A generation is a period of time generally defined as a span of 10 years; so a decade can be a generation. Looked at another way, a generation could be a lifetime of an event or an episode. In the Nigerian parlance, there are three generations in a man’s life – the beginning, the middle age, and the retired era; commonly referred to as the Morning, the Afternoon and the Night time.
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The Beginning or the Morning is the formative years, used in acquiring education, knowledge, and skills. This period could be defined as birth to 21 years at most.
This period is actively followed by the Middle-age during which time, if one is not engaged in graduate or post graduate studies, one starts contributing to the middle level manpower of any society one lives in. The middle level manpower is the basis for determining the strength of any nation. Any country without an active middle level workforce cannot be rated as a functional nation. The middle level work force is not only the “machine” that a functional nation is based on; it also generates the most taxes that help in the infrastructural developments and social upkeep of the country. This age range could be set at 22 years to 60 years.
The Retirement period follows the middle-age. This starts from age 61 years to death. An active citizen who has worked hard all his life is expected to enjoy some kind of social support and a level of comfort-ability when he retires. An average Nigerian does not ask for too much. A larger percentage of the masses will be happy with their lives if they can boast of some basic necessities of life; a roof over their heads, three square meals a day, regular supply of potable water, stable power supply, and adequate security of life and property. The British experiment, as the failed state of Nigeria has been labeled of late, cannot guarantee any of these to her citizens.
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The lost generation of Nigeria, are the active middle-aged, well educated, knowledgeable, widely travelled, well informed but toothless citizens of the country as age-qualified above. Because they are so ineffective, they’ve turned to being cyber warriors of late. While our fathers and grandfathers took the fight to the British slave masters, they end up fighting the system and each other on the internet. While one may say cyber wars could be effective sometimes, the cyber rhetoric has to be translated into actions to be totally effective and be related to.
At the beginning of this decade in the year 2000, the general belief among the lost generation was that this will be a decade of change for Nigeria. Whatever gave them this confidence is still beyond any reasonable comprehension. Could it have been that they expected the agent-President to be a different ruler the second time around? How soon did we learn that a leopard does not change its spots; this is a man who has never done anything good for anybody, as confirmed by one of his wives in her book, and many of his so called friends. This is a man who the wife claimed slept with almost all of his friends’ wives; a man who was even accused of sleeping with one of his sons’ wife; a man who was suspected of complicity in the assassination of a supposed friend; not only has the death of the then attorney general of the federation in 2001 December not yet solved, the major suspect in the assassination was allowed to assume a Senate seat from jail – this became one of the wonders of the world. A man who dubiously held on to the Petroleum Ministry throughout his tenure without tendering any accounts to the nation. The list goes on and on.
Each of these dealers, we’ve not been blessed with any forthright leader, has only managed to leave us with negative legacies. Just like the gap-toothed Maradona left us the culture of “settlement’, he used to boast that he knew the price of every Nigerian, which led to unprecedented level of compromising of values that bred the incurable corruption that has now been ingrained in all the fabrics of our lives, from the market woman to the Presidency, so also did the immediate past agent-President manage to leave us with the culture of “do or die” in politics. The “Do or die” culture has led to politicians doing whatever it takes to get to office because they know that even a politician at the lowest rung of the ladder, a councilor, can “make” more money than a Professor. The country has lost its priorities and, in Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s words, “overtake don overtake overtake”, the end result is confusion which is leading to the end of the beginning.
Soon the decade will be coming to an end and the dealers of the British Experiment, or shall we say elders as they label themselves, have only managed to show more of their unscrupulous characteristics in managing the affairs of the amalgamated by-product of Lord Luggard’s concubine’s conjunction of a name.
How does one explain the absence of the President from the country for over a month without any explanation to the citizenry? You and I would have been fired if we go AWOL for a week not to talk of a month. How does one explain the arrogance of the Vagabonds-In-Power represented by the most corrupt Attorney General the country has ever been unfortunate to have? How does one explain the audacity of the Speaker of the house to say that congress spent ONLY NGN21b for travels when an average citizen in his constituency cannot even travel on good roads, passable waterways, or a hitch free flight from one part of the country to another? How does one explain a budget of NGN7b to build a residence for the Vice President when Nigerians are housed in the most despicable environment in the Niger Delta? How does one relate to an expenditure of NGN2.7b by a no-good Foreign Minister for travels that did not benefit the country in any way? There are Nigerians languishing in jail and been deported daily from China, Italy, and even Libya. How does one comprehend the fact that not a single one of the 91 roads the Transportation Ministry promised to build was completed in 2009? How does a Minister explain the failure to generate the wattage promised to the National grid despite the huge sum of money allocated to this sector? Thanks to Akwa Ibom State for the 100mW added to the National grid. How does one explain a budget of NGN2.8trillion to a police department whose major role is utilizing 33% of its force to protect the looters of the people’s treasury, another 33% deployed to exploit citizens at checkpoints, while the other 33% engage in extra judicial killings for the highest bidders of their services, in settling scores, and in aiding and abetting armed robbery.
The congress has not passed any bill that benefits the so called Nation since inauguration; they have only managed to excel in their characteristic of misappropriation by allowing a born rogue to head their appropriation committee, so he can ensure each of them gets his befitting booty.
The laws of the nation are being disobeyed and disrespected everywhere you go. The judiciary has been compromised that almost all the Justices have lost their integrity, hence dignity. How does one explain the acquittal of an avowed, notorious thief facing 243 charges of stealing from the State’s Treasury when he was a Governor? How shall one explain the fact that an election was conducted in a State in spite of an injunction granted by a court of law against holding the election unless and until a clean voters’ register is presented to the opposition? How does one relate to a report that a committee set up by a state Governor to look into unprovoked extra-judicial killings that occurred in a city in the state continued to sit in spite of an injunction against its sitting by a court of the federation? How does one relate to the fact that a Minister will flagrantly disobey the Vice President’s order not to travel? One can go on and on but everything points to the same fact – the British Experiment has failed the litmus test, and efforts to improvise new “chemicals” to reactivate the experiment have not yielded successful results.
The lost generation has felt the pinch of the experimental failure the most. They allowed their tenure to be used by all the spent forces assembled into ruling the country – the cabal. The freedom of a people can only occur from within, sometimes with help from with-out. The most unfortunate thing about the whole scenario is that when you look at the ages of the perpetrators of these man’s inhumanities to man, a large percentage of “the lost generation” is included. This is like begging a man to save himself from self destruction or all hopes are lost for the survival of this experiment.
When a major player in an organization saddled with the responsibilities of exposing corruption in government is accused of compromising his integrity by taking “fuel” money from one of the “emperors” he was supposed to monitor and expose, hopes are getting dashed and survival as an entity is being further blown to the wind. That all the “do or die” political players in Anambra 2010, which will be the final test of survival of the British Experiment, belong to “the lost generation” is a further pointer to the self destruct nature of this group.
There are several countries in today’s Africa and Europe that are less than 5 million in population; so if the British experiment is Balkanized, there is no doubt that the emerging nations will survive and thrive. This will enhance competition, encourage growth, and result in development. The Tiger countries are living examples. If this British Experiment is not going to suffer an implosion in not too distant a future, the cabal has to permit restructuring that will lead to regional autonomy, monitored by a weak center. Any attempt to the contrary will only reinforce the saying “To Thy tent O! Israel.”
I welcome all to a new decade beginning with the year 2010. I hope the decade will be a wakeup call for the lost generation; that they will smell the coffee, rise up, and demand their rightful places in repositioning the experiment. Any further failure of the British Experiment, may lead to the manifestation of the prediction of an intelligence Agency of the British’s “cousin.”
Oloye Lekan Awojoodu, a past Senatorial candidate, is an Architect and a Project Manager in the USA.
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