We have heroes in all walks of life -- men and women with unique achievement in sports, medicine, and music. We have the unsung heroes in our classrooms, marketplaces and on the boulevard of life. We have men and women who inspired us as children and as teenagers to strive for the stars; men and women who impacted our daily lives and without whom our lives and joy would have been limited, our dreams stunted and our imagination blurred. Without these everyday heroes our lives would have been unfulfilled. And then there are the heroes who are ever present in our lives: our parents who are the faces of God.
In addition, we have our national heroes: men and women who are noted for their great courage and strength. Here, I speak of men and women of extraordinary political achievements. I speak of men and women who risked their freedom and their lives in the services of their country. I speak of men and women who answered the call of their people and their land and in so doing sacrificed their lives and desires and comfort so their people may live, so their land may proper and be free from the chains of humiliation, servitude and oppression. Every nation has such men and women.
Nigeria, it seems to me, is the only country that does not revere the extraordinary men and women who lived their lives in the service of the country. In contemporary times at least, Nigerians behave as though no man or woman ever gave his or her life or sacrificed their freedom and liberty so future generations can have a better life. This repulsive attitude can be seen in the manner Nigerians speak of their nationalists. More so on the Internet, some Nigerian commentators and net-chatters have a penchant for displaying their ingratitude and contempt for the country’s heroes. Denigrating some of our heroes has become a pastime for some of these charlatans.
Listed below are some of the few reasons why Nigeria as a country can no longer have a HERO.
1. Tribalism: This has eaten deep into the core of our nationhood. No person emerging as a hero in any of the regions or tribes of the nation does so without being at daggers drawn with other regions or tribal entities. (Take the Awolowo, Sardauna, Ojukwu stories).
2. No common enemy: Nigeria whole has no common enemy. No problem or situation or even people tend to pose a common threat to the peoples and regions of the country. Whatever is going on in the East seems to be a problem of and for the East alone. What ever the war is in the north is regarded a northern problem. It goes on and on all over the country.
3. Careless fight against corruption: Corruption seems to be the only seemingly common enemy of Nigeria. However, the fight against corruption has been on a low ebb. There has been no serious collective struggle against it. As a matter of fact, everyone seems to be in the race to getting a share of the "national cake" by any means necessary or possible. And until corruption is dealt with there wouldn't likely be any tilt towards dealing with the other attendant banes bedeviling our nation.
Nigeria is a country, more or less, united only on paper. The peoples are far apart from each other, our pursuits are at variance. The under lining theories of our being a nation are at variance. We have no common purpose. There simply isn't any national ideology.
Until we desire to deal with these things, and indeed begin to do so, we would wait in vain for a Nigerian Hero.
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