Chief Cornelius,
😂 This is quite a poetic Independence Day reflection. I enjoyed the wit, the history, and especially the gentle sting beneath it all.
You have captured that familiar Nigerian tension between celebrating how far we have come and asking, quite reasonably, “But how far exactly?” 😄🇳🇬
Happy Independence, Day. More light, more progress, and hopefully fewer speeches without the figures to back them up. 🙏🏾
I will share a piece on the shift from Reform to prosperity tomorrow....it's the hard part.
Warm regards
http://www.policy.hu/onyeukwu/
“Let us move forward to fight poverty, to establish equity, and assure peace for the next generation.”
-- James D. Wolfensohn
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This day in history : 1st September, 1939 ,
No year in particular, in mind :
so begins a song by The Temptations
Yesterday, it was the 1st of October
the birthday of the sleeping giant
and as the Saro people in Salone used to chant
It was always
a day that all of the elders remember
as Nigeria’s 66th Independence birthday
Normally, i.e., if you are normal
or a normal Nigerian for that matter,
you would think that the 1st of October
would be more than enough cause for celebration -
just as for Donald J Trump
& his Americanos
is a day
of great
joy
a day of
national pride
human rights
equality
and dignity
in Trump’s USA,
it’s The Star-Spangled Banner,
trumpets,
fireworks,
gunpowder
military parades.
Power?
Ditto China at the Red Square
Ditto La France on my birthday, the 14th of July
And Nigeria?
Where is all the celebratory music?
I was expecting an avalanche
of happy anniversary greetings
to inundate the USA-Africa Dialogue Series
As half-explanation, I can only proffer
not so long ago old man blues
got the better of a very grumpy
Brer Chinua Achebe
the alleged
“father of African Literature"
calling into question ,
who the heck is the mother
got him ventilating about
Oh yes, the times have changed, but the song,
one happy independence anniversary pep talk after the other,
it happens every year one pep talks after the other,
let us thank Almighty God O
“just see how far we have come”,
forward-looking pep talks laden
with the obligatory state of the art hyperbolic rhetoric
the years roll by, the years roll on, but the song, the song
remains the same, ups and downs, this government goes in
that government goes out or is booted out, things do change
but so much remains the same
Yesterday, as I listened to Jagaban ,
I found myself mostly agreeing with him
occasionally talking back at him
(at some point I told him point blank,
I told him that he was poor at giving
concrete figures, about the glorious progress
and I couldn’t help thinking that Johnny Onyeukwu
will soon put it to him straight or respectfully
(respect for elders) diplomatically/ obliquely
take him to task for the missing figures,
the figures that he does not give
in his independence anniversary poetry
And Atiku of all people had the gumption
to criticize
Perhaps mollified by Pa Obasanjo listening to Rabbi Mizrachi
expatiating on “The one sin that Hashem would never agree to forgive”
On the up and upside I was still humming
"Your mama's working
Your mama's moaning
She's crying you know
She's trying you know
You better go now."
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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