The nation must not forget that Adebayo Success, Mohammed Marwa, Asari Dokubo, Government Tompolo, Henry Okah, Gani Adam, Abubakar Shekau, Mohammed Yusuf, Nnamdi Kanu, Sunday Igboho, that soakaway-runaway and self-styled liberator of the Yorubas, Terwase Akwaza (a.k.a. Gana), Simon Ekpa and a host of others, North and South, began thus.
Also, can UAB do the nation the favour of strengthening and tightening security in and all around the CNI, including all markets, ensuring not a single shop belonging to any Nigerian citizen or just anybody’s is torched under any guise, indulgences, overreaching, ‘drunkenness’ and delusion of grandeur, nor must any other citizen be so overzealous, left free, and emboldened as to threaten another, preventing them from exercising their civic duty and democratic right even with the police playing a bystander because of their ethnic nationality?
God bless our Nigeria in spite of.
THE NIGERIAN SPIRIT
Photo credit: The Nation.
The Nigerian spirit is the spirit that stirs up the best in Nigerians. It constitutes great visions and great dreams; dreaming big dreams and seeing to their realization; a giant will and a spirit of invincible determination; marvellous possibilities, resilience and boundless elasticity; bulldog tenacity of purpose; selflessness and loyalty to fatherland; the highest level of patriotism; giving God a prime place in the Nigerian mind and in national life; a strong abhorrence for religious bigotry and irreligiousness of religion; an enterprising and an inquiry mind; an excellent spirit; dedication and devotion to duty; a spirit so strong that it cannot be discouraged; the truth, without which a citizen is not free; fearlessness; confidence in self, the fatherland, humanity and posterity, yet very humble; a sense of nationalism rather than ethnicity; absence of avarice and thievery; honesty and integrity; a sense of community rather than individualism – being one’s brother’s keeper, creating a sense of sanity in one’s little corner in the midst of endemic or pervasive corruption; walking tall without entertaining grasshopper complex, the spirit to say to oneself after the accomplishment of a great task that the best is yet to come; the ability to recreate one’s world, where one is thoroughly dissatisfied; utmost enthusiasm rather grumbling; time consciousness rather than getting hooked to the so-called African time; a high sense of moderation instead of unbridled ostentation and acquisitive tendency; a great sense for details and observation; a sense of service rather than pecuniary consideration; observance of the country’s laws, and maintaining order in order to keep the peace.
The Nigerian spirit is to be cultivated and practised.
June 6, 2001.
- JOHN ODEY ADUMA, author of the bestseller: “Be a Beacon of Hope in the World: A Message to Young Britain” was formerly Chairman, Editorial Board of the Daily Times of Nigeria Plc, 2000-2003.
SIMPLY DESPICABLE AND LITIGIOUS!
The Final Act of a very cowardly and frightful General who as ever, capitulated to a dud, a very violent political egret, and a professional fraudster.
Photo credit: The Punch.
