It was from Dr.
Samuel Koranteng-Pipim that I first heard of 'offering a monkey solution'. The impressive Prof. Pius Adesanmi had
doled out a whopping 2,500 cowries on
my behalf, to attend as his guest, in a seminar organised in Lagos by Bamidele
Ademola-Olateju's Circle of Hands. It
was here that the keynote speaker, Dr. Pipim, a Ghanaian sage based in the U.S.
retold Retired Archbishop Kwasi Sarpong's story of offering a monkey solution.
In the story, a
group of monkeys sought to help some fishes they saw struggling in a raging
flood. Jumping from the trees, and with much difficulty, they caught the fishes
one by one and placed them on dry land. Soon, motionless fishes piled on the
shore. Turning to each other, the monkeys said: “See, the tired fishes are
sleeping and resting. But for us, they’d all have drowned! When they wake up,
they’d be very grateful that we’ve given them salvation.”
Probably, the
well-intentioned but misguided monkeys failed to realise that the fishes, who could
not survive for long on dry land, have all died. Strangely enough, in saving
the fishes, the monkeys caused the fishes to perish. One can only but reiterate
Dr. Pipim's caveat that Nigeria should beware of well-intentioned but misguided
solutions to her national challenges.
Pray, do we
really need a Ghanaian thinker, or a graduate from Cambridge or Harvard, to remind
us of our penchant for offering risky solutions to problems? The signs are
everywhere in Nigeria - ominous, foreboding signs. Many sectors or areas of our
national life that have been so beset.
A ready case
study is the education sector. Successive Nigeria leaders looked the other way as
the public education system tragically collapsed. Instead of finding germane
and long-lasting solutions, our leaders sold school-operating licences to the
highest bidder, and commercialised education. What do we have today? Shylock
individuals, churches and mosques running the show in the education sector,
from crèche to the tertiary level. And the aftermath? Outrageous school fees,
miracle-examination-success-centres, and ultimately, graduates who could barely
write and pronounce their names. Nigerians are now shipped to countries such as Sudan and Ukraine in search of quality education. Tell, can you confidently
send your child to any community or public school in Nigeria today?
It is saddening
that our line of horrible leaders have failed, refused and neglected to
adequately harness our enormous human, natural and capital resources through
building lasting infrastructures and institutions. Instead of growing our
people and infrastructure, we choose the risky and inglorious option of brazenly
turning our country to a begging nation in the guise of attracting foreign investments,
foreign aids or foreign partnerships. Nigeria is now a dumping ground for substandard
European and Asian goods, obsolete technology, and semi-skilled expatriates.
Dr. Pipim likens
Nigeria's beggary mentality to the 'west chewing our food for us and spitting
into our mouth to swallow'. And I add that, like goats and camels, we unabashedly
regurgitate the food, and chew the cods. Yes. Goats, camels, cod-chewers - that's
what the touted biggest economy in Africa has become! As an aside, one wonders
how the over-bloated statistics the Minister of Finance and Coordinating
Minister of the Economy (what a title!), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala readily brandishes
and hysterically sermonizes on puts food on the table of impoverished ordinary
Nigerians toiling under the scorching oriental sun of Upper Iweka, or on the
slums of Makoko, where one out of four three indigent teenage girl is, so they
say, ‘carrying’ an unwanted pregnancy.
One again wonders whether this aberration had been brought to the attention of
Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, formerly of the PDP hegemony, but now of the
#BringBackOurGirls franchise.
It is no secret
that every Nigerian yearns for a peaceful democratic country, where social
justice, religious tolerance, equality and mutual respect reign supreme. Regrettably,
the ruling PDP and the opposition APC have offered us just the opposite. In
their desperate bid to retain and/or takeover power for their selfish ends, they
have literally sworn an oath with the devil to ensure that they continue to
suppress and hold the rest of us down, like the mythical succubus and incubus.
With their acerbic utterances, body language and iniquitous posture on national
issues, they have almost certainly succeeded in dividing the country along
ethnic and religious fault lines.
Pray, could
someone tell Lai Mohammed, Doyin Okupe and Olisah Metu that their highly-divisive
verbal warfare over almost every nothing, including a trivial issue as who
ought to take the credit for the containment of Ebola virus disease in Nigeria
is most puerile, infantile, and childish.
The Federal
Government and our gallant soldiers are striving to contain insurgency in the
North Eastern part of the country. As our military might is being unleashed on
these evil lots, we should also be mindful of the after effects of the war on residents
of the terror-ravaged areas. When this war against these agents of darkness is
won, as certainly would be the case, measures should be put in place to rebuild
the affected areas, and mop up arms that might have gotten into wrong hands.
And, institutions must be established to rehabilitate and resettle those
displaced from their towns and homes, so that we don’t throw away the baby with
the bath water. In the interim, the government should put urgent measures in
place to cater for the displaced, maimed or wounded, especially those from Mubi
in Adamawa Sate where terrorists have reportedly captured about five local
government areas.
I align myself with
Dr. Pipim’s analysis that with a population of over 170 million, Nigeria should
be one of the most powerful countries in the world, just like China. Like the
USA, Nigeria ought to be a very secure nation, and play a leading role in dislodging
terrorism and guaranteeing security in Africa. Like Israel, China and Russia,
Nigeria ought to be ahead of the rest of Africa in educational development.
Like India and Germany, Nigeria should be ahead in provision of quality
healthcare. But alas! Instead of finding lasting solutions and putting
institutions in place to address our myriad of problems, we are impaired by greed,
ethnicity, tribalism and religion.
In our bid to
usher in another newly elected democratic government come 2015, the PDP and the
APC must be careful not to offer us the well-intentioned but misguided monkey solution of over-heating the
polity, thereby destroying the very essence and fabric of the country they
desperately scheme to swoop on its commonwealth. Change is desirable, but
before we change Nigeria, we all have to change ourselves, and our mindset. And,
to borrow the words of Dr. Pipim, 'zeal without knowledge is risky and
destructive. In the face of danger, ignorance in action is as dangerous as
stupidity or inaction'.
Let the house
rat broadcast this to the bush rodents: If ‘big-brother’
Nigeria suffers herself to be engulfed in crises and conflicts, the rest of West
Africa would no doubt be destabilized, doomed. Imagine the unlikeable scenario of
over 170 million Nigerians becoming refugees; all our 'tiny' West African neighbours would definitely not be able contain
us. This is unimaginably scary, bloodcurdling. Hence, those who drum for war -
the haramites, the APC, the PDP and Nigerians must all think! In their well-intentioned
but misguided quest to give us political, religious and economic salvation, they
should be mindful not to destroy the rest of us, just as the ignorant monkeys
did the fishes.
-
MAURICE
CHUKWU, Legal Practitioner, Lagos. mauricechukwu@gmail.com
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