The Dangers of Being Patrotic

You know I was thinking that by the time I come online I must have seen Fifty Seven (57) reasons why Nigeria has been a bad country for the citizens.

However I must say that irrespective of what we might have think that is our problem is, we still have people who love this country with all their heart. The Solidarity and show of affection has been awesome from every area in the country today, though it was a Sunday.

I attended a church service yesterday and the youth team decided to remind us once again through a theatre presentation what we have all gone through to become one and an independent country.

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It actually started by the British coming to buy the country with a few dollars and each representative of the three main tribe in the land(Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa) worked together to sell the country to the colonial masters.

Almost immediately in the next scene, came the people of Nigeria being tormented in their land by the same British they sold the country to. The Three representatives became pained and agreed among one another that this is indeed not what was bargained for. So in synergy, they fought those tormentors, chased them out and liberated the country from the rule of the colonist. Both the captives and the liberators in joy came together to form the famous coat of Arm. The symbol of Peace Unity and strength.

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The whole exercise brought into my heart strings of feelings and sense of responsibility for this country. Over time I have come to realise that we have a problem not as a country but as individuals in the country. We are of the opinion that the country is in a state of moral deprivation of Rights and justice, but the truth remains that we are those who to determine whether this is to be so.

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I had an experience with a very good friend; Ifeanyi. He was the President of his student's Association in his Faculty. Ifeanyi called me into his office on day and complained that he was having serious problems with his Staff Adviser. He needed legal advice and right steps to go about it. I asked him what was the root of the disharmony. He explained that when he ran the election and came into office, he had actually made a promise to God and himself to be upright and serve the student with all integrity. He doesn't want to comprise such promise by doing what other past president has done before he came to office.

This was the obvious bone of contention between his faculty adviser and my friend. The Faculty Adviser had seen that he(my friend) had chosen not to be amenable to him but rather handle the affairs of the students with all transparency.

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He finished narrating the events to me and the next thing I did was to burst into laughter. I was actually surprised that he would risk having problem with his staff adviser on the final year of his stay in the school.

Frankly, I had even thought that it will benefit both the Staff adviser and my friend if they all agreed together in what seemed to be the embezzlement of student funds. But I didn't tell him that. What I told him though, was that since the matter is between a staff and him a student, it was actually outside the jurisdiction of the students' Court.

However, I added, if he really wished to battle this with his staff adviser, he had to make sure that he was in good rapport with the Dean of the faculty. For a bird does not dance alone in forest, something must be beating the drums of music it is dancing to.

We all laughed and I left him back to my own campus. I didn't get to see Ifeanyi again until months later after his final exams.

He told me that he was called by a lecturer, only to be told that he would not graduate that year with his peers. The reason was that he had failed a course in his second semester, and he happened to be the only course he didn't pass and the only person who failed it out of 150 students.

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Upon probing further, I discovered that he never got to bury the hatchet with his Staff Adviser, who happened to be good friends with the lecturer that failed him.

Ifeanyi had to tarry one more year in school before he rewrote that course and was able to graduate. He left a bitter man, regretting the fact that he chose to be upright.

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A typical Nigerian will tell you that the very problem with the country is the government and bad leadership. Which is not far fetched from the truth. We always want to find an easy blame to the problem we face without asking ourselves how we have contributed to it.

When was the last time we decided to go into a business deal with someone without the thought of cheating him to it and making most gain?

When was the last time we were walking on the streets in at our locale and after finish eating we properly disposed of the waste we had in our possession. After all it is not our work, people are paid to clear the streets and make them clean. In the end we complain of bad drainage system when we have all contributed to the spoils of the drainage system.

When was the last time we took upon ourselves a budget without the underlined motive or self enrichment?

The truth is one can't actually take all the blame. The orientation we all have is that since this trend has been the way, we have to follow it and take our own share when it comes to our turn.

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The dangers of being patriotic is when we decided to set things right only to discover that even our own friends will turn against us. Others have been toeing this path, they will say, why can't we do it since it is our turn.

The dangers of being patriotic has a tendency of having us lynched for the beliefs and hope for a better tomorrow.

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In a season of How to get Away with murder, a particular episode saw situation where Connor Walsh's Father was accused of corruption in his judicial practice.

In his explanation, it was a one time thing which he did and never have done it again. However, because of the shame and public dishonor it brought to his name, he was moved to resign as a judge and committed suicide.

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Can we beat our chest and say that we have gotten to the point of understanding that betrayal of the people's trust is a abhorrence to humanity itself?

And we feel we have the moral standing to say that the country is bad and corrupt, where we have been given the opportunity to make it better in our everyday lives and we did worse.

It has been over flogged that the change to a better world and country we seek begin with us. Now this statement is nothing but a background noise to our consciousness.

There is an Igbo proverbs that says: That which belongs to others belongs to them, Our own is ours and we should treat it well.

I am a firm believer of the unity in our diversity. We should come as one and treat it well.

We are growing older, but can we say we have grown better in our administrative strength and national loyalty? Better in fairness, equality and equity?

Benjamin Netanyahu in his remark on the book 'Start-up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, said; Two perspective writers recently wrote a book called Start up Nation.

We are the start up nation.

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And we could indeed start up a nation if we changed our attitude in relation to the affairs of the country by supporting the positive change when the likes of Ifeanyi has chosen to be the messiah to our land of transparency and honesty. That way, we solve the problem that lies in the dangers of being patriotic.

Happy Independence Nigeria!

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THANKS FOR THE READ. And thanks to @ogochukwu for an awesome sunday experience.

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Image source: Pixabay