Investigative journalist and writer, David Hundeyin, said that things are predictably going south under a drug dealer’s presidency, and the nation is going everywhere and nowhere.
He further articulated that unlike many African nations, Nigeria lacks a distinct “founding myth” to shape its national narrative.
Hundeyin said this in a series of tweets on Sunday.
Hundeyin said, “One of our biggest handicaps as a society is that unlike almost every other African country that was colonised, we had no real, broad-based, popular anti-colonial struggle.
“We had individual pockets of resistance and occasional rebellions against specific parts of colonial rule (Aba Women’s Riot etc.), but save for a political and media war waged in Lagos by a small intellectual elite, there was no “Nigerian Independence Struggle.” At no point did the generality of Nigerian people ever adopt any common position on anything except the basic human desire to eat, drink, fornicate and sleep.
“In fact, when Anthony Enahoro first moved a 1953 parliamentary motion for Nigeria to become independent in 1956, half of Nigeria’s parliament voted AGAINST independence and staged a walkout. Regardless of whatever local political context led to this, the fact remains that Nigeria had the opportunity to become the first independent country in post-colonial Africa, and it didn’t happen because Nigerians hated each other more than they hated the British coloniser.
“The implications of having no real independence struggle where everyone paid a price and felt some pain manifest in several ways. Consider this – unlike almost every other country in Africa, Nigeria has no “founding myth” on which to base its national story. Who are Nigeria’s “founding fathers”? What are Nigeria’s founding values? What is the purpose of Nigeria after having been set free from its initial mission of being the mining concession, cash crop plantation and oilfield of a colonial SPV called the Royal Niger Trading Company? Short answer: We don’t know because we never decided.
“This societal lack of grounding and direction has created a profound lack of identity and a crippling absence of purpose. Both of these things are the diseases at the heart of the Nigerian soul – a near-total lack of usable 21st-century identity, which we overcompensate for by being loud, obnoxious and needlessly egotistical, and a lack of purpose that leads us to find meaning in conspicuous consumption, accumulation for the sake of itself, and every type and flavour of religious nonsense that exists under the sun.
“Another major fallout of having no identity or purpose is that we have the ethical and moral compass of the wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man. We stand for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, we think rational consequences for our actions are optional, and we think EVERYTHING is to be bargained or negotiated with.”
Hundeyin further added, “A drug dealer and a Boko Haram patron are running on a presidential ticket and they want my support – so how much is in it for me? I didn’t support the drug dealer but he used every available electoral malpractice tactic to become president – so how can this presidency benefit me and my family?
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“A former public office holder and illegal mining kingpin has been thoroughly disgraced after getting caught using almost $1m of illicit money to carry out an illegal transaction – so how can I position myself to benefit from the situation instead of seeing justice done?
“Things are predictably going south under a drug dealer’s presidency – so I’d rather invoke the supernatural power of hope and positive thinking, or pray for things to get better without addressing the actual issue at all. If anyone points out that I’m being a delusional fantasist, I’ll just deploy emotional blackmail and fell them that they’re terrible people who don’t wish their country well. A people who stand for everything and nothing. A nation going everywhere and nowhere,” Hundeyin concluded.
