OUR COLLECTIVE HISTORY: RAMBLINGS!

This is our collective history as far back as when we think it all went wrong: The soldiers who stole the throne from the first independent civil administrators brought in a new type of respect called fear. Whereas the civilian administrators were admired largely for their great intellect and perceived patriotism, the soldiers brought in their “might is right” mentality to the Nigerian conscience, proving this theory as they took turns to replace each other based on that principle. Most of these soldiers were smart individuals, but due to the physical and sometimes harsh nature of their job, they became seen as brutes before anything else, feared across the land, from North to South and from East to West. And in what must be regarded as one of our nation’s greatest ironies, they who stole the mandate became the glue that held this nation for so long till they handed power to a different uniform. It was during their days that most of the tales of this nation’s woes can be traced. Everyone living in this country can trace one life changing period in their lives to that era directly or indirectly.

We the neo-colonial slaves are stuck between our parents’ insistence to hold on to the past be it through some relative in a remote village they themselves refuse to live in or through their ongoing autonomy in our politics/personal lives and between our generation’s need to move “forward” through some social awakening be it on twitter or facebook or gasp, instagram; the perceived alien orientation our elders claim we stick to.

For this reason, our thinking differs and a battle between tradition and modernity rages. The battle between religion and culture rages, which people often mix and think are the same. The media has become the new battlefield upon which some of these battles take place. No longer do we tune in to the 9 o’clock news on NTA, when we can go on debating the polity on twitter till it is a trending topic and we are still talking about it the next day like we were all in the same room when it happened. The playing field has changed. Not only have we changed families, we have changed the game!

THE NON-WELFARE STATE OF NIGERIA

Picture taken from www.nigeriaembassyusa.org

In a country rife with tales of stolen and unpaid pensions, not to mention the state’s general inability to take care of the welfare of the average citizen (and this is not to discredit previous efforts by past government, whose biggest crime in this matter has been an apparent lack of sincerity), it’s hard to determine if Nigeria can actually provide for its elderly, unemployed and orphaned. We’ve all seen the lines of pensioners queuing up to get their pensions, sleeping on the floor, because they came from far away and couldn’t afford to pay for a hotel room in whatever major city they were called upon to receive their gratuity.

The fact is Nigeria has never set in place an at least adequate system to take care of its people. Not to mention the fear of the number of people who might take advantage of such a system, if it were even put in place. On the issue of pensions, one of the reasons why so many people are eager to work as “drones” (forgive me for using such a term) for the Civil Service is to obtain one. You hear the story often told to people reluctant to work for the Civil Service, they tell you to serve out a certain number of years and you become entitled to a pension (if that doesn’t make you a drone, I don’t know what qualifies). It’s one thing if you love the job or just happened to be opportune to be offered one, but to get into it just for the pension and a “secure future”, while understandable due to the “Nigerian situation”, explains why there’s so much complain about the Service. Other ways of getting a government pension includes working for other branches of the government, again for a certain number of years as well (military, police, e.t.c).

Private firms now offer people a pension plan taken from their salaries by taking away a certain percentage of your money and keeping it for you, sort of like saving for a rainy day and allowing you to access it whenever you want. So what happens to those deemed “uneducated” and don’t work a big job in the city, the farmers in the villages, the non-government workers and those who have no idea what a pension is? Who cares for them in old age? God forbid the farmer has no children, who takes care of the farm? Understandably and perhaps apologetically to the government, they can’t save everyone! But they can help the majority by taking care of the two ends of the welfare spectrum; that is the very young (infants) and the very old. Once that is done, the Middle Majority (those unemployed and often stereotyped unruly youths that turn “thug” when elections come, lol) can be dealt with, with less stress and in more innovative ways.

If the medical bills of the elderly from a chosen age are halved (with the other half perhaps paid by the state or just forgotten altogether) and parents don’t have to worry about paying maternity bills or paying less, it goes a long way in setting the foundation for a welfare state. These of course are just suggestions that are easier said on paper, but in reality harder to practice, when you consider the state of our Health industry and their dependent survival on funds.

So how do you come up with a system that makes sure whether you work for the government or not, that you will be taken care of in some way when you reach old age (whether financially or medically) and that when you have children at their initial stage they’re not a financial burden? I believe we have the money to create a half decent welfare system, otherwise they wouldn’t be anything to “misappropriate” from the government from time to time. It’s all about sincerity, I think and it seems to be what’s lacking.