Promise Adiele
Nigerian playwright Hope Eghagha, in his play, “Death, Not a Redeemer” perceptively dramatizes the practice where sacrificial death is regarded as a redeemer in a fictional Ijigbo land. Although the play is a response to Wole Soyinka’s “Death and the King’s Horseman”, it departs in artistic focus and dramatic composition from the Nobel laureate’s effort.
While Soyinka revalorizes fatalism in a thoroughly blighted world, Eghagha sublimates tragic ethos by maintaining that death should not be the redeemer of humanity. Again, while Soyinka’s play is devoid of any theatrical flourishes in a world brimming with cosmic futilities, Eghagha’s play, through a combination of artistic aesthetics and subdued denouement, re-establishes the inexorable parallel between life and death in a postmodern world. Indeed, literature replicates life in its sensuous realism. Sometimes too, life relives literature in its grand fictional scope.
A critical reading of “Death, not a Redeemer” raises the question: what can redeem man seeing that he is constantly confronted by existential impediments. Has the vicarious death of Jesus Christ redeemed humanity or those who subscribe to the homiletics of the Christian faith? What exactly is the solution to man’s numerous challenges? A persistent interrogation of this question will ultimately lead to a more direct question, what is the solution to Nigeria’s problems? Even if it is a bit difficult to give an immediate answer to the foregoing question, certainly nepotism is not the solution to Nigeria’s problems. Therefore, nepotism must be eradicated from the country’s service structure seeing that, like death in Eghagha’s hands, it guarantees no solution.
Nepotism is famed as a discredited child of politics and social engineering across the world. It thrives on dignifying mediocrity since it must emphasize filial, religious, or ethnic patronage irrespective of competence and qualification. In Nigeria today, the evidence of state infirmity and its attendant pathologies can easily be located in the exaltation of nepotism across every stratum of our country. The political elite at the state and federal level have glaring entrenched nepotism within government circles, armed forces, the police, and in the civil service. In many ways, the tragedy that confronts Nigeria today can be attributed to the enthronement of nepotism and from all observable indications, the vice will continue to graduate to new heights, plunging the country into a further abyss. The muse reminds me of the controversial, folkloric character Mr. Tortoise who, in his bid to blow out phlegm, blows out his eye and in his attempt to pick up his eye, suffers fracture on his hand.
No doubt, there have been negligible elements of nepotism in Nigeria since the return of democracy in 1999 but at no time has it been more glaring than in the present era. Since 1999, Nigeria’s political journey has both been intriguing and fascinating. Olusegun Obasanjo has come and gone but not before suffering a tsunami in his attempt to perpetuate himself in power through the third term charade. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was withdrawn from the political space by the death angel before his administration could gain full penetration. Goodluck Jonathan mounted the throne in providential circumstances. His time at the helm of affairs and the fulcrum of his policies is reminiscent of T.S Eliot’s classic, “The Wasteland”. Today, Mohammadu Buhari is on the throne, steering the ship of state and barring any legal gymnastics, will be in that position in the next four years.
During the Buhari tenure, most things have become apparent. One is the fight against corruption although many critics have pointed to its lopsided and selective bent. Second is the increasing trend of herdsmen who have transmuted from innocuous cattle nomads to kidnappers, killers, and armed robbers. The third is the continual slide of the economy which continues to enunciate poverty in the country on a daily basis. In fact, the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo has admitted that the level of extreme poverty in the country causes him sleepless nights. Another obvious trend in the current administration is nepotism and the skewed manner of appointments into sensitive positions. It is to this we shall now turn to in this essay.
Every leader has the prerogative to appoint persons who he believes will serve to bring solutions to the myriad of problems confronting the country, but glaring nepotism in a plurimental country like Nigeria with heterogeneous outlines is not the solution. It is improbable that nepotism will thrive in Nigeria in the 21st century and provide the solution we have constantly clamoured for. Granted that men will always seek solutions to their problems but to deploy negativity as a procedure for that solution is ultimately counterproductive.
Nepotism is a negative trend that is perversely dominating Nigeria’s service structure. It is absolutely indefensible that the majority of people from a particular ethnicity and a particular religious persuasion are appointed into sensitive positions in Nigeria irrespective of qualification and competence. This gives credence to the argument that nepotism has become a culture of service in our country. If we are genuinely committed to finding solutions to multiple issues confronting the country, enthroning nepotism and making it statecraft is certainly not the right approach. Nepotism breeds apathy, it breeds hate. It alienates various parts of the country from the common project of building the polity. Nepotism is condemnable and bad. It can never be a solution to Nigeria’s many problems. Unfortunately, the intelligentsia has not done enough in addressing the issue. While a section maintains a disturbing silence, another section expends its energy upgrading the stale discourse of “taking Nigeria to the next level”. In the long run, the socio-economic and political will of the masses pathetically crumble on the altar of nepotism.
As the next four years of the current administration commences, expectedly new appointments will be made, new ministers confirmed. The national assembly has a major role to play in the whole exercise, to ensure that a certain ethnicity or religion does not dominate the federal executive council. This country does not belong to any section of the country more than it belongs to another section. Nigerians are eager to see a reflection of an egalitarian spread across the country which will dispel the popular notion that this administration is established on nepotistic values. The president should use his last opportunity as the chief executive officer to remedy the glaring damages asymmetrical appointments have done to the body politic.
Many Nigerians are steadily losing hope in the country. They do not believe that the government exists for them or even recognizes them as an important part of the country. If the edifice of nepotism is not immediately dislodged now, it will be entrenched on the leadership structure of this country much to the threat of our unity and political development. President Buhari will not be the president of Nigeria forever, he must recognize this fact and use the remaining four years of his administration to seek solutions to the country’s numerous problems. A legacy of nepotism is a negative one. Balance, equity and fair play in appointments and promotion are the only answers to the malady.
Dr. Adiele writes from Lagos via [email protected]