Hon. Josef Omorotionmwan - Let’s Celebrate!
In the beginning, there were serious doubts as to whether the various ethnic nationalities that make up Nigeria can co-exist peaceably and in perfect harmony. This is where Nigeria has been able to prove bookmakers wrong. We have shown that there is strength in diversity.
We have demonstrated beyond measure that though tribes and tongues may differ substantially, it is also possible to stand substantially in brotherhood. That’s what we have done this past 50 years. It calls for serious celebrations.
Actually, in good times, humans celebrate anything and everything. Celebrations are for the living. Celebrations define peace and wellness. It takes wellness to be able to say you are not well for, when you are critically unwell; when you are seriously ill, you will not even know.
That we have a country to call our own is in itself a huge success. Some have gone under. Go to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH); go to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH); go to the National Orthopedic Hospital, Igbobi or to the numerous hospitals across this vast land; and see people whose legs and hands have been hanging up for ages, unknown to them that they are still alive. Such cannot celebrate. Some nations of this world exist on such fringes. Thank God, we are not in that category. We must celebrate.
In all conscience, can anyone tell me why we should not celebrate, when we are not in war-torn Lebanon or in flood-devastated Pakistan or in the Russian Republic, with its consuming fires that have no end in sight; and when we have no hurricanes and tsunamis to name after some beautiful women and brave men of the past? Are we not blessed? In fact, failure to celebrate the golden jubilee of our independence would amount to gross ingratitude to God.
Yes, we fought a bitter civil war for 30 months. The truth is that we survived that war and came out of it stronger and more united than ever before. Some nations of this world fought and ended in unrecognizable pieces. Why shouldn’t we thank God for preserving us? This certainly calls for celebrations.
There they go again. We can hear the critics proclaiming that celebrating Nigeria at 50 is celebrating a wasted generation; a generation that was fully enmeshed in corruption and other associated ills. We must quickly remind these critics that the strength of this argument is also its weakness.
There is no nation in this world where you do not have some corrupt elements. It is a matter of degree. Again, there are some countries in this world that do not have anything on which they can be corrupt. We must learn to be grateful to God, and really celebrate Him continually, for the natural endowment he deposited in our hands.
After all, is it not out of the abundance of our natural endowment that corruption is made? In popular parlance, it is where a man works that he gets accident. Nations that do not have the type of natural resources that God has blessed us with also have nothing on which to be corrupt. Such nations still celebrate in poverty. Why shouldn’t we? Our colonial masters left us with a legacy, which we appear to be ignoring.
They did their best to teach us how to celebrate. On Empire Day, which later became Commonwealth Day, they fed pupils fat on rice, which was a rare commodity at that time, consumed ordinarily only once a year in most homes.
Some celebrate success, some celebrate failure; some celebrate victory, some celebrate defeat; some celebrate peace, yet others celebrate war. Nigeria has seen it all, these past 50 years and that’s how it should be. There is no gainsaying the fact that Nigeria therefore qualifies for multiple celebrations, on a continuing basis, in thanksgiving to God for His mercies.
After all, does the Holy Book not enjoin us to give thanks to God in every situation we find ourselves? In the particular case of Nigeria and its people, we see a bright future and we see hope; all in spite of the social, economic and political equations now around us. It is a passing phase. Fellow Nigerians, we have come a long way. We shall draw our inspiration for today’s lesson from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882): “… Still achieving, still pursuing; learn to labour and to wait”. Happy celebrations!
Ven. Prof. Ben Egede - There’s Nothing To Celebrate
There is nothing, practically nothing; to show that Nigeria, at 50, has come of age. From the look of things, it is most unlikely that the country has grown wisdom teeth. This is because it is not too clear if it has gone through the rigour and rite of weaning and survived the test.
Instead, in a show of shame, goaded on by some daring effrontery, all that has come to confront our sensibilities and consciousness these odd 50 years past has been some disturbing syndrome of an infantile inclination - the refusal by a toddler to let go of it mother’s breast or allow its nipples some moment of peace! The fifty years old toddler has been involved in a seemingly endless quest for breast milk and this type of irreverent indulgence has continued to pose as a source of migraine and endless worry for the hapless parents. Wao!
It has become amusing or ridiculous, if you like, these days, especially in the couple of months past, to see some of our fellow countrymen and women, particularly those of them at the positions of leadership getting increasingly exhilarated by the thought of Nigeria’s 50th Independence anniversary, which is a stone’s throw from now and the need to package it in a grand style with every imaginable sense of pomp and pageantry. In such a projection, these people have, as it were, failed to take into consideration the economic implications of that kind of jamboree.
In addition to the whooping sum of money already set aside for the celebration by our leaders, it is also on record that, recently, a trip was organized in London, ostensibly with a view to showcasing the nation to the outside world and its purported achievements in economic, social and political spheres.
Let us not deceive ourselves. What is there to celebrate, if one may ask? Fifty years of looting from our national treasury by organized criminals masquerading as leaders of their people? Fifty years of armed robbery, fiscal mismanagement, unemployment, hypocrisy, injustice, unmitigated corruption, indiscipline in our social lives, ethnic bigotry, political irredentism, killing fields in the name of bad roads, misgovernance, religious intolerance, feigned piousness, even from the altar of God and a near morbid inclination by a privileged few towards squandermania and its other sister variables, all of them fellow travelers in a decadent culture? It is enough that we are alive and, maybe, healthy and we thank God for that.
That’s all. If there’s need for celebration at all, it must take the form of a sober reflection on the part of every Nigerian. We need to take a look at our journey so far, as a nation and take stock of when and how the rain has begun to beat us. With this kind of mindset we go straight to God in repentance, asking for forgiveness and pity from Him. That, in context, is the only way out. |
