To Take Back A Country -By Kene Obiezu

Nigeria is neither a zoo nor a concentration camp; neither is the country a jungle. Describing the country as such no matter the provocation is ill-informed, ill-advised and ill-time.
What Nigeria is not is a zoo, a concentration camp or a jungle. It is a country that has fallen on hard times, one abused by successive governments, which is now crying out for citizens to reclaim it.

The government has been as stubborn as a mule over the situation in Rivers State where it declared a state of emergency last month with a sole administrator sworn in and carrying on as if he has any legal powers when the whole arrangement smirks of illegality and lawlessness.

As a result of the situation, which is not isolated, the Take Back Nigeria Movement has announced a nationwide protest for April 7.

It takes a combined optimism of resistance, resilience and positive rebellion to see through the debris that sweeps Nigeria today like a cyclone. There is an epidemic of hopelessness that engulfs everyday Nigerians when they think about the institutions of government. Key institutions like the judiciary, the police, the legislature, long considered bulwarks against creeping autocracy from the executive, appear to have caved in, becoming very active and complicit in the conspiracy against Nigerians.

Every day in Nigeria evinces fresh, forceful anger. Suddenly, people who were primary school pupils in the days when innocuous songs belted out with childish glee and abandon on assembly grounds promised them leadership of a coruscating future have become today’s young people. Broke, broken and battered on the increasingly treacherous terrain that Nigeria has become, all their hackles are out, and they are spoiling for war.

The many promises made to them have failed to materialize; the dreams the country encouraged them to harbour many years ago have become their nightmare, and everywhere they look in the country, it is darkness they see.

They fill the streets and spill their anger. The streets of social media are not spared either.

When many Nigerians including financially stable ones suddenly pack up and leave the country never to return, they are more than just ‘exiles’ driven over their borders by dark clouds of uncertainty. Like broken cisterns, they carry hopes fast dimming that a country they have loved but lost can work again. Ever.
These Nigerians often leave with stories of a home that suddenly became too hostile and hopes that became too heavy.

Because there is no place like home, wherever they go too, they remember home even if they would rather renounce the citizenship of the country than return.

The loudest peals of the warning bells that it is getting too late to recover Nigeria may yet come from the fact that many of those who once believed in Nigeria have seen their hopes eviscerated on the altar of harsh reality vanished.
Facing the unvarnished truth that they may never see much of a difference in their lifetime, they are packing their belongings and broken hearts and making the voyage to other countries. The allure for them lies not only in the lush green pastures but in the promise of putting their broken dreams for a better country behind them and, crucially, for their children, tender, or unborn.

How can Nigerians take back their country from the forces of dysfunction, disrepair, and disunity? What biases and prejudices do Nigerians need to shed to rally round their beleaguered country? How do Nigerians begin the decidedly difficult journey of redeeming their country from the forces of chaos and corruption?

It begins from resolve. As one, Nigerians must resolve around a common goal. They must maintain a laser focus on the goal. It means binning distractions and ignoring all those who would want to distract and disband them using ethnic and religious designs.
Taking back the country means sacrifice. Sacrifice will be required to bear a broken and bruised country over the border of redemption.

Nigerians should coalesce together and congeal their thoughts and actions into breaking out of the endless cycles of retrogression they are seemingly fated to spin in forever.

A protest may flicker out as many others have done before it, but consistency over a long period will be key for a country that needs effective solutions fast.

Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com