By Sonnie Ekwowusi
I am sure that, like this poor scribbler, you are being bombarded with New Year wishes and messages on your mobile phone. How is it said again? If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. If wishes were horses, Nigeria would have been the most politically and economically resilient country in the world by now. Our ingenuity in crafting sanctimonious New Year messages is unmatchable and unparalleled. For example, check out this beautiful New Year message which a bosom friend sent to me yesterday: “10 good wishes in this New Year 2024: joy unspeakable, love, affection, peace now and always, favor, promotion, good health, breakthrough, victory, anointing for excellence.
In principle, there is nothing wrong with the exchange of good New Year wishes and messages like the above. In fact, we should have an optimistic and cheerful attitude toward life. We must look at the bright side of things. No defeatist attitude to life. No surrendering to failure. We are not melancholies and sadists who always see the dark aspects of life. We are full of faith. We are full of hope. We are full of love. Therefore, it is proper and fitting that we wish ourselves all the goodies in 2024.
Having said this, it is also good to predicate our faith and hope on stark realities. We must not be naive. One does not reap where one has not sown. If we have sowed a whirlwind in the last eight years, why should we expect to reap a bounteous material harvest in 2024? If the APC government had failed to create jobs for our hapless young graduates in the last eight years (even though they are now telling lies and claiming the contrary), on what basis are you expecting better employment opportunities in 2024? If there had been unsteady electricity in 2023, why expect uninterrupted electricity supply in 2024? As I scribble this, there is a power failure in my area. And you are telling me that we are in a new year. What is new about 2024, if I may ask you?
If Nigeria was ruined in 2023 by monumental election rigging, a corruptible judiciary, and looting of the public treasury by the Presidency and National Assembly, why would anyone expect instant economic prosperity in 2024? If INEC chair Prof Yakubu Mamoud rigged the 2023 Presidency election in favor of the APC and is still being retained as the INEC chair, why should we expect to reap any democratic dividends in 2024 and beyond? If voters obtained their PVCs and voted in 2023, yet their votes did not count, why anticipate peace in Nigeria in 2024? I am asking you. Please answer my questions. If the standard of living condition of the average Nigerian deteriorated beyond belief in 2023, why expect a sudden improvement at the dawn of 2024? According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria is now acknowledged as the poverty capital of the world with 87 million “extremely poor people,” thus overtaking India in extreme poverty ranking. Nigeria has been ranked as the third most-terrorized country in the world. Nigeria has been ranked as the second-worst electricity supply in the world. The Nigeria Police have been ranked as the worst Police in the world. Nigeria has been ranked by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a country with the 3rd highest infant mortality rate in the world. Northern Nigeria has been ranked as the worst region in the world with the highest number of illiterates. And you are comfortably sitting down in your house, chorusing “Happy New Year.”
On July 25, 2018, the BBC reported that “Nigeria has the largest number of out-of-school children, totaling 13 million, in the world.” In the 2018 Global Rankings of the “Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index” of OXFAM and Development Finance International (DFI), Nigeria was ranked 157 out of 157 countries. In the same year, Nigeria overtook India as the country with the highest number of under-5 deaths. In the same year, Nigeria was ranked as one of the most dangerous places in the world to give birth and the 4th country with the worst maternal mortality rate globally. In the same year, Nigeria was ranked among the worst malaria-hit countries in the world. In the same year, Nigeria was ranked by the World Bank among the seven worst countries on the World Bank Human Capital Index. Meanwhile, in the 2018 Global Hunger Index (GHI), Nigeria ranks 103rd out of 119 qualifying countries. The latest World Bank Report on Nigeria says that more than 100 million Nigerians will be felled by extreme poverty in the next 10 years. Given the human rights violations in Nigeria in the last eight years, it is not unlikely that Nigeria will experience full-blown totalitarian democracy in 2024. The killings in Plateau State are most painful to me. You see, nothing damages a country’s reputation more than human rights violations, scuttling of the rule of law, and killing of innocent citizens. No country in which its narcissist leaders keep quiet in the face of the killings of innocent citizens, as we are now experiencing on the Plateau. This is why Nigeria under the APC government will never make progress. In the last eight years, foreign investors have steadily and unceasingly been fleeing Nigeria and going to invest in other African countries such as Ghana and now Rwanda. Can you imagine the erstwhile war-torn country Rwanda, now the pride of Africa?
Now , after reflecting on the foregoing, what should we expect in 2024? Should we anticipate economic prosperity? Unfortunately, Nigerians revel in high superstitious beliefs. Christianity may be flourishing in the land, but it is only a superficial Christianity that lacks depth. For instance, now that 2023 has come to an end, many Nigerians are already reveling in all sorts of superstitious beliefs about the goodness or badness of the New Year. There are many Christian worshippers who are now sleeping in churches, believing that new blessings would be showered on them inside the churches. To make matters worse, new paganism now thrives in Nigeria. Most Nigerian youngsters have gone back to worshipping the old abandoned idols. The old pagan oracles and shrines of our pagan ancestors may have disappeared in some places in Nigeria, but they have been replaced by the new paganism, which always harps on material prosperity, financial breakthroughs, and good health as evidence of success in life. This is why any small boy who manages to erect a signboard with the inscriptions: “Church of instant miracles, financial breakthroughs, fruits of the womb” is sure to attract dozens of gullible people, especially women who will start following him and calling him their “pastor” and all that.
Our miracle and prosperity mongers must not forget that happiness and sorrows are inseparable in this life. Nothing good here below lasts forever. Hardly has any pleasure started than it has ended. We are only wayfarers on earth. Our pathway as wayfarers on earth is strewn and intertwined with sadness and joy. No cross, no crown. As St. Josemaria Escriva vividly recaptures it, “On this earth, love and suffering are inseparable; in this life, we have to expect the Cross. Whoever does not expect the Cross is not a Christian. Whoever does not look for the Cross will encounter it anyway, and further will find that it brings him despair. If you look for the Cross, with Jesus on the Cross, you can be sure that at the hardest moments, if they come, you will be in the best company, happy, strong, and secure…”
If you ask me, I think the miracle we need in Nigeria urgently at the moment is the miracle of putting our human intelligence to work to improve the well-being of our fellow human beings. No New Year is intrinsically a good year. No New Year is intrinsically a bad year either. You have to work out your New Year to be what you want it to be. If you are a hard-working person, the New Year probably may be good for you. And if you are the lazy type, the New Year probably may be bad for you. We must stop deluding ourselves into believing that once we denounce Satan and all his works with the air of hubristic self-righteousness inside a church on the New Year eve, then all troubles and sufferings will vanish in 2024. It is not enough to renounce the evils plaguing our society at the dawn of 2024, as if that renouncing alone would negate their powers. We should try to work hard for the good of our families and the society. After all, God who created us has given us intelligence and expects us to put our intelligence to good use to improve the well-being of our fellow men and women. Therefore, God has no reason to work miracles to solve small human problems in Nigeria, which we can use our human intelligence to solve.
Therefore, as we cruise into yet another New Year, let us remind ourselves that no New Year comes with already-made bounties or a new lease on life. No New Year comes with already-made miracles. You have to work out your New Year. You have to resolve to do your ordinary work with a sense of responsibility. The Presidency should be more responsible. No wasteful expenditure in 2024. Ditto for the National Assembly. Ditto for the judiciary, that veritable third arm of government entrusted with the sacred duty of dispensation of justice. 2023 was a disastrous year for the judiciary in Nigeria. Our judiciary has been constituted into an object of derision by the very people who should labor to maintain its prestige. The level of official corruption and moral degeneracy in the Bar and the Bench was alarming in 2024. In Nigeria, the power of the judiciary has been whittled down by the ambitious tendency of some members of the executive to disobey the court. Nothing destroys the confidence of the public in the judiciary more than this kind of abuse. Our judges should adorn the breastplate of integrity, transparency, discipline, impartiality, and honor in the discharge of their sacred duty. Practicing lawyers must recognize that they are officers in the temple of justice and stop offering bribes to judges. Practicing lawyers must practice the ethics of the Bar. I am eagerly and earnestly looking forward to the redemption of the Nigerian judiciary in 2024. I am looking forward to seeing an incorruptible judiciary in 2024.
It was Lyman Bryson who once said that great citizens are built upon greatness when their leaders dare to let them use their minds, when the state helps them to know the competing choices open to them, preserving for them the essential democratic spirit which seeks the truths by its own efforts. However, the opposite of what Bryson said is happening in Nigeria at the moment. To begin with, many Nigerians have stopped thinking properly. Why? Because they can hardly sleep well at night owing to the suffocating heat caused by electricity failure. When you hit the road to ward off the frustration, a uniformed road merchant dashes out from nowhere and signals you to an abrupt stop. He may end up extorting money from you under one flimsy excuse or another. This is Nigeria for you.
Certainly, we cannot continue to live in this mess. This is not life. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am an optimist. I do not expect a big transformation of Nigeria overnight. We know that the problems are overwhelming. We also know that many of our political office holders are not so gifted to tackle the problems. But there is one thing all of us can do for ourselves: We can sing the redemption song. We should drown our melancholy with laugher for laughter is medicinal We should not wish anybody evil. We should love our fellow human beings. We should use our God-given intelligence to work out our salvation. We must remain focused on solving little problems that improve the lives of members of our respective families and the ordinary man in the street. This is the much-vaunted redemption.
Happy New Year, my friend.
