State of our Nation-Louise Nwebonyi

LET'S FACE FACT!
I've discovered that one of the greatest problem we have in Nigeria is that we have choosen to stray away and dodge the remote realities on ground.

Amidst the past and present hardship and pains to which the masses have been/are subjected, permit me to voice out what I'm sure many would pretentiously contest.

We have all chosen to be hypocritical about our stand on the workability/otherwise of the experiment called Nigeria.

People who are deeply rooted in the stream of resource flow are afraid of change in status quo. Others are afraid of being tagged/associated with ethnic bigotry. While others are afraid of war.

But the fact remains that the "unity-in-diversity" mantra is so artificial and it is to each of us (Yoruba, Hausa & Igbo) no more than a way of rationalizing our precarious entanglement.

There are two options to a man when he misses his way, especially if he has strayed so far. He could choose to take the pain and find his way back to the right path or decide to continue in the wrong path and head adventurously to an uncertain destination.

While I can I agree that everything is not wrong about Nigeria, I do not need a prophet to tell me that something is fundamentally wrong with Nigeria's nationhood.

It is not impossible for Nigeria to succeed. But the fact remains that each of us (Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo) can succeed more efficiently and effectively standing alone.

I am an economist and from my "at-the-margin" thinking skills and cost-benefit consciousness, I have analyzed the perceived benefits so far of the Nigerian-nation-building and have seen that they are not worth the costs.

The costs are the millions of our innocent  brothers whose blood have been/still being shed relentlessly all over the country, either through Bookharam, Niger Delta militancy, IPOB/MASSOB activities, OPC/area boys activities, interethnic/religious clashes, fulani butcherings, etc.

The cost is the massive corruption, hunger and starvation, scarification of merit and excellence at the alter of ethnicity/federal character principle, brain drain, massive unemployment, to mention just a few.

We appear to be the biblical Jonah in each other's boat. I think we need to throw each other out so that the boat can get calm and everyone get to his destiny.

LET'S ACCEPT THIS FACT, HOWEVER TOUGH IT SOUNDS! "EME NGWA-NGWA, EMEGHARA ODACHI"