Stay back and develop Nigeria.
I was sitting down on a fateful afternoon when a colleague of mine, Audu, came to my office to call me so that we could go home. It was already closing hours from work. He was to give me a lift from the office back home that day. I was marking my students' examination scripts. There were two remaining scripts to meet up with my target for the day. I told him to wait for a few minutes so that I could finish the marking. He obliged.
While waiting, another colleague, Joy, came to the office with her face covered with infectious smiles to announce to me that her husband had secured a visa to Canada.
Audu screamed in celebration.
"This is good news. I am happy for you. God that answered your prayers will answer mine."
"What is your prayer?" I asked him.
"My prayer is to leave this country of course. The country that kills one's potential. I want a better life for my kids."
"You are not even celebrating with me. Are you not happy with my progress?" Joy sensed my indifferent countenance.
"Oooh, I am sorry. Congratulations. Many things are going through my head. May the relocation bring forth prosperity and fulfillment of purpose," I offered prayers.
That was all that she came to tell me and she left immediately.
"I can see from your initial reaction that you are indifferent to what Joy just told us. Why?"
"Audu," I called him by his first name. Whenever I do, he knows how serious I am. "Is it a thing of joy that someone is celebrating leaving her country to another man's land in search of greener pastures? Why can't Nigeria's pastures be green?"
Audu laughed. Then, he responded to my questions with other questions.
"What does it take a country to be great? Resources; both human and capital? A workable system? What is it (are they)?"
"I don't understand you. Why are you responding to my questions with another set of questions?" I queried.
"Let me tell you something," he repositioned himself on the chair and looked straight into my eyes. "Nigerians are searching for greener pastures because no one is ready to make ours green. We love eating cooked food. When provided with the ingredients, we refuse to cook the meal. A country like that will find it difficult to rise."
"Regarding the questions that I asked you," he continued. "It takes patriotism to make a country great. We have the resources, both human and capital but patriotism is lacking."
I dropped my red pen to pay total attention to what he was saying.
"Are you not marking again?" He asked me.
"Audu, I am done for today. My heart aches for the way this country is being led by our leaders."
"Ojo," he called me. "Don't be too hard on yourself about Nigeria. "Wherever you find yourself as a worker, follower or leader, do what is fair and be patriotic to this nation. Do your bit to make the system work. Many people have yarned about the challenges to the hearing of the leaders in the past but nothing was done.
"Eldee yarned his own many years ago but he was called names by the leaders instead of heeding to his advice and doing the proper thing.
The mention of Eldee brought back a hit song titled 'I go yarn' to my memory.
"Are you talking of the track titled 'I go yarn?' I asked him.
"Yes. I will play it when we get to the car so that you refresh your memory with the lyrics."
I arranged my files, books and students' scripts into the compartments of my shelf and we left for the car.
He played the song and I couldn't help but sing along as the song played on.
'I go yarn' was a song released in 2006.
Yarning was a slang used in the song to represent talking, complaining or having a conversation.
The part of the song that resonated with me most in that situation was where he made mention of the failure of our leaders to replicate what they see in the West in Nigeria.
"As I reach Yankee
I see say the life wey my people dem dey live na nonsense"
Eldee talked about how his trip to Yankee revealed to him that the life that people are living in Nigeria is nonsense. Truly, Nigerian leaders visit Europe, America and other continents often. Unfortunately, they don't get inspired to replicate those developments in Nigeria. Instead, they buy houses there and send their children to live in them.
You hardly find any of the children of Nigerian politicians or very senior civil servants studying in Nigeria. Nigerian universities are not good enough for them. The will to raise the standard of our universities to meet up with those ones is not there.
Things are hard in Nigeria generally. We have arable land for farming yet the people are hungry. We are among the top oil producing nations, yet we are always in a fuel crisis.
While Brazil is generating about 200000 megawatts of electricity for her 217 million population, Nigeria is generating 4000 megawatts for about 200 million people.
In 2006 when he sang this song, a dollar was exchanging for 140 Naira. Unfortunately, a dollar exchange for 1400 naira today.
In the face of all these, Nigerians are leaving in droves to other countries in search of a better living standard.
"So tell me, are the people moving out to other countries not having justifiable reasons?" Audu turned to ask me. He had already parked for me to alight having arrived home.
"Hmmmm... They may have justifiable reasons," I responded to him. "But my wish is one, I hope to see a situation where every other country that has developed through the sweat of its patriotic citizens rejects Nigerians that are trooping into their countries."
"Let's stay in Nigeria and clean our mess together."
Audu smiled and waved at me while he drove on.
Any positive minded Nigerian should believe that the country will become better one day. Most people are bent on believing that they can only find greener pastures abroad whereas they could pray for the country to be better. You really did well changing Audu's view on the country.
#dreemerforlife
If we don't do proper reorientation to discourage the scourge of emigration, a time will come that we will rely on expatriate to handle some professional works. That would take us to pre-independence era again. I hope that doesn't happen. We need to join hands to make this country work.
I think it's more valuable when everyone comes together to work on improving a broken system instead of fleeing to other countries with a better system. However, some have just reached their breaking point and lost hope in a better tomorrow.
Many have lost hope actually. We need to start the campaign of patriotism again. Everyone should try and be loyal to the country just like we declare in the national pledge, anytime we recite it. Nigeria van only be great when Nigerians are ready to make it great.