For Nigeria to make progress, I believe we must follow the Rev Martin Luther’s lead, in that civil emancipation from the system of things will not come if we are unwilling to take, give and receive blows. Until our people recognise their rights under the law and until our youth receive proper mentorship and tutelage from past failures and successes, our dilemma as a poor nation despite our so-called size and wealth will remain entrenched.
Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku
Recently, there were two developments which emphasized the need for the civil empowerment of our people under the rule of law. The first was the reunion of the University of Benin class of 90 law graduates.
In years gone by, I had often hobnobbed with members of this class. Most of that time, it was usually from a distance. Yet even as a Jambito, there were instances wherein I sneaked into this particular class to listen to some of the lectures.
Through Sam Kargbo, I was to meet the Hon Patrick Ikhariale, Mrs Mercy Jackson, Austin Erhabor, Walter Amachree, Okhaima, Africa and a host of others.
Most of them are robust, and look pretty now but they were not always like that in those days. Austin was the skinniest of the lot, while Okhaima was the prettiest then I remember.
I have also had the special privilege of knowing about the personal and professional lives of some of these lawyers. What comes off at once from mixing with this class of lawyers is the template of progress, brotherliness and a camaraderie which being classmates in the early 90s can bring to bear.
I remember a certain seminar which they organised. Thus, as I listened to speech after speech after speech, I began to understand something of the need for lawyers to be widely-read, primed and proper for the challenges ahead.
Indeed, most of them have become very successful, necessitating this desire to go back to the alma mater and give something back.
For me, the most important part of that reunion was the meeting of this class with the present crop of students. In those days, law students did not usually don a uniform and most of them were much more matured than the crop of today.
I remember that one of them popularly called ‘Africa’ had already bagged a degree in political science before venturing into the legal profession. Therefore, this meeting was an interface between the old and the new/young, the past and the present, apparently in a quest for a brighter tomorrow.
But if that was all that it was, it may have been just as one of those criminal law and jurisprudence lectures. After Sam Kargbo, Hon Patrick Ikhariale and Mercy Jackson were done with speaking to the students on what it takes to be a practising lawyer, a lawyer-cum-politician and decorum for female lawyers respectively, several issues came up. For me however, the most important, apart from welfare and scholarships, was the issue of a school for tutelage and mentorship.
We need politicians, administrators, and everyone who have governed us at the highest levels, whether a success or a failure to come together to start an academy of mentorship for undergraduates in Nigeria.
Anyone who has read Dan Senor and Saul Singer’s Start Up Nation (2009) would immediately begin to realize why Israel even though one of the tiniest nations on earth beset by enemies all around is one of the strongest politically, economically and militarily in the Middle East.
Right from birth, an Israeli child is a soldier first before he ever thinks of going to school. At the age of 20 or 30 when most of our young people are still struggling to write JAMB, the Israeli boy/girl would have completed military training and then universities select them for their records of military service.
Many a time and oft, we mouth that expression that the youth of Nigeria are the leaders of tomorrow, and have tried to support that belief with some kind of ineffectual youth service programme.
But apart from the social-cultural benefits of the NYSC, there is no other institution yet in Nigeria, formal or informal which brings former and current administrators together to teach, educate and give lectures to students on why our economy continues to wobble, why our institutions are weak and why Nigeria, after five decades, after independence is still being run by same-o-same-o.
The other incidence which occurred recently, and which has convinced me of the strong need for the civic empowerment of our people under the rule of law was a quest for alternative accommodation beyond my present circumstances.
I ran into angel, who not only offered a ride but offered me an opportunity to meet with an estate agent. As this angel dropped me off at the Ring Road, just by the Anthony Enahoro Edo State House of Assembly Complex, three scums jumped in the vehicle and arrested us.
Our offence was that we had parked where we shouldn’t, and they wanted to take us to a mobile court. I looked around and saw that we were properly parked, against a street/traffic sign boldly etched on the road. First thing I wanted was the identity cards of these fellows, and to agree to proceed to the mobile court.
But as usual, a mob was on us, telling us to take things easy and play along. Being outnumbered and out-reasoned, I curled my fingers in one tight ball ready to unleash it at the nearest fellow.
For Nigeria to make progress, I believe we must follow the Rev Martin Luther’s lead, in that civil emancipation from the system of things will not come if we are unwilling to take, give and receive blows.
Until our people recognise their rights under the law and until our youth receive proper mentorship and tutelage from past failures and successes, our dilemma as a poor nation despite our so-called size and wealth will remain entrenched.
Etemiku is ANEEJ communications manager and trustee of Civil Empowerment & Rule of Law Support Initiative (CERLSI) @DsighRobert
