By Olakunle Agboola – Every country or community is made of citizens, and the strength or weakness of the country or community depends on the character of the citizens.
Nigeria is in dire need of love, patriotism, accountability, and commitment of good citizens to her unity and development. It is a country of uncommon paradox: so much wealth and sprawling poverty/ under-development. With a huge population of over 180 million and large geographical size of 923,768 square kilometres stuffed with rich natural resources including oil, Nigeria has a huge potential of being in the topmost leading economy in the world. However, corruption and anti –nation attitude of her citizens has not allowed her to soar as expected.
I have studied and read excessively on the role of citizens towards nation building and I can categorically tell that we have failed in our responsibility to our dear nation and for this reason we should all be blamed, both the leaders and the followers who are the bony frame structure of a given society. We found ourselves in this colossal mess due to our failure of not structuring the nation towards national-unity, development –oriented, public-spirited and patriotic citizens to galvanize available resources and generate the necessary sentiments for the progress and well being of our society.
Features such as infrastructural decay and deficiency, unemployment, poverty, underdevelopment, hunger, high crimes, wild riots, corruption, tribalism, etc., are signs of citizens’ failure. There is a great contradiction between ‘what ought to and what is’ in Nigeria. And as you transverse fatherland seeing so much poverty and hunger amidst abundant resources the nation beget, you continue to question the thought and mind set of the citizens in the position of authority.
Nation building is not a tea party. It tasks the imagination, creative ability and commitment of the citizens. To some, nation building is about the ‘unification of people within a state in order to make it politically stable and viable’. To others, it concerns efforts of newly independent nations, to grow and catch up with the modern trends of the western world. It is also about the effort made by leaders of former colonial territories to ‘mould people of different ethnic, religious and linguistic groups into one nation state, sharing common values and aspiration. For this purpose, attempts are made to create common symbols of unity such as national flag, national career, national stadium, national sport festival, etc. and to promote collectively agreed values in order to promote common national identity for all citizens.
The citizenry point of view is important to the situation of Nigeria. According to relevant literatures, every society has its citizen who ‘define the life and death’ issues of that society. As a recent observer notes, the problem with the developing countries is the psyche of the citizens to nation building. A leader is first a citizen and his or her role to nation building cannot be undermined. What he does with his office is as a reflection of the characteristics of good or bad citizens.
A good citizen, who is a ruler, makes sure that he is committed to the welfare of his followers and provides them with adequate social services. He protects his followers from internal and external dangers and has good management of resources under his control.
It is the responsibility of every citizen to; abide by the Constitution, respect its ideals and institutions, the national flag, national anthem, national pledge, legitimate and properly constituted authorities; help enhance the power, prestige and good name of the country, defend the country and render national service as may be required, protect and preserve public property, fight against misappropriation and squandering of public funds, respect the dignity and religion of other citizens, respect the rights and legitimate interests of others, live in unity and harmony in the spirit of common brotherhood, make positive and useful contributions to the advancement, progress and well-being of the community where he resides, work conscientiously in his lawful and chosen occupation and abstain from any activity detrimental to the general welfare of other citizens or the country; ensure the proper upbringing of his children, participate in and defend all democratic processes and practices, render assistance to appropriate and lawful agencies in the maintenance of law and order.
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