Given the intensity of the ire directed towards Kemi Badenoch from the Nigerian government, it is clear that the Nigerian-born leader of Britain’s Conservative Party has rattled a country with her scorching criticisms. The problem for those trying to furiously remind her of her roots is that her words withering as they are whisper harshly to many Nigerians who have to reckon with their country’s daily reality.
As has become characteristic of life in Nigeria, it has been another chaotic year. As President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has struggled to get a good handle of the issues of the country, Nigerians have heard the ruthless grunt of life in the country.
Costs of living have soared taking with them the hopes and expectations of many families. Insecurity has spun out of control, as has corruption and other indicators of bad governance. In response, Nigerians have had muted protests while the government has sought to give off the impression that it is on top of the situation until it isn’t.
When Nigeria finally gained independence from British colonialists in 1960,its independence heroes had the highest hopes for the county. Those hopes were cruelly extinguished by the military coups of 1966 and the Nigerian civil war that raged from 1967 to 1970.
As a country, Nigeria is in the peculiarly uncomfortable spot of being fed enough ropes by citizens to hang itself. Generations of Nigerians have lived and died waiting for their country to work, and nothing has come out of it. These are the Nigerians who have given their country a very long rope.
Today, while frustration is boiling over, many of those who can are leaving the country, desperate to find their feet on more solid ground elsewhere. Many of those who have stayed back are causing the country to rumble with their grumbles. Will it rupture finally? Will it hang by the long rope fed for years by Nigerians who have patiently counted sheep while waiting for their country to work, having invested everything into its progress?
There should be no shame in being from any country. Just like skin, one should feel extremely comfortable in any country where they come from. One should be that comfortable in their skin and in their country. This is significant. Anything else will spell a kind of displacement.
When Nigerians travel to other countries,, they should be free and proud to identify as Nigerians without fear of stereotypes. This is vitally important. Anything else will amount to a kind of displacement- the kind that sentences citizens to perpetual feelings of loss and shame.
It is not for lack of face that Nigeria’s image remains in tatters on the international scene. Neither is the country’s immiseration for lack of resources—human or material. Rather, it is for lack of purposeful leadership that the country is where it is, languishing in the wilderness of unrealized potentials and unfulfilled promises.
Nigeria will not be served by exporting hunger or anger, neither will fighting imaginary enemies do the country any good.
A country that has become a very unhappy place to live in needs to sort out itself before anything else. That is what is required above all else; that is the only guarantee of true freedom.
Ike Willie-Nwobu
