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I want Nigeria to remain ONE

March 24, 2010
My dear Nigerian (!) friends, let’s get one thing – or more than one – clear: I want Nigeria to remain ONE, because the cost in human lives in/by dividing the country  would just be too immense. Pakistan and former Jugoslavia(s) are just two examples – and there are many others.
That the construct called NAIJA is an artificial one…
who am I to say ?
Nationalism with a capital N – was after all invented in Germany
‘among others’, and that nationalism was one of the deadliest
inventions of the 19th century, an invention then exported to Africa…
‘colonialisme oblige’,,,.

Nigeria is such an invention like so many others the world over,
but fortunately people in many such nations have - after so
many costly ad- and mis-adventures - learned to live together –
even if it is not so easy at times…

Why should Nigeria not be able to so - also !!!

What we must not endulge in is stupid, deadly … nationalism,
tribalism, ethnicism – Jugoslavia-style. It leads nowhere.
               Except to/into mass graves.
And we must denounce the stupid write-ups of half-educated
journalists – just as we must denounce the verbose pontifications
of such-same OSUJIS…

I want Nigeria – or Pan-Africa, once that becomes possible -
to survive and thrive: yes, I DO !

We did ‘have a dream’, not so long ago, or very long ago -
depending…

That is when I was a student at U.I. in 1962/1963 and again
in 1965/66, when we were students from some 250 ethnic
groups in Nigeria, plus those ‘exots’ from Germany, France and
what-have-you: and what fun it was.

I can’t remember that then we ever talked about ‘our great culture’,
meaning our narrow ethnic one: we were who we were – Yoruba,
Igbo, Hausa, Ijaw, Kanuri and Nigerian …  Basta.
              That was good enough for us then.

Our wealth was – and should still be - our diversity and

But I also remember that in our Western ‘Rig-On’ the political rot
or ‘penkelemess’ had already set in: you do remember Akintola
versus Awo.

And – admitted - some of my fellow students later unfortunately
joined in that profitable game of politics, like for example the one
who used to be called ‘the handsome One’…

I can’t afford to name names. Because I can’t afford
lawyer’s fees, ‘cos I am sure those lootocrats would use
the monies stolen from public coffers to drag me to court.

So let all those pontificators of ethnic-nationalistic purity
remember those (really) ‘good old days’ when we Igbo-
Yoruba-Hausa-Germans… used to take those six-pence
Morris Minor taxis from the campus to Mokola/Dugbe to enjoy
some excellent SUYA and STAR or palm-wine in the
evenings, (the prophet spoke about ALCOHOL but did not
mention STAR or Ogogoro!),
hotly debating Nigeria’s future, but only debating
and not killing each other.

That nonsensical conjuring of the ‘good old days before
the advent of the bad and ugly white man’ is just that:
NONSENSE.

BUT: then we were debating and hadn’t gotten to the point
where we had moved from…

                 “I am right, and you are wrong!”
to

                “I am right, and you are dead.”  (Kongi dixit)

I can only hope you got me…


Gerd

PS:

Ever since the middle of the 19th century we Germans used
to speak of our immediate neighbours – the French – as our
‘heriditary enemies’, and then fought three deadly wars
against them – and thereby also against OURSELVES.

But now I cannot only look from my Black Forest balcony
across the Rhine border into Alsatia, I can also go to
France as in Charlemagne’s time - freely again, because the border
is no longer – in unified Europe.
Welcome Pan-Nigeria and then Pan-Africa !
Hopefully not too far away in some distant future…


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