Happy introspective 60th Independence anniversary

Tony Marinho

COVID-19 records deaths approaching 1,003,000, infections 34,000,000, 59,000 confirmed cases and 1,200 deaths in Nigeria.

To lift your spirits at Nigeria @ 60, note that Nigerians still manage to keep the reputation of the country afloat internationally. There are many hard-working individuals everywhere. Three Nigerians stand out today, named in the 2020 list of 100 Time magazine’s Most Influential People. Dr Tunji Funsho should ring a bell. He is a retired cardiology physician along with two other Nigerians – the well-known Harvard graduate award-winning writer and teacher Ms Tomi Adeyemi, proudly female and 27 years old and Mr Tony Elumelu of Tony Elumelu Foundation- driving entrepreneurial empowerment across Africa.

I met Dr Tunji Funsho in Lagos in 1974/5 when we did House Job in Lagos State among the big four hospitals Massey Street Children’s, Lagos General, Island Maternity and Igbobi Orthopaedic. Late Dr Taju Adenrele made up our trio. From housemanship we went to different places for NYSC in 1975/6 but remained in touch. Dr Tunji Funsho has been a member of Rotary International for 35 years where he massively impacted the Polio Plus programme which stopped 75,000 infections annually with associated lifetimes of misery, monetary medical costs. He became a main driver and public face having his practice and family in Kano for many years where his stellar professional and charitable reputation gained the trust of violent vaccine sceptics. In that dangerous environment, about 12 field vaccinators were brutally executed in the ‘line of humanitarian duty’. They will miss this celebration and [email protected] and we must never forget them and must care for their children. I give this information because it is important for the younger generation to learn as much as possible through biographies of the ‘great and the good’ role models and trace them to a pre-famous time to confirm the hard work involved.

Congratulations to Dr Tunji Funsho and his family especially Aisha who ‘donated’ him to Rotary led Polio Plus battle. Congratulations also to Ms Tomi Adeyemi and Mr Tony Elumelu.

‘Fellow Nigerians’! Repeat it x 60. Happy anniversary with 60 Gbosas [exclamations]. Do the ‘National Pride Test‘. Does standing in front of your national flag and singing or hearing your national anthem or taking the pledge or oath bring you to adoring attention, ignite a burning desire, heart fluttering, a strength to your breast and a lump to your throat?  Are the words ‘Fellow Nigerians’ from your heart? We have been hoodwinked by those two words, wrongly interpreted to be the arrival call of a real saviour with a real agenda, be he [never ‘she’] military or political or a dangerously oscillating mutating hybrid – milito-political or politico-military? Yet another failed saviour. Each one did the Nigeria Leadership Examination- ‘NLE’. Who passed?

Congratulations to all those who fought for independence and suffered humiliation, exploitation and ‘western religion education and health and railways under colonial rule. Congratulations to the tens of millions of hard workers, in government and the private sector who have kept Nigeria going these 60 years, often with slave wages, without wages for months and certainly without pensions for years sometimes till death- what a sacrifice! Let us commiserate with the families of those lying prematurely in their graves from all sides of all the political election wars, the 1967-1970 civil war and all the undeclared wars we have fought and are still fighting. We commiserate with those dying as we speak and those who in schools, hospitals, potholed roads and as widows suffered the indignities of being deprived of their rightful educational, medical and infrastructural care and part of the Nigerian national cake and inheritance by the corruption of Fellow Nigerians in positions with responsibility over those matters to help build Nigeria into an SDG compliant nation.

It is easy to optimistically say, ‘This too will pass’ of Nigeria’s troubles. But Nigeria’s troubles are not transient but have been made intransigent unlike Covid. They will not pass until the day when Nigerians individually and collectively decide enough is enough and take the Nigerian National Anthem, Oath and Pledge seriously.

But will they? An institution is a building. Oaths and pledges are broken and bad corrupt policies and practices are made by individuals in NASS, the Presidency, the judiciary and administrative functionaries throughout governance and the private sector. As individuals we join forces against racism abroad but face racism here called tribalism caused by individuals. Only individuals can stop bad policies, agendas and directions. For 60 years we Nigerians have struggled for the development rights of electricity, water, pothole-free roads, useful railways, the East-West Road, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the second Nigeria Bridge, etc all forever sad dreams of a utopian Nigeria.

Each individual chooses to lead the people under their guidance to success or disaster.

Uppermost worries today are individual and ethnic security! Insecurity truncates growth and contentment. Nigeria’s terrorism is perpetrated by militias manifest by ability to murderously ambush convoys, even governor’s and colonel’s convoys and reduce farms, towns and LGAs to rubble.

Will terrorism pass? No, not by itself. No one is safe. Terrorism must be confronted in a superior firepower warlike manner. Terrorism has created over five million IDPs in disgraceful camps or migrating for jobs and safety. A famine is predicted on lands laid waste by cows, herdsmen and terrorists, kidnapping and killing-insecurity. Nigeria has lost some 50-100,000 innocent souls. No IDP will be happy celebrating [email protected]!