Oseloka Obaze*
Saturday
19 November 2011
Nigeria of My Dream
Sam Adeyemi
(ISBN-978-978-49634-4-2; Pneuma
Publishing, Lagos, Nigeria, 2010, Pp. 117, Price, NGN1500)
Available at:
http://.www.Pnuemapublishing.com
Nigeria
of my
Dream
by Sam Adeyemi, first published in 2010 is due for a reprint.
This pithy volume, 117 pages in all, is the answer
to a nation in distress; and one confronted with many questions, of moral,
ethical, leadership, patriotic, tolerance and power and resources sharing
dimensions. It is an x-ray of the many problems of Nigeria.
This hardly utopic book is most propitious.
It singularly seeks to address how best Nigerians
can overcome their self-doubt, their lethargic if not non-existent patriotism,
their seeming intolerance of each other based of differing tribes, and overall,
how indeed, to bring about the aspirations and dreams of greatness that
Nigerians covet for their country.
Nigeria
of my
Dream
falls clearly under the genre and broad rubric of national re-orientation --an
academic and virtual reality exercise that is not totally alien to Nigerians and
their leaders.
Sam Adeyemi postulates that just as there is an ‘America Dream,’ there could also be the ‘Nigerian Dream,’ either singularly or collectively. This, though, will not happen except if each citizen is patriotic and seek to be the best in their respective areas of enterprise regardless of their standing in the community. Read differently, the book speaks power to the truth about the need for the political will to transform the nation and lead it to path of greatness. Hence, as Adeyemi suggests, the aim of the book is to “inspire you to dream and create a country of your dream.”
Nigeria
of my
Dream
is also a clarion call
to “stir you to aspire for excellence
because that is our destiny.”
Sam Adeyemi notes the numerous challenges
confronting Nigeria and encapsulates it with this example: “Nigeria is like an
aircraft that seats 150 million people who have not decided on the destination
of their flight” (p16). Noting that a key challenge to Nigerians and their
advancement is “poverty of the mind,” he asserts that “many of the things we
consider luxuries in Nigeria are necessities, which can be enjoyed by the
average citizen. We are suffering indignities unnecessarily” (p21).
Furthermore, Adeyemi points to the continued lack of
“Vision” both in the leaders and the followers as a national bane.
He notes that Nigerians blame and trusts everything
to God, overlooking their shortcomings and lack of visions. He contends in that
context that “Vision reveals the gap between your potential and your reality,
and that motivates you to change your circumstances” (p33).
Invariably,
Nigeria
of my Dream
grapples with various ideas that Nigerians seem to overlook but must inevitably
address in the course of nation building and “in order to have an orderly
society.”
These include “lack of value for life”; the need to “change
some of our beliefs and value system”; “mould people with entrepreneurial spirit
– inventors and job creators, not just job seekers” and becoming “change agents
and history makers.”
Adeyemi is of the view that when these goals and
disposition are attained, Nigerians can ultimately say, “I’m proud to be a
Nigerian” without sounding glib or hypocritical.
Indeed, “I’m proud to be a Nigerian” a phrase not
commonly heard from Nigerians, is a singular refrain that runs through the
entire volume, which lays the blame of the trouble with Nigeria on the leaders
and followers in equal shares.
Nigeria
of my
Dream
points to the different strands of Nigeria’s misplaced
priorities both in public and privates lives, as well and in the public and
private sectors. Adeyemi notes for instance that it is now the norm that “we
spend more on the dead than on the living” (p40).
Of our failing high school and university students
and those youths who do not have access to education or employment, he notes:
“They are a time-bomb for this country if we do not program them for success in
adult life” (p117).
Nigeria
of my
Dream
is encyclopaedic despite its size, proving that good things come in small
packages. The volume is part philosophy, part proselytization, part civic
education and part cultural reorientation.
Adeyemi
point to the many follies and foibles Nigerians are well known for, while
mapping out what the nation’s national priorities ought to be.
Nigeria
of my
Dream
belongs to every secondary school classroom in Nigeria and
indeed, to every home and library.
In this introspective and retrospective noble
exertion, Sam Adeyemi offers a broad rendition on Nigeria’s past, present, and
prospective paradoxes.
In the end, however, two questions remain:
Who will bell the cat? And who will lead Nigeria to
the Promised Land?
------------
Mr. Oseloka Obaze
is a co-founder of the
Kwenu.com Book Review Forum,
which is dedicated to the promotion of books with Igbo
and Afrocentric themes. He is also a supporting Member of the African Writers
Endowment (AWE). From 1999 to 2005, he served on the editorial board of
INYEAKA, the journal of Songhai Charities, Inc., a New Jersey
community-based charity founded and run by Nigerians based in New York Tri-state
area in the United States, first as its founding Publisher and later as the
Editor-At-Large. He is also on the editorial board of
The Amaka Gazette,
journal of the Christ the King College,
Onitsha Alumni Association in America. His collection of
poems, “Regarscent Past:
A Collection of Poems”
was second among the top three finalists in the poetry
category in the African Writers Endowment Publishing Grant Program for 2004.
He is working on a novel titled “Happy
Eulogy”.
He reviews books and arts strictly as
a hobby. © Copyright 19 November 2011.