Before Oga Harrow starts singling me out to ask his questions and make his awesome comments, let me state quite categorically that the only Nigerian history I've read so far are those written by Michael Crowder who I knew personally, and our own Oga Toyin Falola. And that's how I have come to know a little – and by talking to people, a little bit of osmosis there. Now if Oga Falola were a high Buddhist lama or Iranian Sufi Master, he would probably transmit so many books he has written and much of his special knowledge to his sensitive & receptive disciples through special transmissions as in this story , the story of Shams meets Rumi . There are other stories, even Hindu stories. Personal stories. Suffering, anguish, separation. Hidden Stories. Secret stories. Difficult to relate stories. True stories. Cerebral stories. Stories (and poetry) from the heart, and also secrets that cannot even be understood.
Yes, the problems in Nigeria are immense, are immensely deep-seated, entrenched.
Over the years, from the innocence of pre-independence ( the good old days), a culture of corruption and impunity has gradually evolved , has taken over and is now part of the warp and woof of what's called "the system", the very fabric of the Niger nation, whilst at the same time, the rule of law has taken a permanent leave of absence and some of the Mafia and the corrupt elite have taken complete control of the nation and it's being widely reported that there's "spiritual wickedness, in high and low places" The nation is now in their grip.
Optimists opine that a nationwide recovery from this decadence would take nothing less than a moral revolution - a revolution in public morality and public probity and the ideal solution would be that we (all ethnicities, faiths, lack of faith) re-turn to the traditional cultural values and high ethics that once strengthened the great nations that have since been welded together to form the Lugardist experiment of 1914 which saw the birth of Nigeria as a national entity.
And then – long before the oil boom, it was a country with a population of about thirty-three million people, fed by the produce of the farmers and cattle rearers. A nation that could feed itself. It was basically, pounded yam, egusi soup and garri and back then there was no real or artificial scarcity of food and no need to import rice from Burma, China, India and Pakistan or sardines from Morocco or, in spite of plentiful Fulani Cattle, any need for Nigeria to burn up valuable foreign exchange importing corned beef, leather belts and shoes from Brazil
Now that we are as many as 165 million people and with a heavy reliance on oil exports for the nation's sustenance, that reliance has diminished the importance of even palm oil as a cash maker/ cash crop, even as the rate of exchange of the naira has risen and fallen disastrously from the Naira equaling the £ sterling in 1981 – to the Naira now floating at about two hundred and forty naira to the pound sterling, just now.
(But not as bad as Zimbabwe was a couple years ago - for the Zimbabwean dollar was valued at a little over the American dollar in 1981 and by the time Mugabe was transferring some settler farms to" his people", the Zimbabwe currency had plummeted to six hundred million Zimbabwean dollars to the American dollar.)
It cannot be wholly mythological that prior to Independence on 1st October 1960, in the Islamized Northern Nigeria it was a normal practice for the faithful to leave their wares unattended, go to the various nearby mosques say in Kano, do their absolutions and Friday congregational afternoon prayers and then return to the market place and their wares would still all be there, safe and sound, intact, not stolen. Sadly, today this is no longer the case.
About the moral revolution, the then president of Sierra Leone, Alhaji Dr. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah proposed Seven National values. Today, with Sierra Leone allegedly at the top of the corruption League - world champions, according to Transparency International, beating even Nigeria and Kalabule Ghana , methinks that honesty should be at the top of the "Seven national values"
About this whole revolution business, gun or no gun, the term revolution itself is a loaded one.
31st December 1983 was in my dream the beginning of a positive revolution in Nigeria. But of course the corrupt political elite that was being overthrown would not take their loss of privilege and position lying down. Since day one they were scheming how to take back power so that they could continue to rob the innocent, defenceless people.
Recently we were reminded of this: "Now, Napoleon stated that there never had been a Revolution without a change of ownership " – by which I understand that in a successful revolution there must be some transfer of power and looted monies, to their rightful owners or to the national till and retributively, back to those who have been defrauded.
If there was a revolution in Nigeria today – a real revolution - I'd be paid my gratuity that I had lodged in Savannah Bank in Nigeria, at Number 10 Aba Road, Port Harcourt , Rivers State , Nigeria a gratuity consisting in 15% of 42 months' salary plus 50% of 42 months' salary, all in £ sterling. Till today, my main regret is , that innocent boy that I was then, I bragged to the Igbo Bank manager, that he should not forget that after all we are all Nigerians and that my mother and grandmother etc are Yoruba. After which he told me that if I gave him half of the money, I could leave with the rest, immediately.
Half ? I asked him.
Yes, he informed me, half, 50% !
And if I don't give you half of MY MONEY?
Then you'll have to wait, he told me.
Wait?
Yes.
How long?
That was before his X-mas 1984. Savannah Bank eventually went bankrupt.
Sadly those four years in Nigeria are not accounted for in my pension scheme - so I only worked for 37 years in Sweden - and my pension is calculated on that – minus my years in Nigeria and the gratuity for that period.
It's now 2013 and I'm still waiting. I had a governor friend in Cross Rivers (Dr. Mathias Offoboche) and some real oga friends in Rivers state politics, the judiciary and the Police, but did not consult them about this matter, believing that would be some kind of nepotism and trusting that in a few months time I would get MY MONEY!
When I got back to Sweden he (the Igbo Bank Manager) then wanted to know how I could have "so much money" in my account and wanted me to go through a process of declaring my assets. I phoned the then great oga in Sweden, Jan Eliasson about the matter and when I told him the amount that was breaking my heart he laughed and asked me whether or not I did not know of the billions that were owed Swedish companies in Nigeria.
I'm still waiting. Was hoping that my man Buhari would do something but not too long after that he too was deposed, couped by the same corrupt elite looters.
We ought not to lose sight of that when we talk of "revolution "in Nigeria , such talk always makes the corrupt elite and their beneficiaries uneasy - since they do not want to suffer any losses. However, since the probability of any cataclysmic upheaval or overthrow of the system at best is far away, they are not so worried and can still sleep soundly at nights...
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