Why die for government?

AN American president once made the statement; “don’t ask what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country”. In the same vein, there is this question that we usually ask ourselves; “can one die for his country?” Many people in countries like the United States, Japan, Canada, Russia, etc will answer in the affirmative but why can’t we Nigerians do same? Why are we unwilling to make the supreme sacrifice for our country? Is it in our genes or environmental make up or simply the faulty foundation as a country?

Before we attempt an explanation to this, we must realise that the United States as a country is an agglomeration of so many races, tribes and cultures, so the gene factor has nothing to do with it. We also cannot say that geographical factors are responsible for our lack of will to put our lives on the line for our country as the countries whose citizens do so are not located in one geographical area. We are also not the only country to have multiple ethnic and religious groups, so what has made it so difficult for Nigerians to get to that level of patriotism?

When a people are guaranteed security, safety and shelter from the government, when a people are guaranteed citizenship support, no matter where they may be all over the world, their love and commitment to their country is untainted. Nigerians cannot afford to make the supreme sacrifice because they are not guaranteed reciprocal sacrifice from our government.

The people that we elected to represent us in government have chosen to remove governance from the people’s reach. They have chosen to chart their own selfish course at the expense of the people. They have taken self and pecuniary interest over and above the interest of the people and in the process they have stratified the country and people into ethnic and religious lines.

The basic needs of the people have been denied them, so they have to take their destinies in their own hands; in other words they have lost confidence in the government.
The strength of Nigeria as a country is in our unity in diversity, the weakness is our penchant for allowing the parts to take precedence over the whole. If we hold unto our strengths and work consciously to eliminate or reduce the negative impact of our weaknesses, the country will be able to achieve on its potentials. But how did a country with such great potential come to this sorry state?

Again, like I have written in the past, we must all go back to the beginning; how did a people that are fiercely traditional and loyal to their customs and mores become so scattered and unfocused? Where are the values? If we had men of valour in the past who were ready or sacrificed their lives for the sake of their individual nation, what has happened to their progenitors? As it is said about the origin of sin in the Bible ‘from the beginning it was not so’. If it was not so from the beginning, then at what point did it all go wrong?

The colonisation of Africa brought its own benefits to the continent like the elimination of human sacrificial killings and technology but it destroyed the heart and soul of the black continent. Policies were deliberately contrived to eliminate whatever bit of positive history we had, in favour of Britain and other colonial masters. Every decision taken was directed at benefitting the Crown and Great Britain as far as Nigeria is concerned, so policies were deliberately set up to put one ethnic group against the other. It started with the slave trade and when that stopped, they switched over to other economic products like; cocoa, palm oil/kernel, groundnut, etc. They set up policies that placed the more educated and enlightened south against the north who then had relatively few western educated and enlightened elite. That was how the country stood at independence, a polarised south and north. Subsequently, those who have found themselves in government have continued to maintain this posture of ethnic, regional and religious divide, every failure or performance in government is attributed to sentimental factors of this dimension and following from there were the coups and counter coups, until by divine providence a truce was called that brought in the civilian government of Olusegun Obasanjo. Till date, we have enjoyed civilian dispensations but the seeds of discord have not been removed.
Happily, we have made improvements in our democracy; can the new regime acknowledge this as a challenge and begin the process of correcting this long outstanding anomaly? Will the issue of settlers and citizenship be resolved to the advantage of the long suffering masses? Will the secularity of Nigeria be brought to the fore front at the expense of religious bigotry? Will the government be ready to sacrifice for the people first before it embarks on its own ego tripping? Will there be equity in the distribution of resources and personnel? Will pieces of infrastructure targeted at improving the lives of the common man, be focused on by this government?
If all of these are sorted out, only then will we be able to gather men in surplus that will be able to come out and say; “I can die for Nigeria”.