Robert Greene advices power-seekers to preach change, but avoid changing things because people don’t like to change.1 In the ‘Game of Thrones’, Theon Greyjoy refused to be rescued from captivity after he got used to Ramsey Bolton’s captivity. This is a manifestation of Stockholm syndrome, which is an emotional disorder in which captives develop love for their captives instead of hatred. Some captives eventually convince themselves that captivity is their real world, and would protest external attempts to free them from captivity. The type of deference some Nigerians show to foreigners, even current exploiters, forces observers to ask whether Nigerians are ready for change.
After the Obama’s change mantra, several public office aspirants use the mantra to seek power. Now, many Nigerians call for different kinds of change: change from old generation to new generation of leaders; change, as restructuring from unitary system to any other system of government; change from old ways to new ways of patriotism, religiosity, honesty, diligence and other beautiful ideals. However, there is not much insight about the meaning and type of change Nigeria needs in order to obtain progress. There is thus, a need to understand Nigeria’s facticity and potentiality to determine whether they are ready for change.
Facticity are unchangeable and historical facts about beings – human, animals, places or things.2 In humans, they include facts about place of birth, gender, age, race, parents and other undeniable facts about a person. Potentiality are possible outcomes about the future of beings – humans, animals, places or things.3 In humans they include future developments, professions, positions, achievements and all possibilities about human beings. Like other beings and societies, Nigerians have both glorious and pitiable facticity and potentiality, depending on how it is managed.
Colonialists formed Nigeria by brutally yoking hundreds of independent ethnic groups and kingdoms under a militarized government.4 Nigeria has experienced a civil war and continues to experience ethno-religious cum social clashes and crises. “These wars diminished in number after the turn of the millennium, but their chief cause – the lack of common nationhood – remains. Africa’s nation states were formed by foreigners, lines drawn by Europeans on maps of places they had often never been to. They carved out territories, cut up kingdoms and societies of which they had little idea… They [Nigerians and Africans] lack a common conception of nationhood.”5 Hence, the people held in Nigeria have not been able to distinguish themselves to collaborate in discovering and using their resources for producing what they need.
Presently, the Nigerian facticity can be classified in three sets: social, intellectual and physical Social facticity: before colonial invasion, the different ethnic communities in the present day, have been living independently. They had their different forms of governance and economic activities. Yet the colonial merger under a militarized government pitched these communities against one another in a perpetual struggle for control of policy and resources. Effects of the forced unification includes:
- Destructive form of capitalist individualism: with the destruction of ethnic communal life in a haphazard unification, each individual now struggles to survive alone even at the expense of his community or whole country.
- Consumerism: the emphasis on social responsibility and contribution was replaced by consumerism, making Nigerians to struggle to acquire and flaunt foreign goods as evidence of good life.1
- Conformism and crisis of identity: the disorganized and inefficient governing structure forces Nigerians to admire and conform to the trends and values other societies. Some Nigerians may demand a Nigerian recolonization, doubting the black’s capacity.
- Rebranding traditional superstition as the modern religion: in the absence of means to solving their problems, many people resort to prayers and sacrifices.
- Irresponsibility and blaming every other person for misfortunes and mistakes.
“Nigerians have never agreed – or been given the chance to agree – what Nigeria is.”2
- INTELLECTUAL FACTICITY: before colonial invasion, Nigerian ethnic communities produced and transferred knowledge orally, but were not advanced in science nor technology. Yet, they were ready to learn modern and suitable ways of doing things from other cultures. However, after the colonial invasion, a new form of education was introduced that does not apply to our local situation. “The educational system still trains people for a life style that is unavailable and unaffordable to most Nigerians… alienates the Nigerian from his environment… In contrast to our pre-colonial education, which was tied to our ways of life.”3
- Today, the average Nigerian graduate does not understand his history, peoples or the process of managing resources within his community. He moves around hoping to be employed in some multinational company or foreign aid organization.
- It seems that current politicians do not understand the government system imposed on them, but are afraid to hand over for fear of the unknown.
- PHYSICAL FACTICITY: there is a high level of uneducated population in Nigeria; secondly, the colonially-made government institutions serve as
- tools for social containment. Thirdly, there are large deposits of untouched mineral resources, which are militarily guarded for foreign companies.123
Despite the hopelessness presented by these facticity, NIGERIA HAS GREAT POTENTIALITY:
- Social potentiality: despite the interpersonal, tribal and religious conflicts, Nigerians are still good people with great hope for a better society. There are latent virtues in the different ethnic communities that can be resurrected for a better Nigeria. For, they still retain the communal worldviews to address destructive individualism and unproductive consumerism ravaging Nigeria since colonial experience.
“Africa is given a reputation: poverty, disease, war. But when outsiders do go there they are often surprised by Africa’s welcome, entranced rather than frightened. Visitors are welcomed and cared for in Africa. If you go you will find most Africans friendly, gentle and infinitely polite. You will frequently be humbled by African generosity. Africans have in abundance what we call social skills. These are not skills that are formally taught or learned. There is no click-on have-a-nice-day smile in Africa. Africans meet, greet and talk, look you in the eye and empathize, hold hands and embrace, share and accept from others without twitchy self-consciousness. All these things are as natural as music in Africa. – Westerners arriving in Africa for the first time are always struck by its beauty and size -even the sky seems higher. And they often find themselves suddenly cracked open. They lose inhibitions, feel more alive, more themselves, and they begin to understand why, until then, they have only half lived. In Africa the essentials of existence light, earth, water, food, birth, family, love, sickness, death – are more immediate, more intense. Visitors suddenly realize what life is for…” Humanity, that is the prize Africa offers the rest of the world.4
- Mental potentiality: it is no more news that Nigerians are among the most educated and enterprising (black) people with a new hope for Africa and the world. Africans wait on the Nigerian miracle, for only “a successful Nigeria could transform the continent in the twenty-first century… In business, law, science, art, literature, music, sport, Nigeria produces phenomenally talented individuals as if its superheated society throws up brighter, hotter human beings than anywhere else.”5With harmonious organization, Nigerian brains from around the world can converge to create a paradise from a desert.
- Physical potentialities: Nigeria has great human resources at her disposal who can be trained to fit into different sectors of development. Nigeria is a home of priced mineral resources that can be locally harnessed for good employment, infrastructure and standard of living. “Nigeria is one country that western countries, dependent on oil, cannot afford to bully.”6
Desired change in Nigeria is not the acquisition of the best amenities produced by other countries, but the actualization of Nigerian potentials.
Nigerians have always been ready for change
Despite series of political frustrations from different regimes, Nigerians are still hopeful and ready for change. In Nigeria, “even in the worst of times you do not hear the tones of doom and despair that characterize some western media reports… Africa always has hope.”1 Nigeria always has hope, and Nigerians have always been ready for change. They only need the emergence of a true set of leaders to bring out the core values in Nigerians for a good Nigeria.2
Once they are convinced about the sincerity and competence of a leader, Nigerians will demonstrate that they are ready to change.
Ready to change from fighting to collaborative productivity.
Ready to change from economic dependence to sufficiency.