The Perks of Ethnicity It is said that behind every cloud there is a silver lining, in Nigeria we have a dark cloud of ethnicity, this cloud that has cost the lives of many, shed blood, beclouded our reasoning in many instances and definitely impeded our development, of course I could write a million chapters on the disadvantages of ethnicity, many of those chapters will be strewn with stories of bloodshed both inter-tribal and intra-tribal, but I began to think to myself, this dark cloud, could it have a silver lining. Was it possible for Nigerians to make something out of our ethnicity, could we change this demon to dollars, could we change this cloud to a shade? Of course, ethnicity has it perks and by perks I do not mean the two largest parties in Nigeria choosing their presidential candidates from the north and the south, knowing that there was a chunk of the Nigerian populace that would not care to read their manifesto or x-ray our economic indices but would just go ahead to vote their ‘brother’. It is heart-wrenching that in many circles when the issue of the 2015 election comes up, ethno-religious sentiments and not manifestos lead the argument. Now when I say we could get something out of ethnicity, I do not mean political manipulation of the Nigerian populace. When I told a friend that I cared more about the outcome of the presidential election than my state elections, he told me the truth many Nigerians fail to realize, we are more affected by our state governors than we are by the president. We fail to realize this and that is why presidents come under great criticism. Someone sights a bad road and without caring to ask if it is a state or federal road, begins to heap insults on the Presidency. We expect too little from our state governments and, don’t get me started on how we expect almost nothing from our LGA chairmen. I want you to day-dream with me, to imagine that during the state governors’ forum, Governors brag about the developmental strides in their states, imagine if they bragged about which state had the most well equipped universities and the lowest tuition fees. Imagine just for one second, if they bragged about which state had the latest modern equipment in their hospitals and the least number of medical tourists leaving the country, imagine a state governor stating categorically that he does his checkup in his state owned hospital and inviting other governors to patronize the hospital because it was equivalent to any hospital abroad. What if they did this with projectors, displaying pictures of good roads and bragging about how they had reduced accident rates in their states to the barest minimum and how they had a twenty four hour emergency service always available at every nook and cranny of the state, imagine if they bragged about their fire service which never ran out of water at the middle of an inferno , imagine state governor after state governor thrilling others with pictures of well tarred roads, of giant twenty first century machines in hospitals, pictures of serene universities with beautiful structures. Imagine our governors gloating on the state internally generated revenue and how the allocation of the federal government was merely for savings. Imagine state governors displaying the tourist sites in their states and stating all they had done to attract people both from home and abroad to patronize the tourist sites adding that not only had huge chunks of money been made from the tourist sites but thousands of jobs had been created. Imagine them bragging about the state with the highest paid workers and the highest standard of living, the state where villages were equivalent to towns because all the amenities were available in villages and instead of rural urban migration they had achieved urban rural migration, how they had turned agriculture to a goldmine and turned farmers to billionaires. Imagine each state displaying their Nigerian premier league team, bragging about how much each player earned, imagine state governors bragging about how they had the lowest unemployment rates in their states and the least crime rates. Yes, what if state governors fuelled by ethnic competition turned their states to perfection, we all would be too busy enjoying our states that we would not remember the federal government. I believe Nigeria can change one day but I know one thing for sure, it will not take one man but rather thirty six men. This was not for state governors only it was for heads of different state owned establishments, imagine if all of them channeled their ethnic energy not to the social media sites created specially to fuel ethnic hatred, but to their work and to making their own establishments the best in the country. This was not the only way we could tap our ethnicity, we should be the movie capital of the world not just because of the number of movies we produce but the quality of movies, our cultural diversity gives our entertainers a range of plots and storylines to harness and make into the greatest movies ever. We should be on television, showing the world our cultures, our art, our food; I swear our ethnic differences might be the oil well we never tapped. The truth is, there is a demonic side to our ethnic differences, a side we see every day, but then there is another side, yes ethnicity has its perks, and we just haven’t realized it yet. By Alu Queen Ugochinyere pointtell/2015/01/the-perks-of-ethnicity/
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 10:54:13 +0000
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