...Why is it not possible for us to go for win-win situations for all to benefit, even when opportunities exist for such situations?
Why are we refusing to talk about our painful and unpleasant experiences, what are our Historians doing? There is an Igbo adage for child grooming that says, oku taa nwata mbu, ya hun oku ozo, ya kpoo oku ufu.
I could go on and on with such questions, but I am persuaded to stop because I have come to the conclusion that Peter Tosh must have had Nigerians in mind when he sang, ‘…everyone wants to go to heaven, but none of them wants to die…’.
We have been being challenged by conformity, not cowardice. Nigerians are no cowards, but conformity is making us look and act like cowards.
We want good things, but are very unwilling to make sacrifices in order to bring the good things we want about. We want ‘fast food’, but even fast food takes some time and committed cooks, to cook.
We have chosen to be blind to, or to simply ignore some recent events in some of the nations we want to be like.
I will pick events from four of such countries, namely The United States of America, the United Kingdom, Poland, and South Africa.
Maybe I do not understand politics, but my understanding is that the election between former US President George Bush Jnr. and former Vice President Al Gore was not one of the elections Americans are very proud of, nor would want to remember. But there it was; it happened!
I can still remember former Vice President Al Gore’s speech to accept former President George Bush Jnr. as winner that election, in the interest of their constitution, democracy and their country. He did not call for America to break up because he did not win, even when it was possible that some Americans would have wanted him to continue to challenge the result of the election. That is called personal sacrifice for the general good.
More recently, we watched history colourfully painted on American canvass, as President Barack Obama, an African - American got elected, and eventually sworn-in.
I am not an American, but I was deeply concerned for him, through the elections, to his declaration as the President-elect, to his inauguration.
Why was I concerned? Well, for some people, it was unthinkable, unacceptable and then I felt maybe he would never get to be sworn-in.
We saw his opponents, notably among them Senator John McCain, stand up in his defense even before hostile Obama opposition.
And so, the hitherto unthinkable happened, an African-American calling the shots from The White House! It does not matter whether it is for only one term or the whole eight years, ‘yes they did’!
Senator McCain did not play the race card, as we do often play the tribe or religion card here, just to win elections at all cost!
He believes in something bigger than party, religious or racial differences (as he went back to the Senate to continue with the business of lawmaking), The United States of America!
Maybe we should change our name to USN; we did change our national anthem and currency at some points!
Much more recently, we watched the hitherto unthinkable, happen in the United Kingdom, the Conservatives forming a government with the Liberal Democrats, and they are still there, (well, as at the time of writing this book).
Never mind me; I do really believe they are going to work together for quite a while. Even if they do not, they have shown that nothing should be impossible in the interest of the common good.
Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown got the message, took his personal belongings out of 10 Downing Street, cleared his table as Labour Party leader, and headed home.
He did not work against Cameron and Clegg getting to form a government, nor did he insist on leading the Labour Party even when other party members and their party constitution say no, nor go ahead and form his own party, as would have happened here.
And all of these took just days, not weeks, months or even years with several trips to the courts, not to talk of the huge amount of money that would have been wasted along with some precious and innocent lives, limbs and sanity, had it been here.
Did all Britons like what happened? Of course not! But they all went along with the arrangement.
Why, because their focus is on something far bigger than party, ideological or individual differences, The United Kingdom!
It does look like there is something about that word ‘United’, that we should really consider incorporating into our name.
I got interested in Poland during the communist era because of one man.
I am not a politician, nor am I a historian, but I studied history, and love to observe, and follow events as they unfold around me.
Right from my secondary school days, through the ‘World News’ columns of the News Papers that my father bought, I admired the courage, determination organisational qualities of Lech Walesa the father of ‘Solidarity’ and 1983 Noble Peace Laureate, as he struggled to pool the labour and civil society movements together against an oppressive system of governance in Poland.
He eventually became a president in post-communist Poland, but he worked for it. It did not happen in one day neither was it at no personal costs to him. I might be wrong, but I believe that today, Poland has benefitted from his many trips to jail, facilitated by an oppressive system of governance.
He succeeded in uniting the labour and civil society movements, to become a potent political force in Poland peacefully, as Walesa himself commented years later, ‘…"Why did we do all of it?" ...."To launch a new epoch, one without divisions. Without one shot, our generation was able to do it...’
And he even got commended by one of his former arch-enemies and former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who said, ‘We all live in a free Poland, and there would be no free Poland without you. ... Twenty-five years ago, I did not stand on the same side together with you, but today I have no doubts that it was your vision of Poland which led us in the right direction."...
----BIAFRA:LEST WE FORGET!
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