Today is a colourful day around the world and has since represent the celebration of love. Valentine supersedes the love shared by couples, those in relationships, families and friends, it’s a day set apart for love. Thus, everyone and everything deserve to be loved. Even our Dear Nigeria.
To avoid sounding too scathing, Nigeria has been molested, ravished, maimed, tortured, threatened but it survived. Who needs love more than one who has gone through these many hardships? Definitely No one. But the main question is who will show Nigeria love? Who will surprise it with gifts of patriotism? Who will invite saxophonists to soothe Nigeria?…
But who should love Nigeria? Is it the unborn children whose waiting parents are doing all they can to woo and be with another country? Is it the toddlers of the poor parents who live far below a dollar per day? Is it the young child that was hit by a stray bullet in Lagos the other day? Is it the many casualties of the menace of Boko Haram? Is it the family of those who have been butchered by bandits? Is it the young guy whose youthful vigour has transmogrify into some sort of full pessimism for the country’s future? is it the old who have served the country in their prime but receive peanuts as pension? Or is it those that still visit pension offices everyday on wheelchairs to ‘process’ these pension ‘peanuts?
Whoever you feel should be Nigeria’s ‘val’ among those mentioned would never be on the same page with you. But Nigeria needs to be loved. The country was in comma during the civil war; it survived. Veteran poet, Late Christopher Okigbo’s description aptly explains the state of Nigeria. Nigeria has been ‘strong and stubborn’. The poet had said ‘Obduracy is the disease of elephants’. Nigeria is the elephant and in this case, its obduracy is a gain rather than pain that accompanies diseases. It needs to be showered love.
To borrow J.F. Kennedy’s quote, he said we shouldn’t ask what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. The only thing we need to do for our country is to love it. A kind of love that is not beclouded by religious or tribal sentiments. A love far above political affliction. An unending and undying love. A love that many would envy. One that surpasses the ‘love like a movie’.
I hear many say Nigeria has failed us but NO! We failed Nigeria. To start our love sojourn, we need to be more interested in her well-being; hold those at the top responsible – social media has made such quite easy. Love Nigeria – a kind of love that would be too engrossing, that we would be all over Nigeria, that we could come together and deconstruct the different lines that have long divided us. Definitely, we can not outright forget our differences but we could at least understand and respect them.
We should pay a Saxophonist to surprise Nigeria at its office. But where would that be? Definitely Not Aso Rock. It’s the street! Make a Nigerian in the street love Nigeria and let’s start from there!!!
