On page x, Ojukwu gives examples of how he reached on the other side of the "table" to make Nigeria one, in specific remarks, "urged an east-west understanding...and had "an east-west disposition"..."for solidarity in the Nigerian crisis." Between pages x and xi, Ojukwu explains his stance on national unity and how he expects it to metamorphose. According to him, Nigeria's need for unity would ensure that we looked beyond primordial attachments in favour of a unity of purpose. This is where I ask Nigerians and indeed every developing and struggling state: what is our purpose as a nation?
In the case of Nigeria, is our purpose to showcase who had the better cult, culture, language, dignitary, and traditions before and after the advent of the white man? Who's the boss? What is our purpose as a nation, as a people? IF our purpose is to every year celebrate independence as a majorly black populated country, then we are doing a good job of that. If on the other hand, we are a nation in search of a national purpose, then we have our work cut out for us.
Emeka Ojukwu diagnosed Nigerians of certain social maladies , which include: selective amnesia, selective myopia, selective hyperopia and selective indignation. Did we understand him? He writes: "whenever we make a case for morality our approach remains selective - in Nigeria what is good for the goose is almost never good for the gander." According to him, Nigerians view themselves as spectators and actors who revel in life as actors where "the nation is the stage upon which we perform pg. xii.)." Stardom is not achieved by artistry or genius but by opportunity (and I add opportunism) because a play must have a star rather than because the player is possessed of some dramatic genius." Is anybody wondering if he wrote this before we became flooded with Nigeria's infamous home video industry? The politician or military actor is the leader who is in charge of the script.
To analyze this book line by line, word for word, is to lose one's mind to the maze of a critical discourse. But I think that every line of his writing is important. This book in itself is a whole faculty of discourses. OK. Let me be real. This book is all a professor could need to teach two course in two semesters, Nigerian 101 and Nigerian 102 in any pan-African university. Perhaps the courses should be called BIAI 101 and BIAI 102. As then can Nigerians really understand the notes and lessons contained in this book of an insider's giveaway. You think that I'm kissing the feet of this writer or in any way deifying him? Think again. I love to see the good in all people and all races. I love to read fiction and non fiction. But Because I Am Involved is the new gospel for Nigerians. If is the new lighthouse, the lamp to our feet so to speak since 1989. Should I continue?
Beyond being actors and spectators on the Nigerian stage of national crises (and growth), Nigerians are "closely tyrannised by the pseudo - nothing looks like it truly is (pg. xiii). Pseudo- everything everywhere...Hello, corruption. Our love for the unreal and hatred of the truth, according to the writer deters us from holding meaningful dialogue. Was the national confab indicted by this statement from Ojukwu? Dis we truly tell each other the truth about our existence as an entity or was that another national handshake that accords respect to every October 1st? It appears to him that the colonial masters and some Nigerian leaders intervened (and probably still do) in order to halt discussions on every Nigerian truth. He cites on page xiv, the British, Gowon, Obasanjo and Babangida as the culprits.
Ojukwu concludes the introduction of Because I Am Involved by holding each of us responsible for each other's full citizenship of Nigeria. The quality of life is paramount in how much citizenship should mean to us. The improvement of the quality of the citizen's life is what makes accountable to our polity. He asserts: "we must all accept the fact that no individual Nigerian has a monopoly of wisdom or a monopoly of the right to leadership and, for that matter, to followership." We are all Nigerians who have despite our diverse ethnicity have chosen a common leader. However, until Nigeria comets into true existence, where we are prepared to modify and sometimes abandon primordial (ties) and attachments for a new Nigerian relationship we cannot unity to fulfil our manifest destiny.
I beg for abandonment rather than modification of these primordial attachments. In Ojukwu's words: without unity of purpose nothing in Nigeria can function with the requisite efficiency" where "a Nigerian is and must be Nigerian as Nigerian as any Nigerian in the context of Nigeria."
To be continued....
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