A Nigerian journalist, in a slip of his pen, tagged the Yoruba as sophisticated morons. Nope. We don’t buy that, not even for a kobo.
However, events have proved that most Nigerians are not serious. Otherwise, how does one explain that despite the mark some Nigerians have made, the country is in a mess. Yes, Nigeria has more PhDs than most European countries excepting a few, it has been reported. And all too likely, Nigeria has numbers of professors to match.
As to our sheer humanity, Nigeria has intimidating numbers. At about 200 million plus, we are in the population big leagues. And this is with the likes of the entire Western Europe.
Nigeria’s got oil and other natural resources, more than Japan, South Korea, Taiwan joined as one. Nigeria … yet see where we are, see where Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc, are.
We may be wrong, but we like to know what explains it, save that we don’t have the brains. And when we say we don’t have the brains, we don’t mean as potential, but as potentiated brains. We don’t mean the inertial, but dynamical brains. Ahiazuwa.
We are a sophisticated peoples, yes. And the proof abounds. Our heroes drive and glide around in Rolls Royce, Lexus and the like. They live in gold-rimmed palaces and drink choice champagnes. But here we are. No NEPA. No potable municipal water. No roads. No hospitals, not even in Aso Rock. In fact, no nothing. This is Nigeria. All sophistication and no brains.
And, please, let nobody tell me it is colonialism that is stopping him, or the rest of us. It is not the Yoruba who are sophisticated morons. It is all of us Nigerians. As a composite peoples, for instance, Nigerians of different ethnics can’t even generate the framework to live together. Or lately, a framework to beat Croatia at play. Can you fathom it, 200 plus millions of us were beaten silly by less than five million Croatians? That is, with just one Croatian heel, against literally every 40 Nigerian soles, the Croatians still beat us to it, beat us silly.
What went wrong? One commentator said that our boys laced up their boots, only. They forgot to lace up their brains. They are lazy upstairs as their helmsman in Abuja says, he canvassed. They are only frenzied by their soles, he concluded harshly. And it is brains that win the games, not Nike boots, he finally mocked. Another, a local wag with whom I watched the kickoff match, said, and I quote, “Mikel Obi is not a footballer. Mikel Obi is an importer based in China.” Yes, we play importers for footballers and morons for Caesars, potentates and governors all over the land.
Note: If any Nigerians are not morons, their numbers are too miniscule to matter. What then is to be done? There are several answers. But the least of it is not leadership, not in changing leaders. Nigeria has no known leadership problems.
Persons, whether they come as leaders or Caesars, do not save. What saves a people are the scriptures, the canons. “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” “My people perish for lack of knowledge,” not for lack of Caesar. All these are in the scriptures and are true.
To put it graphically, so long as Nigeria is trapped in the musical chairs of changing leaders like diapers infested with dysentery, so long will Nigeria come to grief. What is to save Nigeria lies in her brains, in her inventing new scriptures or innovating received ones. Anything outside this is to self-deceive yourselves.
Thus, to save Nigeria, which by the way is a task that must not be done, Nigerians need more Buddhas and less Caesars, new scriptures and not new leaders. The great unintended consequence of the presidency of Muhammadu Buhari, who was hired as a messiah, is that it is now proven that Nigeria without new or innovated scriptures fails, and will forever fail. A man is a messiah not because he is born or marketed so, a man is a messiah because he has or comes with new scriptures. The active ingredient here is not the man. The active ingredient is the scripture. Which scriptures are APC and agents bearing? Or are they just offering Nigerians nothing other than their protoplasm? To repeat, a messiah is a protoplasm with a scripture, with new canons. A messiah is not a protoplasm. Nigerians ronu.
That is the judgement of history and logic. And it so happens that [1] all societies built and founded upon scriptures and canons flourished as civilisations, [2] that all societies founded upon Caesars and helmsmen came to grief and never endured. This is an iron lore, bend it and you and your peoples will perish.
That brings us to the Arabs/Islam and the ignorance of the world on what the duo has to teach men. When Arabs/Islamists call America the great Satan, one laughs. Save, they do so by way of self-mockery, then such an accusation is in ignorant self-damnation. And why do we say so? America and the first Islamic Empire, are copies of same or convergent models of economic and other developments, superpowerdom and hegemony.
America and Islamic/Arabic Empire have more in common than the world knows. Just don’t die. Wait a minute longer, a new book is coming to tell, in part, the family resemblances or shared evolutionary DNA of Islamic/Arabic Empire and the American hegemon.
To give a taste of a deeply entwined but neglected family resemblance, let us take the following. Both American and Arabic/Islamic empires started in pursuit of a priori stated ideas. For Arabic/Islamic empire, it is that there is only one God and thus one mankind, assumedly created by one God, and that Mohammed is his [last and seal of] prophet. For America, it is that all men are created equal, and that governments are only by the consent of the governed. Let us, for ease of analysis, not mind that there were historical craters in proclaiming and instituting these never-before-heard thesis. Let us not remind ourselves that Arabic/Islamic empire had to push its logic by wielding blood-soaked swords, etc. And that America’s founding father/s while affirming human equality as universal, prudently kept a colony of human [black] slaves. The point or family resemblance is, no such other nations or empires have so consciously emerged in history. Both Arabic/Islamic empires and the American imperium began as ideas and took form as nations, as peoples.
All other empires in history, including the mightiest, were built in fits of absentmindedness or on an MTN-like plan, acquire as you go. For a classic fit of absentmindedness, the example is the British Commonwealth. On the MTN acquire-as-you-go-scheme, the ancient Greek Empire stands conspicuous. Culturally, the ancient Greeks were the greatest who ever lived.
However, we at The Brace Institute, are yet at a loss to assert whether America consciously or involuntarily copied the Arabic/Islamic socio-political module or if it was a question of evolutionary convergence. Anyway, whatever it is, the Arabic/Islamic hegemon as a model first emerged on the historical stage before America, its presumptive Satan or nemesis. Or sibling rivals? And the fact of this is important, it gives the Arabic/Islamic “priority,” as historians of science would say. And we concur. Is America then a scion of Arabism/Islamic or Islamism? These are questions we at The Brace Institute are still researching at this hour.
The Brace Institute is racing against time to bring these family semblances or rivalries and or otherwise into public purview. And this is before the world sets itself ablaze, forgetting its shared ancestry by blood or by [convergent] ideas and categories. For full disclosures, I, Jimanze Ego-Alowes, Colonel, retired, Biafra Army, am a Founder-Director of The Brace Institute.
In summary, the aggregation of conclusions is this. Both America and Arabian/Islamic Empire were founded, built and rocket-propelled by new scriptures, not leaders. The leaders were mere contingents, accidents to the necessity of the canons, the scriptures, upon which their empires were built. And these leaders were essentially replaceable. As an iron lore, an irreplaceable leader leads to underdevelopment, and Nigeria got a bunch of them. What are irreplaceable are the scriptures, the truths, not the persons, not the prophets. And one can recall one of the finest speeches in all Islamic, calendar, if not all leadership, sorry, development calendars. “If it is Mohammed you worship, he is dead. If it is God” – via the scriptures – “he lives.” The Caliph Alli, I believe.
And the prophet of Allah himself hinted something of this replaceable-necessity dichotomy. If any of his examples, he decreed, comes in conflict with the precepts of the Koran, then the Koran – the scriptures – is the trump, but not the Donald, if you get the drift. This is an iron lore. And understanding its inner meaning is the crux of all development, human or material, spiritual or mathematical. But we, alas, seem not to be able to understand, even when we have been taught. Nigeria ronu.
Human development, which alone drives country developmen, is in the scriptures, in the production [as theatre and as manufactures] of the scriptures.
The Brace Institute is now open for Partnering Ambassadors. The project is to redirect Africa from leadership-centric damnation to scriptures-centric redemption and revolution, to new life. Only ideas, not men, can develop Africa. Biafra was a shining example. We were there and lived in its grace and abundance. And those who aborted it are paying frightful prizes today. Doubt? Remember: “They collude, they colluuudu…” Who said that, where, when and to what purpose, to what collusion? If you are a Partnering Ambassador, let’s have you. Shalom. Ahiazuwa.