[Life of Dr King]    [Nigeria Today]   [What hope for Nigeria ]   Nigeria Today Nigeria today has been independent for some 37 years at least, admittedly with very little to show for it. If we believe the saying that a fool at forty is a fool forever, then we don’t have much time. We have not had the misfortune of going through the tormenting devastation and dehumanisation of slavery as such, but what we have seen from the colonial times to date is non the less debilitating. Particularly in the last one decade or so when we had to toil under the burden of an army that is ostensibly there to protect us but whose behaviour is hardly distinguishable from an occupation army. So while other nations which gained their independence a few decades ago have been growing, our growth has been stunted and recently we have been shrinking. Certainly our freedom has been increasingly smothered with every military regime, similarly our economy weakened and our democratic space narrowed. It is looking like we have to begin a fresh struggle for independence this time not from the British imperial army but from a home grown occupation army that is not prepared to get off our backs and allow us the God-given freedom to shape our own destiny. In this struggle we may not fail to learn from the experience of Dr. Martin Luther King, especially when the issues he faced are in their essence relevant to our situation today. The quest for Freedom Freedom may not be a popular word in army barracks, but without it man loses an integral aspect of his humanity, one aspect that distinguishes man from animal. For God created man free, and made this freedom sacred. Even the Almighty, the creator Himself gave man the freedom to choose to believe in Him or not, to worship Him or not, in the Qur’an at least, the Most High made it very clear that there is no compulsion in matters of faith and worship. The quest for freedom has thus remained intrinsic to man from the dawn of history and is bound to remain so until the end of time. Without freedom what ever man gets will not have any meaning and once he has freedom his capabilities are enormous. In Nigeria today these enormous human potential has been stifled by the absence of freedom. Yes, we may be free to express ourselves, but the risks are so high that many prefer to keep quite, a substantial number of those who ventured have visited cells and some are still languishing there. Many have pointed to what Nigerian papers publish as a proof of freedom of expression. But the fact of the matter is that what is being published is not because of the "generosity" of the regime but in spite of it. How can someone take credit for what he had not really granted? Jobs, when they are available, are only for the loyalist and to maintain it one has to prove that loyalty, too often not by performance as such, but by serving as a conduit for siphoning public funds or massaging the ego of those who are really in charge or too often, both. How else can one explain the re-appointment of a minister whose dismal failure to perform is glaring for all to see, particularly when this failure has brought the nation to its knees, exacting unprecedented toll not only on the national economy but on human lives? Sometimes this loyalty is brought to a ridiculous level where staff carry on their chest the picture badge of those in power, like some school children in Castro’s Cuba or Mao’s China. We are certainly free to vote, yes, but the problem is that we have nothing to vote for. Many were not surprised by the unprecendented low turn-out at States House of Assembly elections. This turn-out is bound to get even lower as the emptiness of the Transition Programme unfolds. As Paulo Freire would say, "to affirm that men and women are persons and as person’s should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce." [4] The Quest for Equity No one would doubt that there are laws in Nigeria, even as, some of them are decrees ousting some established laws. But no one seems to care about the difference between law and justice. There are institutions that are supposed to see that these laws are put into effect but many of these institutions are incapacitated, some of them are clearly phantom institutions that were never meant to do what they were established to do. The NHRC appears to be one, not only because it is toothless but also, and more fundamentally, because the very posture of the government does not lend itself to matters of rights, human or otherwise. The government never seem to see the need to explain its arbitrariness or exhibit any qualms when the rule of law is violated. Unlike King’s United State, in Nigeria the mechanism to address injustice or violation of rights does not simply exist. Can we really talk about equity and rights in a country where the perpetuation of people in power is the only business, for which not only human rights but even human lives are readily expendable? Every new law tends to suffocate what little freedom that had managed to survive and tends to infringe on our democratic rights, literally forcing things down our throats. "The end of law", the great English Political philosopher John Locke stated, "is, not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom." The Quest for Responsible leadership What exactly do we mean by responsible leadership? Without any polemics, this simply is a leadership which will treat and protect it subjects, in Sultan Muhammad Bello’s words "as much as it would protect its own house hold". To be sure it is not a tall order as Muhammad Bello argued in an advice he gave to one of his governors. Quoting another authority Muhammad Bello argued that "the happiest ruler is he whose subjects are happy with him, and the most unfortunate ruler is he whose subjects are miserable under him. So beware of injustice. For your agents will surely imitate your examples. Then if you commit injustice you will be like an animal in a green pasture, which eats so much that it becomes fat. Its fatness becomes the cause of its destruction, as it is for its fat that it would be slaughtered and eaten." [5] So addressing the welfare of citizens, is the bottom-line for a responsible leadership. In Nigeria today we are always reminded how generous and benevolent the Government has been in taking care of its citizens. But I am afraid a lot of it is questionable generosity, for the resources from which this generosity flows are public resources and it is therefore the rights of the public, the question of favour does not arise. Or as Paulo Freire would say, "Pedagogy which begins with the egoistic interest of the oppressors (an egoism cloaked in the false generosity of paternalism) [or materialism in our case] and makes of the oppressed the objects of its humanitarianism, itself maintains and embodies oppression. It is an instrument of dehumanisation." [6] In point of fact this phantom generosity is meant to hide the gluttony of those in power, who have converted public property to personal property and dishing out crumbs to their clientele. One finds a lot of parallel with the Latin American situation which Freire ably describes: "The oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanises others and themselves. They cannot see that, in the egoistic pursuit of having as a possessing class, they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have. For them, having more, is an inalienable right, a right they acquired through their own "effort", with their "courage to take risks". If others do not have more, it is because they are incompetent and lazy, and worst of all is their unjustifiable ingratitude towards the "generous gestures" of the dominant class. Precisely because they are "ungrateful" and "envious", the oppressed are regarded as potential enemies who must be watched." [7] This deep feeling of insecurity among gluttonous rulers unfortunately breeds a quest to control their citizens the more. This obsession soon grows in to a pleasure paving the way for sadism. As the prominent psychologist, Erich Fromm observed: "The pleasure in complete domination over another person (or other inanimate creature) is the very essence of sadistic drive. Another way of formulating the same thought is to say that the aim of sadism is to transform a man into a thing, something animate into something inanimate, since by complete and absolute control the living loses one essential quality of life - freedom." [8]