WHERE ARE THE PATRIOTS NOW!
A couple of days ago when I made an inquiry into what kind of post I should begin with first, my long time friend
was of the opinion that I needed to talk about patriotism and its presence or
lack in the context of my immediate society which is Nigeria.
For moments as I sat down to write the
first necessary post for this column, my mind kept a constant loop of his
demand. This is because his opinion crossed paths with a lot of issues that has
stricken my society in modern times, but the irony of it all is that for a long
time, and even right now as I write this post, my country has been in a state
of denial about its own constraints and its actual place in the context of its
vision for itself and its people. This denial is catalytic because it creates a
dire situation where the citizens are faced with an over evaluation of where
the country is supposed to be, while the leaders are faced with the reality of
where the nation is. These different visions of a nation’s state create a rift
because the government is not willing to explain its position to a populace it
has peddled into voting them. This in turn creates a charade that drives a
country deeper into its own symptomatic problems. This however is my opinion and
not an investigative inquest into the intricate puzzle that is Nigeria.
Patriotism in earnest refers to “national
pride, national feeling or an emotional attachment to a nation which one refers
to as his homeland.” A patriot in this case can be seen as “an individual who
feels a strong support for his/her country”.
The
above definition of terms is especially clear and precise until one decides to
include the context of the Nigerian society into it. As one relates this, we
discover a very dialectical society that creates a reaction of problems to the
issue of patriotism in Nigeria. This is because there are conflicts of identity
that have permeated through the rose coloured glasses of independence. Over the
course of the free years, the average Nigerian has had to face the severe
questions of several relatable and most times important ideologies that determine
his true loyalty and dedication to the Nigerian cause. These questions border
on the issue of ethnicity, regional division, religious affiliation, and most
inherently party affiliation.
Whether we seem to agree or not the above
listed ideologies do affect the meaning of a patriot in this modern Nigerian
society. We find ourselves inherently more concerned with the foothold of our
party in power that we neglect the cancerous effects of the porous leaderships
it offers, in such cases we vehemently oppose any criticisms that is brought
against it. In this sense we forget the true essence of a patriot whose sole
ambition lies in the progress of his country regardless of the politic
involved. In the same notion we drag religion to the fortress of politics and
this has always even in history proved to be a bloody mixture, religion is a
beautiful gift of absolution and should be enjoyed without being brought into
the constraints of power play that makes either one or the other factor feel
threatened. In this sense, my country has failed in its patriotic duty, this is
because religion has a foothold in its system it’s sometimes hard to fathom
whether our constitution is secular or
any other thing.
And at the base of all this small
missteps we find our ethnicity entrenched in us, we carry its flag so much we
forget that there is a flog of our nation to carry too. Maybe we gave up
because our mandate has been continuously soiled and raped by bigotry and
cultural chauvinism that the only rational result is to be chauvinistic
ourself.
But
while we face the smaller tunes of party affiliation, religion and ethnic
sects, our nation languishes in oblivion waiting for patriots who would do it
for the good of the land and not for their affiliates, comrades who are
objective to whatever society presents as our problem and not defined by strict
subjective ramblings; it is searching for men and women who love the nation
first and are prepared to look forward to the day when collectively, we stand
at the threshold of nationhood and sing our beautiful anthem, remembering all
through that we had worked together to get here, and we only ever did it
because we are patriots!
The
question is , WHERE ARE THE PATRIOTS NOW?
I
look forward to reading your comments towards a possible patriotic Nigeria!!!!!
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