Reflections @53: What’s life without dignity?

Hitting 53 years on earth, I have had a fair share of life in both positive and negative ramifications, but I strongly believe that my best years are still ahead of me. I am compelled to reflect and ask on what essence of life without dignity. To imagine and experience all forms of emasculation, suppression, disenfranchisement, violation, erosion of liberties, among others, that is now commonplace, portray a passionate predilection for an agonising life on earth.

What could have informed my hope in the first place? Naivety! Having enjoyed the best public education could offer at the time, I was opportune to have an early exposure to the world. I sat in class with students from across Nigeria and interacted with diverse of peoples from across the globe where no perceived discrimination of any kind existed.

My first encounter with bald-faced injustice was during my A-levels studies where I came in contact with the quota system. I sat in class with students that had just two credits in the General Certificate Examination (GCE) and enjoyed state government scholarship, while others with five credits were either denied admission or had admission but without scholarship on account of where they came from. This never really sank into my subconscious, most probably because I was never personally affected. Possibly as a science student, I was too carried away in making better grades and never considered such mild discrimination as offensive. I would, however, later confront this monstrous discrimination frontally in the university, especially as my final years turned out a battlefield of experiences than academics. There were clashes among students on account of faith, rather than ideology, with mutually deep mistrust animosity ripping across young minds that should be the fulcrum of future progress.

I was privileged to serve in a military establishment in Lagos during the one-year compulsory National Youth Service Corps Scheme. As a corps member, my faith in Nigeria was restored as the military epitomises patriotism and love for the Nation.

I woke up one morning to realise that I only had a family and nothing else, as I was provided with everything. I left the barracks for a journey into reality. Twenty years down the road; I found myself at war reconciling my reality and the ideal. First, everyone I met whose countries were colonised have strong negative impressions about their colonial masters, except Black Africa. I have met Nigerians who yearn for the return of the colonial masters. I have asked myself the questions: If I lived in the time of the conquests, when selling blacks in the market (slavery) was the business of the Arab and later the Europeans, would I accept their gods and religion? Why were the Arabs and later Europeans so cruel to the Blackman?

According to Nigerian Historian Max Siollun, apologists have said “it was impossible to see inhumanity in slave trade because the African was being looked upon as an animal, only superior to a monkey in that he could be caught to work”. For the perpetrators, however, a common defence as posited by a British Army officer, Mockler-Ferryman is that slavery has always been an integral part of the African social system. For the beneficiaries and descendants of the slave masters, the response is normally that of indifference or at best acknowledgement where necessary. But the plausible defence has been that Europeans saved us from savagery and protected us from ourselves.

The “second slavery” (brain drain) has been used to justify the first since people now willingly “enslave themselves in the West under the illusion of seeking greener pastures. Many have died attempting to cross the Sahara in search of prosperity beyond the African shore. The question I often ask myself is: Can I join in the ‘second slavery’? For this I have an answer, which is affirmative ‘No’. The simple reason being that I am willing to take responsibility for my destiny and I am forever resolved to remain where I can defend my dignity; for life without dignity is not worth passing through the corridor of mortality.

Someone may say that I have been privileged to live beyond the prejudices of the present. On the contrary, I have chosen to confront them daily as “I choose to live my hopes, instead of my fears”. Nigeria remains the only hope for all blacks on earth and if we miss it; Africa will have no choice but facilitate the extinction of the Blackman. I see a grand design to re-colonise Africa and Nigeria. As citizens, the greatness of our nation remains unshakeable and the world has always been in awe of our capacity to stick through thick and thin in not caving in to Western prediction of an imminent breakup.

History reveals that the African continent gave the world materials in building global empires and civilizations. These resources from Africa comprise    natural resources and intellectual prowess. We now have a new set of plunderers who are irrevocably committed to wiping the blacks from the face of the earth in order to take charge of our God-given African resources. No nation can withstand the onslaught except the citizenry is firmly united.

For those who truly believe in the survival of the Blackman, especially those in positions of power, the time to act is now. Posterity will judge us for all acts of commission and omission.

Dr Manzo, the director general of Nigeria Agribusiness Group, writes from Abuja