What patriotism?
My friend Tunde Leye did a Twitter thread early this morning that sparks off a very vital conversation in the lead up to the 2023 elections in Nigeria.
The only person(s) worth voting are those who understand the need for us to be able to say with conviction, “Civis Nigeriana sum”, something that the recently deceased Itunu Babalola did not have.
Back in the days when Roman legions marched across the earth and imposed the will of the Emperor on one and all, a concept emerged, first mooted by the prolific consul, Cicero.
The concept was simple, “Civis Romanus sum.”
“I am a Roman citizen.”
A century after Cicero died, the Apostle Paul was mobbed by a Jerusalem crowd for preaching. The Roman garrison intervened because Paul was able to speak to the commander and introduce himself not just as a Jew born in Tarsus, but with the words, “Civis Romanus sum.” If that crowd had killed him that day, the Roman garrison in Jerusalem would have been obliged to kill a few of them in return. Paul had a right to get his case heard by no less a person than the Emperor. He would eventually stand trial before Emperor Nero.
This concept of the state defending the rights of its citizens wherever they were was picked up in 1847 by Britain during the David Pacifico affair when a Greek mob attacked a Brit. Lord Palmerston blockaded Greece’s capital, Athens, just to get £500 compensation for Pacifico. In sending the Royal Navy to punish the Greeks, Palmerston quoted Cicero’s “Civis Romanus sum”, and added, “An injury to one is an injury to all.”
Basically, when a serious country’s passport holder is detained in another country, it matters what not he has done, their diplomats are duty-bound to defend his interests. A diplomatic official is sure to take on the role of regularly visiting him in prison until he is set free.
Just yesterday, Danny Fenster, an American journalist with Frontier Myanmar, a news outlet in Myanmar was released. Just last week, he’d been sentenced to 10 years by Myanmar’s junta for “casting the image of the military in a bad light”. America was not amused, and to make a foolish story short, Fenster has been freed.
These stories are important, not because they tell stories of governmental bravado, but for their need in stark contrast to how much we have failed our people here in Nigeria. And it is in this light that we must look at the tragedy of Itunu’s wrongful death in the Ivory Coast.
When David Hundeyin broke the story in March, he was assured by Mairoeffi among others that Nigeria’s government was on top of the situation, despite an unnamed official at the Nigerian embassy in Abidjan requesting about ₦2 million to pursue the case.
Itunu’s sad death calls into question the value of Nigerian life. The Nigerian state has a duty, an obligation, to provide protection and services for all Nigerian passport holders outside of Nigeria. But how can they, when they don’t even give a damn about those at home?
Daily, news about abductions of entire communities make the news, with ransom demands going from the sublime to the ridiculous–from hundreds of millions to mere bags of rice or whatever cooked food the kidnappers demand. Clearly, a government that has not found the answer to its mushrooming security crises at home cannot be expected to show leadership to its citizens held abroad, and there lies the core of the problem.
The Buhari govt is defective in all aspects, but most tellingly, leadership.
In 2014, Viola Onwuliri, summoned Egypt’s High Commissioner on behalf of Joshua Abdulazeez, who had been mistreated by Egypt Air officials. She told him, “One Nigerian citizen is important to us and part of our diplomacy is that every Nigerian everywhere must be accounted for.”
What the Buhari government has (again) demonstrated with the Itunu case, is that it only cares for a narrow elite in Nigeria. Yet, this same government will turn around and expect “patriotism”.
Biko ka m juo unu, where will this patriotism come from?