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KonkNaija Media | May 2, 2016

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Article: The Path To Walk – Series I to VI [New Year Series by Prof. Chris Nwaokobia Jnr.]

Article: The Path To Walk –  Series I to VI [New Year Series by Prof. Chris Nwaokobia Jnr.]

| On 04, Jan 2014

Prof. Chris Nwaokobia Jnr [New  Year Day Change Ride 2014 Lagos]

Prof. Chris Nwaokobia Jnr [New Year Day Change Ride 2014 Lagos]

THE PATH TO WALK I.

Having survived the anomie that 2013 epitomized; having gracefully and graciously survived the deafening bombs and the benumbing politics that defined 2013; having stomached the unbelievable tales of brash looting and stealing that underscored governmental spending and appropriations in 2013; and having feasted on the war of letters as well as the banality that the dichotomies of tribe, of religion, of space and of section/zone/region threw up in 2013, we must now more than ever set for ourselves and indeed the nation a template for the NEW.

We must realize that any nation that seeks peace and progress must care for the vulnerable, and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune. We must realize that change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones our nation has been waiting for and we are the change that we seek. We must realize that freedom, equality, comfort and happiness never comes on a platter but through bloody hard-work, intense dialogue/negotiations, protests and marches, sit-ins and sit-tights, and through alternative policy articulation cum alternative choice.

We must soar beyond the banal indignities of wistful prayers, wistful prophecies, wistful thinking and faith, and rise up to the ennobling praxis of hard-work to demand fair, responsible, responsive and a people oriented leadership.

As disciples of Jesus The Christ, as followers of Prophet Mohammed PBUH, and as followers of the various creeds that be, we MUST realize that the cardinals of true religion is the love of God and the duty of care and love for fellow man. Therefore as true Children of God we must emulate the activism of the founders of our various faiths by setting out to resist, repudiate and reject ill-rule and self-centred politics such and the many processes I shall lay bare in the sequel to this piece is the PATH TO WALK.

May God Bless Nigeria.

THE PATH TO WALK II.

I have pondered deeply on how best we can make the redemption of Nigeria a reality in this year of our centenary. I believe that 100years after the amalgamation of the disparate protectorates and territories under British rule that the blame for not having forged a progressive and united nation must no longer be seen as the handiwork of our colonial masters more so when we are almost 54years old an independent country.

We must learn to think Nigeria. The British couldn’t have taught us Patriotism, and that our founding fathers failed to does not excuse our inability to find strength in our variegated beliefs and avowal. We have fought a war of unity, we have seen ethnic and religious conflagrations, there is terror in the land particularly in the North-East but we have largely remained one, therefore the challenge now more than anytime in our history is to excavate the salient glues that holds us together and make such our national manifesto.

The Ibos have remained largely in the North despite the viciousness of marauding extremists, our Northern brothers are yet largely mai-ruwas (water vendors) and mai-guards (security men) in the South and we are not scared of poisoned waters or the fact that they may put us in harms way, so there is something that truly points the way of oneness.

Together we must begin to build bridges of dialogue, of proactive engagement, and of deep intellectual intercourse such that must weave a true sense of love and patriotism in the land. We must realize that terror, bad governance and violence in Nigeria is the product of the adulterous union between greed and villainy in governance, an adulterous coitus whose offspring is the harrowing corruption that has despoiled everything and structure that must function well for progress.

One of the paths to walk is to be proactive, patriotic and passionate about Nigeria. YES WE CAN.

THE PATH TO WALK III.

Countrymen and women, I bring you strong words of re-invigorating hope, not wistful optimism but one rooted in flawless empirical facts that having survived a centenary (100years) despite many flaws; multiple booby-traps; many cataclysm of infernal propensity; hooplas and brouhahas; a civil war; many internecine fundamentalism and terror; and a spate of looting by successive regimes that has left our people poorer, yet against all odds we have remained one.

In this year of our centenary the path to walk therefore is that which leads to the isles of peace and progress. We must deepen the pillars of dialogue and faith in our union because the God who has led us this far is interested in this sleeping giant rising to become the hope of the black-man and the leader of the new world.

We must realize that the path to growth is not in our parties and factions, it is not in our creeds or clans, not in tribalism or ethnicity, not in terror, religious fundamentalism or sectionalism, neither can we find it in APC or PDP, nor do we have its compass in hate, dislike or diatribes.

Compatriots the path to walk is the path of togetherness. Together we the people MUST rise to the challenge, we must compel politicians to issues oriented politics. We must ask them to cease to threaten our union rather they must lead responsibly, shun corruption, shun ethnicity, shun impunity and advance policies that must reposition our union such that progress will become a given and in the next centenary bequeath to posterity a nation replete with wealth and endless opportunities.

We MUST commit ourselves to a new ideology, a new thinking and a new drive. We must hewer out of this pervasive mountain of fear, terror and hopelessness, a stone of hope. Hope in the fact that the God who brought our boisterous planet out of primal vapour will raise men whose politics is for the common good.

THE PATH TO WALK IV.

Compatriots it is an empirical fact that the time is always right to do right, therefore no matter how far we may have gone on the wrong road, history will always applaud a great turn-around to do right.

We must realize that terror, threat and violence are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. We must realize that although governments owe the people huge responsibilities that only together can we make leadership at all levels responsible and responsive to the needs of the people.

We must realize that at all times it must be COUNTRY FIRST as there can be no progress in an atmosphere of rancour and conflict. Yes I agree that there can be no true peace without justice, but more importantly he that must seek justice must first eschew injustice.

I find great counsel in these words of Martin Luther King, Jr “Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal”, to the Haramist in the North-East I bring an olive branch, to the marauding ethnic jingoist I bring a Dove, to the extremist and the name calling opposition I bring love, and to the people I bring hope, hope that in this year of our centenary if we can begin a critical overhaul of our morality and water the plants of patriotism we can yet build a great and prosperous Nigeria.

May we walk the path of love, of oneness and of peace as we face the challenge of birthing a NEW NIGERIA. May we jettison conflict and crisis and place before all the table of dialogue and frank exchanges.

May we show undying love for the Green-White-Green and repudiate religious and sectional prejudices. May we in all spare a thought for those who died to keep us one. And may we preserve and improve on the labours of our founding fathers. So Mote It Be. Amen.

God Bless Nigeria.

THE PATH TO WALK V.

Countrymen and women, since I repudiated every shade of violent struggle after my 2002/2003 detention under the Obj regime for the NNPC fire of Dec. 23, 2002 not a few have bothered to understand the anatomy of that action or ask dispassionate questions.

Thankfully the defunct Daily Times a govt paper did in 2004 run as its cover story a 2page interview of mine captioned ‘NNPC Fire, an act of Patriotism – Nwaokobia’. Where I stated for historicity that I did not instruct nor order arson, but took responsibility of same to avert further arson as those who said they had touched the building that fateful night claiming to be members of my defunct group the Youth Democratic Movement (YDM) threatened to burn down more govt properties to ignite a revolution if I failed to own up, since they wanted to attract national and international attention to the brazen corruption of that time, I did.

It was sacrifice for COUNTRY, with a less than 3months old son and a nursing mother (my wife) I took responsibility for that action and was arrested on Christmas Day Dec. 25, 2002 that was what became the NNPC Fire story and Chris Nwaokobia Jnr, for want of any contradictory evidence the State has since discontinued my prosecution.

This brief defines the centre-point of my politics and activism, for the good of my Country and the protection of National properties I gave up my peace and convenience. I have repeatedly avowed my persuasion as a pacifist and a student of the passive resistance schools of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jnr.

Compatriots, the lessons of this brief is that peaceful engagement and proactive dialogue is undeniably the path to walk as violence and terror will do us no good. The love for nation should and must dwarf all allegiance to creed and clan. Patriotism will bring out the best in us and excavate the path to the national prosperity.

God Bless Nigeria.

THE PATH TO WALK VI.

“My crime was to have taught the young to think” – Patrick Wilmot.

I read those words as a teenager when a certain Ahmadu Bello University Lecturer of foreign descent Patrick Wilmot was being expelled from Nigeria by the IBB regime in the 1990s. Truth, knowledge and information liberates little wonder prosperity comes as a given to nations who invest greatly and wisely on education.

In my effort at setting a template on the path we must walk to make 2014 a better testament in our nation’s voyage, I have repeatedly talked about patriotism being key and germane, and for a new paradigm in our socio-political engagement ditto the inviolability of dialogue, frank exchanges and proactive thinking as the elixir that must heal the many wounds of the sleeping giant that Nigeria is.

To the Ruling Party I say that you must begin a massive effort at building the faith of Nigerians in Nigeria. From the National Flag, our Anthem and the Pledge must come a new resurgence of hope and faith in Nigeria, and key to achieving this is bloody hard-work, good governance and a comprehensive re-jigging of the National Orientation Agency.

To the Opposition I say that you have done a very poor job of your role, you have engaged government more in name calling and fault finding rather than presenting an alternative thrust, manifesto, agenda, policy and or program. Sadly we have become more sensational than logical. What alternative are we presenting?

The path to walk therefore is one of deep dispassionate thinking predicated chiefly on Love for nation, love for fellow humans and in the service of TRUTH.

We must realize that violence and terror is a looser, and that in the very end what counts is service to humanity, service to country and service to God; and we must rededicate our lives to that salient tripod, and shun greed, egocentrism and looting, such is the path to walk.

God Bless Nigeria

- Prof Chris Nwaokobia (Jnr) Is a Professorial Chair in Political Science from Greenhills University, Denmark & a Presidential Candidate at the 2011 polls.
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