Something innocuous, yet momentous in import, occurred last week. It should interest and instruct us as we evolve into a nation.
A survey on iconic speeches, rendered by statesmen and women, was carried out last week in Britain. Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr.’s “I have a Dream” came tops with forty five(45%) as the most inspirational and defining. It was followed by Winston Churchill’s “We shall fight on the beaches” speech which came second with forty two(42%).
Of course, it is not the first time Dr. King Jnr.’s speech, “I have a Dream”, will win accolades or praise for its diction, elegance and eloquent delivery. In a 1999 poll of scholars, it was ranked the best American speech of the 20th century. It has also been described as having a “strong claim to be the greatest in the English language of all time”.
The biographer of Abraham Lincoln and George H. Bush(the father), Jon Meacham, has remarked of the speech:”With a single phrase, King joined Jefferson and Lincoln in the ranks of men who’ve shaped modern America”. The recent survey is thus a validation of what the pundits had observed or pronounced upon.
Though the recent survey did not offer us glimpses as to what informed the choice of Dr. King Jnr.’s speech, its high point provides us with an inkling. Permit me to reproduce it: “I still have a dream, a dream deeply rooted in the American dream – that one day this nation will rise up and live up to its creed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. I have a dream…”
Dr. King Jnr.’s speech was delivered on August 28, 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the “March on Washington”. This was at the height of the civil rights movement, a movement which Dr. King Jnr. was an avatar and later became matyred on 4th April 1968. And a movement which fought against all forms of segregation.
The speech resonates with humanity, not for its lucidness and spellbinding delivery, but because its universal message is at the heart of what ails us – injustice and inequity. Rather than forge or foster a just, equitable and inclusive world, which is at peace with itself, people are treated shabbily and driven, rough-shod, to the margins by the powers that be.
I stand to be corrected, but I wager that were the same speech to be subjected to evaluation by Nigerians today, it will be their favorite as well. This is because it speaks, eloquently and poignantly, to our concerns and failings.
Nigeria has failed to rise to its responsibility and station as the undisputed leader in Africa. It has spectacularly failed to deliver good governance and to set worthy and edifying examples. The upshot of these failings is the departure, in droves of its professionals and academics, to better climes, an exodus referred to in Nigerian parlance as the japa syndrome.
Nigeria continues to keep the rear in all departments/walks of life. It ranks with such backwaters as Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia. Either we have the largest number of poor people in the world or we have the largest number of out-of-school children.
Nigeria ranks as one of the most corrupt, and most recently, one of the most nepotistic. Under the watch of former President Muhammadu Buhari, most strategic positions were held by his relatives or persons proximate to them.
Nigeria continues to be a byword on account of heightened insecurity. Not less than four of its geopolitical zones have been besieged by kidnappers, bandits, insurgents and genocidal terrorists. An epidemic of kidnappings has recently taken hold of the Federal Capital Territory(FCT), Abuja.
Nigeria fails to realize its true potential and standing in the comity of nations as a result of its shambolic and self-defeating political system. We run a governance system that is not merit-based. It rewards sloth and indolence. Worse, its beneficiaries, who carry on with a sense of entitlement, are often quick to flaunt their ill-gotten and undeserved privileges on their betters. As a consequence, the country is broken and our warped governance system breeds unimaginable frustration and despair.
Nigeria is a reproach. Rather than transform its beautiful diversity into a potent melting pot, and rather than seize upon the talents engendered by this diversity, it prefers to turn it into fault-lines. In turn, these faultlines are exploited, negatively, to visit deaths, mayhem and untold trauma on its innocent and unsuspecting citizens.
The country remains the butt of the cruelest jokes. It has morphed into a vast killing field: If insurgents are not taking swathes of the country, terrorists are carrying out wholesale and genocidal killings. In both cases, they often go scot-free! It is as if the precious lives of their victims, prematurely cut down by the terrorists, count for nothing. Recall that in April last year, not less than two hundred people were killed in co-ordinated and unprovoked attacks in villages of the Mangu Local Government of Plateau State. Recall also that on last Christmas Eve another set of more than two hundred people were killed in villages of Barkin Ladi and Bokkos Local Government Areas in premeditated attacks. And just last week, in spite of a curfew imposed on Mangu Local Government, on account of a contrived altercation, not less than thirty women and children, who had taken refuge in a community leader’s house, were mowed down.
Due to the fact that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes are neither apprehended nor sanctioned, they are emboldened to carry out more atrocities. Apart from leaving deaths and misery in their wake, these abductions, genocidal killings and insurgencies have birthed the mushrooming of Internally Displaced Persons(IDP) Camps across the country. According to a recent report, not less than 2.9 million Nigerians are holed up in these IDP Camps. Able-bodied men and women pine away in these Camps, sometimes in challenging sanitary conditions. Teenage girls in these Camps are also being taken advantage of by the better-heeled.
Worse, Nigerians who used to till the land and to produce food in abundance for local consumption and export, have scampered from their farms on account of heightened insecurity. The upshot is that starvation and malnutrition loom large in the North East, North West and North Central geopolitical zones and by extension, the entire country.
Certainly, Dr. King Jnr.’s “I have a Dream” speech will not only find relevance and embrace here, millions will vote for it, were a survey to be conducted, because it addresses their sundry concerns. It strongly addresses their concerns of injustice, of iniquity, of slovenliness, of marginalization, of wanton corruption, of barefaced theft of public funds, and of bad governance.
“We have”, a musician once famously lamented, “lost the way to humanity./ Yet in God we trust”.
