Onwuchekwa Jemie
(Nationalist values and political will: The mental health of the Nigerian elite) [Contribution to the National Health Summit, Abuja, 8 September 1995]
Listening to the health experts who have spoken here this week should make it abundantly clear that Nigeria does not lack the technical expertise for solving its problems; what Nigeria lacks, as the experts themselves have repeatedly stressed, is the political will. That is why Nigeria is justly notorious for the number of excellent and vital policy documents, conference reports and summit recommendations which gather dust in archives and ministry shelves.
We need to recognize that this implementation malaise is a disease. In my layman’s view, the absence of the political will to do what is both right and necessary is a symptom of mental illness. To understand and cure this malaise requires that our concept of National Health be expanded to include the mental and social health of the national organism, particularly as that is manifested in elite behavior and misbehavior. The crux of Nigeria’s health problem, therefore, lies outside the health profession itself, but not outside the health field, in as much as it seems to lie in the area of mental health. Put in a nutshell, Nigeria may well be a nut case; and the chief nutters may well be the elite itself. So, perhaps, it is most appropriate to ask the experts at a National Health Summit to address this grave matter.
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Now, what exactly is this lack of political will? What is it but the Nigerian elite’s refusal or inability to take responsibility for its society? But why is the Nigerian elite irresponsible? What contributions have been made to this chronic irresponsibility by the nature of Nigeria; by the elite’s paramount values; by its mentality, aspirations and ruling passions; and by its misconceptions about crucial aspects of economic development? Let me comment on some of these.
First of all, Nigeria is like a lion with two heads, one in front and one behind, with each head pulling in the opposite direction from the other. Clearly, for any two-headed lion to move properly, one of its two heads must vanish.
In Nigeria’s case, one head is incorrigibly nostalgic for the ways of the slave-raiding and slave-trading societies which existed in and devastated Nigeria from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The other head lusts for the conspicuous capitalist consumerism of the European world. Note that I have not accused it of lusting after capitalist producerism — which it passionately abhors. Now, since neither of these two heads on the Nigerian lion is appropriate for national survival, there is a need to chop off, not one, but both heads, and to graft on a new head — a single head that is passionate for production, that is indoctrinated with producer values.
Secondly, three of the paramount values of the Nigerian elite today are possessive individualism, conspicuous consumerism, and universalism. Possessive individualism undermines the communitarian ethos; universalism undermines nationalism; and conspicuous consumerism undermines the ethic of production and investment, and breeds the endemic corruption which disorganizes our economic and social structures. Thirdly, one of Nigeria’s principal problems is a failure to recognize that national economic development and prosperity are by-products of the project to build national power and prestige, either out of fear of bigger powers or out of competition with rival powers. The quest for national power and prestige is the ultimate source of the political will to do whatever economic development calls for. It is the project of national power, not abstract moral precepts, not the consumerist appetite, that best imposes on a people the discipline, accountability, probity, and appropriate systems of sanctions and rewards that form the core values of a viable society.
If Nigeria were frightened or humiliated, or otherwise stimulated, into a quest for national power and prestige, then Nigeria would find the political will to implement those excellent policies which the experts have devised, not only for health, but also for education, economic development, etc. If you doubt this statement, just reflect on what has happened to Nigerian football since we began to consciously seek prestige on the football field.
But what can possibly be done to refit Nigeria with the paramount values and aspirations it so desperately needs? In my view, subject to correction from experts in the administration of therapy to social and cultural organisms, the principal obstacle here is the mental state of the Nigerian elite itself. And what exactly is the mental state of the Nigerian elite today, after four decades of accelerating degeneration and disorientation? Here are some clues:- -An elite that promotes systemic social disorder is an anarchist elite. -An elite that robs its own nation and hoards the loot abroad in the vaults of its historic enemies is a stupid elite.
-An elite which invites or welcomes foreign sanctions against its own country is a treasonous elite. -An elite whose policies promote brain drain, brawn drain and resource drain from its country is an elite that is bleeding its arteries dry. It is a suicidal elite. -An elite whose members take responsibility only for their own homes, and show no collective responsibility for the compound or street or village in which they live, is an idiotic elite, regardless of the brilliance and sanity of its individual members.
Now, an elite with any one of these traits is unfit to rule; an elite with all five is fatal for its country. I believe the record will uphold the verdict that Nigeria’s elite has degenerated to the point where its behavior is dominated by all five traits. In short, Nigeria has a lunatic elite which is on the brink of killing off its own country. We must therefore seriously consider whether Nigeria may not be better off exporting its lunatic elite wholesale, so as to end their pollution of the society. I estimate that, by now, there are some one million Nigerians who make up the lunatic core of this elite. Should they be induced to go away, Nigeria would be placed in a condition from which it could cure itself.
The trouble with our much lamented brain drain is that it is the wrong sort of brains that are draining away, whereas most of those that ought to drain away are staying put. It is those with a strong producer ethic, who cannot abide bedlam, who are obliged to flee. If the conspicuous consumerists and the anarchists and the lunatics departed in droves; and if the dedicated producers and the nationalistic remained behind, the brain drain would not be a bad thing at all. It would become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. It would give us a chance for a new beginning, a chance to begin to fulfill our great national potential.
Of course, inducing our lunatic elite to get rid of itself won’t be enough. We must also address three key questions:- (a) How do we prevent this lunatic elite from reproducing its character in the next generation? (b) How do we select and groom a nationalist elite to replace it within twenty years? (c) How do we frighten or humiliate the Nigerian elite into nationalism, or stimulate it to a competitive national pride that demands the development of national power?
Mark you, the search is not for an elite of saints, but for an elite of patriots who put the national interest before everything else, whether on earth or in the hereafter. We need an elite the paramount passion of whose members is to build a strong nation, instead of one whose prime aspiration is to turn Nigeria into an atomized, anarchist crowd of grand consumers. We seek an elite whose guiding motto shall be: What does it profit a man to gain the wealth of the whole world, and please himself and his lovely wife, while destroying his own country?
Please note: it was such an elite that made the Meiji Revolution in Japan; it was such an elite that made the Maoist revolution in China. It is the Nigerian equivalent that we must now consciously set out to find and groom, from among the best and brightest and most energetic members of those aged under twenty today. When such an elite emerges, the results of this national health summit, as well as many other summits, will be assiduously implemented.
In conclusion, let me note that if you find the above suggestions radical, you should see them as pointers toward a most needed national shock therapy. Thank you.
