Mr Charles Ekere

Nigeria Who is Marginalizing Who? Mr Charles Ekere

In your hand is a literature that marks a significant departure from the seeming truth of one ethnic nationality marginalizing another as portrayed in the narratives of the discourse on marginalization in Nigeria over the years. It endeavors to present the deliberately hidden or glossed over truth on the discourse in order to correct the distortions in the images created in the minds of Nigerians by the rather erroneous perspectives on the root cause or causes of marginalization as contained in the narratives scripted mostly by the political class and acted on by the unsuspecting public of the various ethnic nationalities. While the narrative as presented especially by the actions and inactions of the political class has induced hatred, suspicion and distrust sometimes escalating into violent interactions among brothers (citizens) of Nigeria, the truth is that the issues which are negatively amplified to cause antagonism amongst us are actually unique aspects of our ethnic origin, political affiliation and faith which does not necessarily mean we are different and incompatible. Indeed, these unique aspects of us are actually different shades of one entity which can be harnessed to radiate a perfect beauty as in the case of the shades of colors in the rainbow blending to form a beauty to behold. That Nigerians are not really different to be incompatible is revealed in the interests expressed in the narratives advanced by the various ethnic agitation against marginalization. It is obvious that though the words and actions used to express this may differ, the interest are common (mutual) and cuts across all ethnic nationalities. These border on good road networks, standard, affordable and accessible educational and healthcare infrastructures, delivering state of the art services, security of lives and properties, economic opportunities either as employees or entrepreneurs, steady power supply, functional industries, good governance based on the rule of laws and institutions of government, a corrupt free society and the likes, all of which provide a reasonable guarantee for the individual as well as collective wellbeing of citizens. That means what citizens decry and that which they want to be changed is the slow pace or outright lack of development across the country. However, citizens have been indoctrinated and misled to pursue this mutual interest (development) using the very approaches that serve to strengthen rather than eradicate already entrenched miseries of corruption, joblessness, lack of industries, bad roads, rule of the emotions of "powerful men" as against the rule of law and the likes which signifies lack of progress. The approach of being antagonistic to one another along ethnic, religious and political fault lines has only left us with tales of woes, underdevelopment and extreme poverty in the midst of super abundance. Yes, super abundance.