Let Us Keep Our Republic – A Call To Patriotism

Let Us Keep Our Republic – A Call To Patriotism

Let us keep our republic, and yes, this is a call to patriotism. A republic does not have any innate mechanism to maintain itself.

It relies solely on the people of the country to keep it so. 

A republic remains a republic because every citizen or resident of that country is committed to ensuring that the political space remains a republic. That, my friend, is patriotism.

Franklin Benjamin, one of the founding fathers of the American democratic experience and statehood, fully understood how a republic works.

When Elizabeth Willing Powel asked him, “Well, doctor, what do we have, a republic or a monarchy?” Benjamin Franklin answered her: “A republic if you can keep it.”

The great American statesman showed that your democratic experience within your republic would be precisely what you make of your republic. 

With a stroke of authentic brevity, Benjamin Franklin showed that for any republic to survive, its citizens must be patriotic and exalt the republic above all considerations, irrespective of the political divides.

Societies that violate this core understanding of the republic will fall into disintegration and chaos.

A country may declare itself a republic like Nigeria did in 1963.

Still, it may lose the essence of its republicanism over time if its people become careless, corrupt, and lose focus, as is the case of the Nigerian people.

A republic is designed to be kept by the people occupying it, and keeping a republic goes beyond mass nagging and demonstrations against the incumbent political leadership or showing unalloyed preference and support to a particular political party.

Let Us Keep Our Republic – A Call To Patriotism

Essentially, keeping a republic entails everyone having an overarching awareness of the need to contribute to the country’s commonwealth, growth, and prosperity at all levels. 

Every member of the society eschews social vices such as corruption and anti-social behaviours and imbibes a sense of personal responsibility towards the growth and commonwealth of the country. 

A functioning republic expects everyone to contribute their quota positively and punish those who dare to err or put the commonwealth and the country’s growth in jeopardy, and, most importantly, the republic should be seen to be righteously dispensing justice.

A functioning republic does not reward corruption and anti-social behaviours, and those working against it, regardless of who they are, be highly or lowly placed. 

Any country that forgets these infallible assertions always pays dearly for them, and Nigeria, as a democratic republic, is paying dearly for our collective ignorance of how a republic functions. 

I am calling all Nigerian citizens and residents to adopt a patriotic mindset. Adopting a patriotic mindset is the most direct solution to Nigeria’s awkward and complex situation. The time to adopt a patriotic mindset is now, and I cannot emphasise the importance of this assertion more.

Suffice it to say that Nigerians can solve Nigeria’s peculiar problems.

We can work our way out of these problems if we choose to. It is naive and disingenuous to blame the political leadership alone while excusing the main culprit – The People of Nigeria. 

I understand this is an unpopular time to write objectively, as what’s in vogue is to join the condemning or defending trains of our political incumbency. In our political journey, that hasn’t worked and will not work in the near and distant future. 

We are on a “long thing,” excuse my inculcation of the urban slang, which loosely translates as simply embarking on a forlorn ride of dented hope that can only bring about a copious and vicious perpetuating circle of social disappointments. 

Let me strip my last point down for ease of understanding.

When President Goodluck Jonathan-led government was in power, the clamour was to scrap the PDP and usher in President Buhari’s APC-led government, with numerous promises of change and emphasis on his integrity.

Well, we all were disappointed at the end of the day.

Let Us Keep Our Republic – A Call To Patriotism

President Buhari did not deliver as expected.

His integrity, morality, and sense of perceived justice could not provide the expected socio-political gains. 

Let’s fast forward to the end of  President Buhari’s eight-year Presidential tenure. Even the most ardent of the APC party’s supporters criticised him and switched the music to the renewed hope of now President Tinubu’s political sagacity and competence. It’s challenging to quickly forget the campaign slogan – “Emi lokan,” a Yoruba affirmative phrase that loosely translates to “It is my turn.” 

The citizens’ hope was heightened again, and the APC’s Chief Tinubu was ushered in, yet the story remains the same after ten months in office. 

I stand to be corrected, all things being equal, if Nigerians should ditch President Tinubu and embrace Mr Peter Obi or Chief Atiku or any other Nigerian, the story will likely be the same.

Their supporters will campaign with rigour and then turn around after a while in office to walk back some of their stances.

It’s interesting how some of the current president’s supporters blamed President Buhari, only to turn around and shift the blame to the local and state governments. Confusion is everywhere.

Some of the supporters of President Tinubu are not as dogged as the supporters of President Buhari, who defended his position to a hilt until his exit from office.

It is sadly funny to see some of the supporters of President Tinubu already changing their tunes just ten months into his governance. 

Both instances of President Buhari’s Supporters and President Tinubu’s supporters depict one fact – that the citizens are overwhelmed and confused.

Nigerian citizens at all levels have trapped themselves in their inherent trickery, dishonesty, craftiness, short-sightedness, lack of sense of delayed gratification, and confusion.

Why is this so?

Let Us Keep Our Republic – A Call To Patriotism

The answer is simple. Like most citizens of other developing countries, Nigerians need help understanding how a republic works and making it work. More so, we do not understand the dynamics of the political ideal of democracy. 

We embrace the razzle-dazzle of the peripherals of democracy, its attendant shenanigans, and, importantly, the paraphernalia of the elected, well, let’s say, allotted political offices. Everyone is falling over heels to grab as much as possible from our republic’s commonwealth as if it is some gold rush, implying no faith in our systems anymore.

 We lack the core understanding of what makes a republic work. As powerful as the ideal of democracy is, if we do not grasp what makes a republic work, our democratic experience will fail, the number of dispensations notwithstanding.

We need to know and understand that a republic is only as functional, practical, robust, buoyant, and capacitated to the extent to which its citizens are willing to elevate the well-being, growth, and commonwealth of the republic above all considerations.

Suffice it to say that the supremacy of the republic must be deemed sacrosanct. This understanding is patriotism in knowledge and action, and the citizens who understand and practice this are patriotic. 

Any republic that elevates any other variable, no matter the perceived value, over its existence, is doomed to fail or risk being subsumed.

In Nigeria, we are not patriotic. We are all guilty of the crime of grinding our society aground. We mistake democracy for elections and rotation of powers alone.

Not until we realise that the Nigerian project is our collective project to manage, it may not work. Not until we choose first to hold ourselves to account in our various corners before holding the people in government to account, it may not work. Not until we demand better input from individuals and collectively as citizens will our democratic experience work. 

Let Us Keep Our Republic – A Call To Patriotism

Not until we place the same demand and expectations on the elected leaders at the lower levels of government, that is, the local and state governments, as much as we place on the federal government, will our democratic experience work. Our republic will not work until we hold the civil servants to account and are intolerant of corruption, even in the informal and voluntary sectors. 

Aside from the above understanding, it is also essential to understand that corruption and social indiscipline are endemic in Nigerian society because the citizens are not patriotic. The people with access to the government coffers are looting the nation’s commonwealth, while those aspiring to such positions of opportunity and power are only bidding their time to take their turn at looting the country dry. There seems not to be any respite in view, unfortunately. 

Corruption is deep and widespread in Nigeria. It is essential to state that it is not limited to the experience of the politicians alone but to the experience of all Nigerians.

No facet of Nigerian society is safe from corruption and lack of patriotism. The informal sector is rife with corruption. The middle class and the public service stink of corruption, and the elites are not left behind. Every one of us practices corruption at our respective levels and scopes, one way or another. 

Our society is unfortunately decayed and encourages corruption and mental contamination at all levels. It is sad to say that a senior civil servant who retires without amassing wealth at the expense of the taxpayers is subjected to ridicule by society and even in religious circles, while known government coffers’ looters may be rewarded and decorated with titles and access to privileged spaces within the society.

I am not attempting to cast aspersion on anyone or question anybody’s integrity but to highlight that character values within our leadership and, more importantly, societal dynamics no longer matter. 

It is a case of the end justifying the means. Why should anyone play fair, then? Our ignorance and lack of clarity of purpose speak to our shame and the rot in our society. A self-inflicted wound, I must say. 

We self-sabotage most of the genuine efforts of the government to reform the society.

We support such reforms until they impact us and our culture, and then we secretly seek to frustrate such moves.

This unpatriotic and selfish mindset is the bane of our society.

How do you expect such a society to advance and get it right? How do you expect such a society like ours to experience the dividend of democracy genuinely? How, then, are we supposed to be able to keep our republic? We are our problem. We are a victim of our own making.

Our leaders are just a reflection of us as a people. We may elect a new set of leaders every four years; it would not matter, and the result may likely be the same.

Individual Nigerians need to start acting patriotically and eschewing unpatriotic and selfish motives and actions, and then, we can begin to address our shortfalls, one after the other.

Let the change begin with you. 

Let Us Keep Our Republic – A Call To Patriotism