhaps it is because, unlike us, they have nowhere else to go (though some of them like to pretend they'd run to Canada if McCain and Sarahcudda had made it), but whatever it is, these people still fight tooth and nail for what is theirs.
Hey, I understand that it is a natural thing for humans (and all living things, as a matter of fact) to gravitate towards where there is sunshine and hope hope for a better life - afterall, the current majority in places like America, Canada and Australia came from elsewhere, too (and later massacred the original inhabitants). So maybe, just maybe, ours is natural as well. But I don't think those folks left their homelands without a fight, and I don't think they left en-masse like we did and are doing. It really is sad how we are so used to living with and saying nasty stuff about our Homeland. I am not exempted from this; I confess that I do the same, too. No country can progress under such circumstances - none!
Nigeria and countries like her will NEVER rise from her current ashes as long as our attitude remains the same - meaning, as long as that country simply continues to be the machine that produces and nurtures us just so we can take-off like bird-chicks that eventually fly away from their mother's nest. No, the country will never amount to anything like that. We have all deserted that country and left it for the crooks to run. It is sad. Yet, there is nowhere you travel to in places like the USA where you don't find Nigerians in every major discipline that you can imagine - you name it! No matter the speciality, no matter the field, no matter how high or how low, a Nigerian done been there and done that! We are so talented its not even a joke!
Which is why we dont have any excuse for our house being in such miserable state of disrepair. We seem not to appreciate how much expectation that the world had for us in recent memory. What we had in expectation from the world makes whatever hopes and optimism that people have for Ghana today look like Child's Play. We were supposed to be the Central Nervous System of Africa, the Brain and the Heart together, beating as one and ensuring stability in the entire region, from South Africa all the way up to the North. It wasn't too high an expectation, for we had the manpower and intellect and the massive resources, 300 billion worth of which has been stolen over the last 'X' years.
And so here we are, reading day-in and day-out about our impending doom. Of course, this much is true; the house that remains unmaintained will only deteriorate over time, and eventually fall. The house that we deserted as we headed out for greener pastures elsewhere will simply rot - plain and simple. The house we continue to use and dump -- and join the abusers in abusing the privilege it affords us -- will ultimately crumble. The house that gave us "a chance to call a place home" but which we hardly treat as any home should be treated -- this home that rarely causes us to react like one would react to issues concerning one's homeland -- will ultimately disintegrate. There's no doubt about that.
That is what is happening to your homeland - our homeland. And the real culprits in all these, if we must be honest with ourselves, is not just Yar'Adua or Obasanjo or Babangida and the rest of them, but the whole lot of us. Maybe if we didn't have America or Canada to run to for shelter, we would sit tight and fight to make this homeland called Nigeria a better place to live; maybe we would make Ekiti grind to a stand-still whenever baastards come to impose thieves on us; maybe we would chase the Waziris out of town and chase Ribadu with her if he is found to be wanting too; maybe we would pressure our legislators to impeach Yar'Adua for flouting the federal character rules for appointing government officials.
But, as it is, New York and London and Brisbane and Copenhagen offer nice sanctuaries for us to run to, likewise our quiet Villages and Farms and Jobs across the country, from whence we can pretend not to know what is going on, or simply spend our days bemoaning the Nigerian Reality till "His Coming". Nigeria is the outcome of our collective opportunist use-and-dump; she gave us an identity since birth that we hardly cherished except at the Airport - or when we feature in the next World Cup, or when Chinua Achebe is in town, or when Soyinka or Chimamanda respectively win another Nobel or Booker Prize - or when another Nigerian gets asphyxiated by Spanish immigration agents.
Yup, that is your Homeland - our Homeland. Poor Nigeria!
Auspicious.
Total Comments 2
Comments
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Great write up Auspy,
but abeg, make i axe you wan queshone:
what would you do if you bought a third/fourth hand car, and said car is batterd, old, the brakes, shocks, transmission and body work is gone?
would you keep putting in good money into said car, pay insurance, buy gas and risk driving on the high way? knowing your brakes could give up any time, your transmission is so bad, the more you throttle, the more gas you burn and the shocks are so bad, any gallop you encounter would nearlly shatter all your bones?
or would you seek to buy/lease/borrow/steal another car?
most of us born post civil war or post oil boom in naija inherited that country as third/fourth hand, the people that had it brand new raped, abused, battered, shatterd and mistreated her, so that now it seems that , like that old car, what ever you put into it acts like a drain on your money, good money chasing after a bad project, so that you almost want to cut and run.
Even if everyone living abroad pack up and go home today, that wouldn't solve naija's problem, what we need is to re-constitute the country,
like that said car, you need to do a complete overhaul of the entire system, junk/scrap some parts, buy new or refurbished parts, couple these together and do some serious tune up, oil change, and what not, you simply cannot keep driving the car as is and hope for the best, drastic measures are needed for drastic situations and naija is fast approaching a failed state, like it or not, therefore, the old thinking and the old ways of doing thins can no longer hold.
no way can we survive as a country as we are right now.
the baboons will continue to rule and run things untill they are chased away or untill there is nothing left to run or untill such a time as the original owners of the home chase them away by armed insurrection and send them to the zoo, where they belong.
aija is long over due for a revolution,peaceful of otherwise.
we may be lucky like the old soviet Union and have a peaceful break up into independent, autoonomous states, or unlucky like the old Yugoslavia and break up via armed conflict, butone thing is certain, naija cannot change if the baboons from the zoo continue to rule, thinking its a jungle and allocate banana among themselves alone.Posted Aug 20, 2009 at 10:03 PM by shinycoin
- The maintenance problem of the house is a foundation defect. A foundation determines the strength of the house and the stability of its construction. The house is strong and stable when its foundation is properly designed to carry its load. The foundation determines the health of the superstructure, I mean the health of all its elements.
Normally, when you have a foundation defect, you see major deterioration of the building elements over time like cracking of walls, I mean deep cracks, you see other elements such as windows falling apart.The best way to deal with many of these issues begging for maintenance attention is through major remedial work not mere "patch patch work ," a major remedial work like underpinning. The "patch patch " works costs when they are temporary and on the long-run, and they hardly ever address the real problems.
But the question is are the "enlightened" Nigerians, I mean those benefiting from its deterioration ready to allow a major remedial work?
Until we go back to the basics, I mean remediating the foundation, using major techniques such as underpinning which helps increase the depth and spread of the foundation to fully carry the load, we will continue to have all sorts of maintenance issues. It is those maintenance problems that have overwhelmed Nigerians and making everyone abandon its "building," no one would live in a building where all its elements are falling apart left, right and center.Posted Aug 21, 2009 at 10:41 AM by katampe
