It has been said that stolen and abused opportunities flourish in countries with weak administrative and governance institutions where people largely rely on sub-optimal indices such as family ties, ethnic affiliation, kinship linkage, friendship, race, gender and religious links in the creation, allocation and distribution of values. Nigeria today ranks top as words like inclusiveness, competence and meritocracy have vanished.

This axiom calls to mind the recent appointment of a Nigerian as Minister of Justice in a province of far away Canada.

Kaycee Madu, the Nigerian-born lawyer andnewly appointed Minister of Justice and Solicitor-General of Alberta, Canada, Kaycee Madu, says he looks forward to the day Nigeria will become a place where hard work and merit are rewarded.

Madu recently became the first African to be appointed minister of justice in the Canadian province after his previous role as minister for municipal affairs.

His appointment was described as one that would bring the needed perspective and change in the justice system.

In a tweet on Sunday evening, Madu thanked Nigerians who celebrated his appointment.

“Thank you for all the support and prayers coming from Nigeria and Nigerians in the diaspora,” he said.

“I look forward to the day when Nigeria and Africa become places where hard work and merit are rewarded. Chukwu Gozie!”

Tweet

Kaycee Madu@KayceeMaduYEGThank you for all the support and prayers coming from Nigeria and Nigerians in the Diaspora. I look forward to the day when Nigeria and Africa become places where hard work and merit are rewarded. Chukwu Gozie! #ableg#cdnpoli9:13 PM · Aug 30, 2020

Cheta Nwanze wrote an interesting piece in The Guardian Newspaper of 27th June, 2018. Here are excerpts:

“… Tribalism is basic human nature. People will always identify with that with which they are familiar.

There is nothing we can do about that. What we can do something about, is the fallout of how we handle this critical form of self-identification.

A decent example is this – our erstwhile colonial master, the United Kingdom, is essentially a country made up of four great tribes – the English, the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh.

I lived there for a bit, and it was during my time there that I learned that many English look down on the Welsh as “sheep shaggers”.

In fact, the ‘constituent nations’ of the UK have spilt more blood settling their own internal squabbles than we have spilt in Nigeria.

But that did not prevent them from building what was arguably the greatest empire the world has ever seen.

We have been constantly inundated with the gospel that we are an inherently flawed country because of our diversity; that tribalism is the root cause of our national woes; that we are, as one commentator put it, “a cacophony of tribal singers.”

In a country with an estimated 170 million people and up to 500 different ethnic groups, it is near impossible for us to achieve consensus on anything of political, economic or social significance. The reality could not be further from this fantasy.

Nigerians need to understand that we will always have differences, and these differences will on occasion lead to friction and open conflict.

The important lesson to keep close to heart is to form the ability to put these differences aside and build a nation.

What more than a century of amalgamation and nearly sixty years of Independence has shown is that we are so far failing at it.”