It takes time to form a country. It requires patience and dedication to change attitudes. When people from disparate places and cultures are brought together to form a nation, it is never easy. In the long run, the tears and toil are worth it because the interactions lead to an expansion of consciousness, which drives human progress.
The journey of nationhood is not for timid souls. It was never easy for countries like India and China to rise. These countries have more ethnic, religious, and social divisions than we can imagine. What worked for them was that they never gave upstart military officers the chance to upend their civilian administration and throw their country into fratricidal war.
In times of distress, some Nigerians still look to the military for solutions. This is shameful. The military caused our problems. How did we arrive at a place where many Nigerians still think the military has solutions to our problems? Are these folks victims of Military-Induced Mental Retardation (MIMR) (pronounced “Mama”)? These people persist in this belief despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
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This is why various legislative bodies have not seen fit to abrogate the decrees of the military that ruled Nigeria on behalf of a certain group of people. This mentality is dangerous to our body politic. It explains why many politicians pay courtesy visits to these soldiers of fortune who turned Nigeria into a pariah nation.
MIMR is the reason Nigerian lawyers do not understand their role in a democratic society. MIMR is why we lack legal reforms. In a constitution that guarantees freedom of movement, Nigerians are harassed daily on the highways by state agents.
Are we at war? Why is our freedom restricted? No lawyer has taken the government to court for this constitutional violation.
This is pathetic. We need serious legal reforms. The method of appointing judges is antiquated. We need to know the character of those who will be judges. Knowledge of jurisprudence should not be the only criterion.
During the military years, Nigerian lawyers played the role of stenographers for military decrees, and judges took their decisions from the soldiers. Now, they play almost the same role as politicians who have no idea why they were elected.
They have abandoned the practice of law to become jesters at the feet of reckless politicians and conveyors of injustice in our courts. Our courts harbor judges who suffocate justice under their robes and treat military decrees of a bygone era as a guidepost for our state of jurisprudence.
All over the country, governors and other politicians seize and damage people’s properties without just compensation, and no lawyer is in sight to argue on behalf of the afflicted. A Dangote truck may damage and incinerate people on the highways, yet no case is brought on behalf of the victims. The Nigerian Armed Forces enter a village for security duties and destroy it, with no justice for the victims. The governor pays a courtesy visit to the commander-in-chief. No lawyer files a lawsuit on behalf of the victims.
The officer who issued the command to murder sleeping villagers is left to repeat the same scenario in another jurisdiction. We will protest if this happens in Palestine, yet it is happening in the Democratic Republic of Nigeria, where the rights of citizens are undermined daily by those they elected. These politicians did not gain power by a coup.
If you listen to them with your eyes closed, you might think they are military officers who have just seized power through a coup d’état. They do not seek consensus; they give directives. Some defy court rulings with fanfare. The military infantilized everyone in Nigeria, but they pushed the lawyer back into the womb. This is atrocious.
As a nation, we must consider the fifty-five years of military rule in Nigeria as the years of the locust. The journey of great nations is always evolutionary. The military years were when hatred of one another became ossified and personalized as the military played us against each other to prolong their power. The revolution is always a lie.
In history, most periods of revolutionary zeal turn into a mirage. We will have good leaders, and we will have bad leaders. Each period is an opportunity to learn what to do and what not to do. The rush to believe that some army general will appear and use a magical wand to achieve all we wish for is infantile and dangerous. No soldier can develop a nation.
Nigeria is a testament to that folly. It is the willingness of the people to understand the necessity of building bridges and lasting institutions of harmony that moves a nation forward. The rule of law is the cornerstone of this exercise. If we have the rule of law, Nigerians will feel protected in any place they call home. Ethnic crises and tensions will diminish because they know that, no matter what happens, the law will protect them from ethnic or religious vigilantism, which is the breeding ground for timid souls still married to the past.
These people must be made to see the supremacy of the law as a sign of our progress. The journey is arduous, and our dream should be about building frameworks that last beyond our existence, because the nation we dream of should always be a continuous journey for those who believe in tomorrow and understand that the yearnings and aspirations of our people shall never die. This is all we can ask for as we toil in our little corner to build a tomorrow for the next generation.
We must strive to make tomorrow a brighter proposition for those coming after us. Only when we arrive at that place can we say our work is done. This singularity is a love that binds us beyond ethnic and religious proclivities, which rob us of our basic humanity. We can start this journey today and understand that others who share our aspirations may start their journey tomorrow. The wisdom we seek should give us the patience to know the difference and endure the pain and loneliness of waiting for those who are not ready today but will join us tomorrow.
For those who seek truth, justice, and fairness, tomorrow is a distant horizon we must gaze at with hope, endurance, and fortitude. Tomorrow is not a destination; it is a state of being. The futuristic tomorrow may never come, but our state of will shall be fulfilled and rewarded as our collective struggles build monuments that last beyond our time. That is the tomorrow we seek, a place where our dreams will never die.
Dr. Austin Orette writes from Houston, Texas
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