Transcript

Are we yet a Nation? | Bolaji Okusaga | TEDxIkeja

I was born in Italy after the Nigerian civil war and I grew up knowing a nation that private martial music above you know organizing people to achieve it cause so the only time when we actually did you know notice a change is when you hear the sound of martial music that will go this way Fela Nigerians and at the end of it all we will come back with our stories of disappointments and then we listen to another round of martial music but another set of so-called revolutionaries saying that it can make things better and this went on and on and on and on but we did not see the change we desired now let's look at it this way all the time one of the guys who actually sang that martial music and spoke to us telling us that the route to the future will be brighter suddenly this I was time to give us democracy and he shifted the goalposts a couple of times and at the end of it all he decided I'm gonna step aside and have you guys just run your own affairs at the end of it all there was so much strife so much you know a lot of people died and somehow another martial music came and then we we began again the game of musical chairs until somehow by divine intervention democracy arrived now we've been a democratically run country or so to speak in the last 19 years going on 20 years but are we yet ignition and that's the question that is actually at the root of a lot of the social tension we've seen in Nigeria any couple of since this democratic experiment started but but but let's take a look where are we coming from Nigeria beyond independence is actually a hundred and three years old right a beautiful country and whether by the imaginations of the British or whether by design or Divine Design a man named Frederick lugar decided that to get economics of scale it will be better to actually March essentially to protectorates did not earn and the Sodom Protectorate with the colony of leaguers to kind of like get ignition so that you could then build real networks that could connect these two protectorates to the pots at the colony of legos and probably in calibre to get cash crops through the ship to the West and that was how Nigeria was born and in given back nation we just suddenly found out that this nation became the most populous black nation on earth with a lot of potential and a lot of people speculated about it becoming the next superpower and so in 1960 a whole lot of there was a whole lot of fever-pitch and anticipation as to the you know the fulfillment of the destiny of this nation but all of a sudden we started to notice that a whole lot of things you know are not quite there yet with nationhood because our aspiration in 1960 was to join the league of the greats so you could talk about great britain haven't been together for forever you could talk about the United States fighting to wrest control of its destiny from British Overlord in 1776 with mantra structures life liberty and the pursuit of happiness you could talk about France hasn't been a nation for over 1,000 years but with an interregnum that defined that their cost into the future which was when Queen Marie Antoinette said if you couldn't afford cakes oh if you couldn't afford bread go eat cakes and then of course we've seen that just one revolution has been the source of the creative energy that has built a nation and as will get people together you could talk about Japan there has been a nation for over 2,000 years with less people and actually was a colonizer of china the nation with today celebrates all right but are we about to join the league of these grapes because this is what we have a vested wrong values wrong thinking hating ourselves been our own the worst salesman of ourselves that we could possibly find anywhere in the world so you if you really want to sell nigeria badly you don't need third party all you need to do is speak to a Nigerian and I'm one of them those who read me on social media find that I'm very critical of governments but I still hold one thing true we can only go as far as our nation travels and that's why if you give birth to a child in America and you give back to another child in Nigeria and both of them were endowed with the same potential possibilities are the environment will determine their future so how in this kind of environment can we possibly determine the future of Bright's our young people all fitted around this corner and hoping for a better time so a moment to reflect how do we build that nation because the nation can only be built out of consensus it can be built out of strife of course we can disagree but we must never take entrenched position to the extent that it starts to hurt that Union then you will have no nation because indeed a nation is more than just a geographic location otherwise Falkland Island wouldn't be part of Britain because it's so far flung from Britain so it's not the you know about having Geographic possibilities that define a nation but then who is a Nigerian how do we identify ourselves a lot of us will identify ourselves first in our own little corner you know maybe I identify myself as a Yoruba man before identify myself as in Nigerian but again are we then going to have 371 Nations because that's that's the only way some people push that there could be peace while we're just going to start by having three first and align ourselves also back and and fights like South Sudan is currently doing after gaining independence from the almighty Sudan so how do we see Nigeria that identity crisis is constantly the thing that stands as a krahgg in the in the wheel of development I don't see we address that identity crisis me to say that we may possibly be going no way because a nation is about shared identity and shared prosperity because if we don't believe that we are selling the same boots how can we possibly sell against other tide beyond just that which we battle internally so how do we get there how do we attain the status of a you know of a group of people with different identity choosing to bury their micro identity or subsume it under a bigger identity how do we travel that journey it's a question a lot of people are asking it's a question of you know how do we manage diversity how do we lower social tension and be able to actually come to the table with ideas that can be world beaters and deliver to us that Nigeria which we desire because until we get to that point where we're beginning to ask ourselves those questions we simply are not going to go anywhere and that's why a lot of people have come to say we don't have an insurmountable problem some other people have come to describe that problem as economic that if you could guarantee prosperity for a greater number of people you possibly will be able to address that national question some other people have then said look you couldn't possibly even guarantee prosperity for the majority of people if you don't address this question because it's a question of how do we manage different jurisdictions how do we decongest the already populated exclusive legislative list with the military be quitted on to us that says that the politics and the economic of the nation must be so centralized that it takes away initiative from the local or the smaller units that can gråvik that can actually galvanize the kind of energy needed to great nation and then how den do we deal with the question of contest for power like babies fighting over toy instead of seeing the possibilities that lay ahead of us just remain the questions that are militating against us actually moving forward but of course well your arrangement around the superstructure is something that a lot of people are dealing with a lot of people some other people have also come out to say these are elite arguments that have no basis for developments progress and happiness and the fulfillment of that desired Nigeria because if you don't address the issues related to the sub structure the superstructure will continue to crumble so if you don't manage visual idea of inequality and having focus on the people a situation where what we have is a situation where the the Statehouse clinic has more budgets than a teaching hospital or a situation where a governor continues to enjoy security votes while the civil service people are not paid their dad salaries as a trend you so which one is security there all right so if we don't address that issue then it becomes a real big problem really talking about a veneer nation but I believe that we're yet on a journey because I like to say this China was at this point in 1978 when it chose on that the enzyme in to smash the iron rice bowl and to say look we can no longer guarantee the security of your job or guarantee order state you know sponsored welfare programs but what we can guarantee for you is that if you choose to actually aggregate and from yourself into groups to deliver economic benefits to yourself the government will be an enabler and today China is home to over 8 million economic enterprises little wonder then Wentworth has moved you know from the 1990 1978 we had mass unemployment through the 90s so today when it's the second biggest economy in the world aiming to be number one and aggressively sooo in such a way that maybe tomorrow my children will learn more Mandarin then they will learn English but let's face it how are we going to build on Nigeria if we don't tell the stories of the good things that we are currently doing because stories inspire and stories throw up possibilities all right so we've got heroes beyond just the leaders that we complain about we've got heroes from our founders to those who daily toil you know on the creative part to deliver you know what you would call globe world standards that people celebrate we've got achievements Iran is in diplomacy where we define first Africa as the centerpiece of our foreign affairs and so delivered you know the fight against appetite and then send it technically eTCO across africa to begin to train people and to begin to gather nice development across africa we've got a rich culture we've got a brilliant cultural tapestry that speaks to a diversity and shows some kind of unique energy that is needed to actually grow a great nation we've got hard-won traditional values which a lot of people have spoken about here of trust integrity honesty which economics may have eroded but is nonetheless there we need to celebrate it we need to celebrate our intellectual capacity we need to celebrate even the fact that we're an economic powerhouse we need to enter in to that new Nigeria way it is not just simply about telling tales of our name but also telling tales of Technology developments that are better at companies like system spec paga Iroko innocent we've got all that so why are we not telling that story all right we've actually raised unicorns from creating hubs like see co-op to and Ella that's driving global grits like Mark Zuckerberg and the global CEO of Google here to work with our youths because they see that after India we are probably going to be the next technology destination we've got a vibe that I'm insane that even without government participation has been able to grow so much muscle that today has attracted global attention such that even the Nigerian fashion is becoming you know a global fad Nollywood is celebrated everywhere now and we're even talking about a contribution of well over five billion dollars to the GDP without government supports all right even a dance from sake to dab has become a global phenomenon I mean we've got a vibrant pop culture that speaks to that energy and youthfulness that it takes to grow a great nation so while other people be mourned by having that aging population are be mourning that the lack of the energy to go into the future we've got well over 70% of the population below the age of 40 isn't it something to celebrate or of course you just warned you know an opportunity to go to the World Cup in Russia but beyond that you are the first to win the under-16 World Cup in 1985 isn't that worth celebrating so there's a lot to us that we can celebrate but no one grows a great nation just by wishful thinking we've got to start now and we've got to you know organize because the if we can only go as big you know if only we can organize ourselves into groups to champion the positive energy