Have we brought this upon ourselves? As a Nigerian priest resident in Rome, it is always a nightmare confronting the barrage of existential questions concerning my beloved fatherland. Ever since I left the shores of Nigeria and boarded that first flight that brought me over to Europe, I am always bombarded with one question that has today become a millstone— ma padre perche sempre Nigeria? (But Father, why always Nigeria?) The deluge of this question has been such that I have decided to publicly monologize my agony.
Perhaps, my pain represents that of many other Nigerians. I need to remark for my would-be critics that my intention here is neither to pontificate in the sanctuary of self-righteous holier-than-thou nor to despise every Nigerian with the same tar. After all, as a Nigerian, I have always followed the natural patriotic instinct in defending her by castigating my questioners as traducers and bigots.
But, a succession of events in these past two weeks has twitched my emotions to cast aside for once that patriotic toga and assume the better side of my humanity which transcends natural instinct to join with my interrogators in asking, but why? As Socrates said, an unexamined life is not worth living. Therefore, time has come for us to do some soul searching. Why is it that we have always been more in the news for all the wrong reasons? Perhaps, we may be tempted to delude ourselves with the evanescent comfort that our notoriety rather than being real form part of the western conspiracy and neo-colonial journalism. The truth is that the world space has been saturated with news about us. The conspiracy theorists among us can no longer justifiably prop up their lame-duck “blame-the-west mentality?
As the success story of our military against the blood-sucking Boko Haram brings us reprieve from the international spotlight on one side, many citizens of our beloved nation on the other side are busy registering new ones. In an interval of two weeks, despite being one nation in about 196 others, our country has been featured in so many stories that have competed with each other for more space in the hall of infamy. From the continent of Europe, where more than 800 immigrants that drowned in the Mediterranean Sea last two weeks included many Nigerians, we moved to Asia where 4 out of 8 drug peddlers that were killed in Indonesia were also Nigerians. While these stories are trying to berth as usual in the shores of our national consciousness that have been tranquilized by the recurring pattern of their cycles, there is again a report in the New York Times of May 3rd about the international Prostitution ring in Palermo northern Italy where so many Nigerians are involved.
Out of the 370 women of those rescued and are being rehabilitated at the Caserta safe house, Nigerians form the greater part.
The hard fact that these daily occurrences pose to us is, why is it always Nigeria? Nigeria is presently estimated to be about 175 million yet; we have others countries like China and India whose current populations are about 1.47 and 1.28 billion respectively. And there are so many others that are not as large as Nigeria but with sizeable populations. Their citizens may not all be angels in international crime rate but none competes with Nigeria. One may not be wrong if he or she is to say that Nigeria is the capo of all. The story is always the same from Europe to America and to Asia.
A quick search for an answer to this inexplicable puzzle may not provide any meaningful result since all the ones proffered defy intellectual categorization. For example, an answer to the question of the influx of thousands of illegal immigrants from Nigeria into Europe across the Mediterranean may be rationalized as the Boko Haram carnage but a simple field assessment makes that answer less credible under the scrutiny of serious logical probe. One reason is that the situation has been there before the Boko Haram and more importantly; almost none or only a few of these immigrants actually come from Boko Haram’sinternally displaced people. Perhaps, one may turn to poverty as the reason which has been the pastime of some western journalists who sometimes relish the ghoulish details of African misery.
But again, the answer may not be completely correct since Nigeria is not the worst off in the poverty index of the world. There are many other poorer nations around, yet their citizens do not perambulate the major streets of Europe and Asia doing nothing as we do. So the question still stubbornly persists and begs for an answer.
Though I may not proffer an all-inclusive answer to the question, one direction that offers a flicker is our life style. As a nation, we are enslaved to the culture of materialism and flamboyancy. This explains the anomaly of the get-rich-quick-syndrome which has tainted every institution in Nigeria. The natural instinct to success which for us starts from wealth acquisition is premised on the calculus of easy money. Painstaking and long-term hard work is a taboo among many that, merely mentioning them, classifies one today in the company of vieux jeu. That is why corruption is the highest employment of labor in Nigeria. The rot in our moral system is to such that many self-appointed pastors who partake in this unholy alliance of the get-rich-quick syndrome have tried to lure God to sanction their blasphemy.
God has been turned into a miracle-wonder-money-minting Being in the hallowed chambers of our religious worshipping houses. In fact, ours is a nation where wealth has usurped the power of the Almighty. Forget the never-ending crusades that dot the major Highways of our beloved nation from Benin to Lagos, from Onitsha to Enugu and other parts of Nigeria. The list is endless.
My dear Nigerians, can we pause for one moment and ask ourselves the fundamental question; what is the meaning of life? Is it defined by my having or by my being? Is wealth better than a good name or is a good name better than wealth? Is the Machiavellian principle of the ends justifying the means all that there is to life? Perhaps, sparing a thought in this direction may save us the post factum regret of that famous Nigerian film Living in Bondage where Paulodid not explain that well to Andy.
Rev. Fr. Gerald Azike, wrote from Rome.