Nigeria

NIGERIA: STILL STRUGGLING FOR INDEPENDENCE

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Nigeria

Which will be the first modern, post-colonial Black African country to become independent?
– To stand as a First World country in the midst of global leaders.
– To take the leap from extractive economy to highly productive, manufacturing, innovative and invention-leading economy.
– To develop and run a nation-wide, all-encompassing and unconditional Social Security scheme.
– To become an Export world champion, exporting not just natural resources, but finished products.
– To take its place at the cutting edge of technology and information technology.
– To become a favoured global destination for medical tourism and university education.
– To have a currency that rivals USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, CNR.
– To develop and take a leading role in the building of a new economy and new industry around the concept of sustainability. Because that is the future.
– To entrench legally protected civil and human rights.
– To engender independent institutions of democracy.
– To defeat the evil of tribalism.
– To stop begging, taking and being dependent on foreign aid.
– To stop allowing foreign religions to drive it to hate, exploit, oppress or kill its fellow Africans.
– To stop producing economic Refugees in droves.
– To hold regular free and fair elections, free of rigging, where votes count.
– To hold its richest and most powerful accountable.
– To fight corruption impartially, and stand without exemptions under the Law.
– To eradicate extreme poverty, and democratise and ensure education and opportunity for all.
– To work tirelessly for peace and unity on the African continent.
– To push, power and perfect intra-African trade, tourism and transport to the same levels as on other continents and in other world regions.
– To have a modern, disciplined military focused on defense of borders and values, as well as upholding of peace, and not full of megalomaniac dreams of coup d‘etats and executive power all the time.
– To have a depoliticised Police Force that serves the people rather than being used against the people.
– To maintain a hardworking, well-functioning, digitalised, detribalised, highly educated Civil Service.
– To own its own narrative, with its own independent media, on the global stage.
– To become a global lender, instead of a global borrower and beggar.
– To export technology and new technology to the rest of the world.
– To have a power, economic and civil infrastructure that matches every other First World country‘s.
– To become one of the decision makers in the UN, in WEF, in the G8.
– To break the culture of waste, squander and exhibitionism.
– To support and grow small and medium-scale enterprises all over the country.
– To develop a large and economically virile middle class.
– To feed itself independently.
– To power itself independently.
– To ensure electricity 24/7.
– To become a center of future-birthing research and development.
– To become a part of the space community.
– To find its own local solutions to its own local, as well as global, challenges.
– To be a part owner, and controller, of the global market.
– To produce proud citizens who have greater opportunities in their own Black countries than they would in foreign countries where they are never fully accepted.
– To turn around the historical burden of slavery and colonisation, and transform it into global leadership.
– To stand as a First World country in the midst of global leaders.

Which will be the first Black African country to become REALLY INDEPENDENT?

This is the silent question that hangs unanswered in the global imagination of all humankind, and floats inchoate through the heart of everybody of Black African extraction anytime another Black African country celebrates its annual so-called Independence Day.

Today’s it’s Nigeria’s turn. Country of my birth. 1st October.
Happy Independence Day, Nigeria.
Or should I rather say:
Happy Future-Independence Day.

Because only Self-dependence, Self-reliance, is truly Independence.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije

PUZZLETEILE DER MENSCHHEIT

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Ich komme aus einer Welt,
die mich nicht versteht
und lebe in einer Welt,
die mich falsch versteht,
weil ich in der ersten Welt zur zweiten
und in der zweiten Welt zur ersten
angeblich gehöre oder gehören sollte.

Äußerlich unterdessen
kämpfe ich in der ersten Welt für Rechte,
die es in der zweiten gibt,
und in der zweiten für Rechte,
die es in der ersten gibt
und frage mich, ob sie sich je
in der Mitte treffen werden.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Im Jahrzehnt der Deutschen Dichtung

ROT IST DAS NEUE GRÜN

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Wut und Trauer
Meine Augen waren doch blauer
Als sie sich braun dünkten
Jetzt sind die Tränen dunkel geworden
Gefärbt von Herzblut
Blut! Blut! Rot ist das neue Grün
Blut der Regen
Denn die Zukunft will keimen und wachsen
Doch die Vergangenheit schlägt immer zurück –
Jetzt bin ich schlauer. Aber nicht zu spät.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Im Jahrzehnt der Deutschen Dichtung

AFRIKA UND DIE WELT: DER MOMENT DER WAHRHEIT

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

UNTERSTÜTZT DIE DEMONSTRANTEN IN NIGERIA!

Alle, die jahrzehntelang Milliarden in sogenannte Entwicklungshilfe in Afrika gesteckt haben, dürfen jetzt ihr Wollen zur Entwicklung Afrikas beweisen, in dem daß sie ihre Unterstützung dem Schrei der jungen Menschen in Nigeria nach Veränderung und Entwicklung geben. Alle ihre Milliarden taugen zu nichts und schnecken nach Betrug, wenn sie nicht jetzt mitmachen und Druck auf die nigerianische Regierung ausüben! All ihre Rohstoffe kommen aus Afrika. Afrika wurde in Europa – in Deutschland – geteilt. Schweigen wäre jetzt ein Ausdruck der Mittäterschaft.

Auch die westlichen Medien, deren größte Freude bisher in dem Verbreiten schlechter Nachrichten über Afrika bestand, haben jetzt die Pflicht und die Verantwortung, die derzeitigen millionenstarken Proteste in Nigeria gegen Machtmissbrauch und für Reform zu covern und zu reporten.

Und jeder Afrikaner, der die Besserung seines eigenen Landes oder ganz Afrika will, sollte unterstützen, wenn in einem anderen afrikanischen Land der Schrei nach Veränderung laut wird.

HEUTE IST IMMER DER MORGEN, AUF DEN WIR GEWARTET HABEN!

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

It is an illusion that Government can save Nigeria. All government can do is more or less throw its weight behind either the fair redistribution of our national wealth or not.

This thing we call “our wealth” however is our biggest self-deception, because we did not create it and do not truly posess it. We simply take what Nature made and sell it and pocket the money without even giving any part of it back to nature.
We then stash away the bulk of this money and share a small part amongst ourselves and use the little rest for “business”. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is inventing itself AWAY from fossil fuels and a system dependent on it.

Real wealth or poverty lies in the ideas that bubble up in the mind. The only thing that can save Nigeria long term is twofold:
1. To learn to transform by ourselves the bulk of those raw materials stage by stage into the final world-class products that everybody else will need and will queue up to buy.
2. To become a scientifically inventing people and culture who already now think up and excute solutions for the time when oil has finished or become irrelevant. A people who don’t eternally leave the inventing of the future to foreigners. That kind of hardwork and industry awakens new virtues and powers in a people and a culture.

Any government that, in addition to meeting its fundamental security and human rights responsibilities, also supports, engenders and midwives this new path, is a government that truly understands and wants to solve the problem LONG TERM. Any other one is just implementing short-term measures, more or less effectively. But the real danger – eventual contextual Recolonialization – remains.

If the Federal Government cannot or will not do it, either because of ineptitude or corruption or bigotry, then each State Government has to step forward and do what is within its power in the service of modernising its citizens – mentally, morally, materially and technologically.

Even on the level of the Local Government – indeed especially on the level of the LG – can the push towards a transformation of the peoples and their conditions take place.

Going by the level of corruption and desperation and visionlessness on ground now, that might seem just like wishful thinking. But I believe events will make it incredibly obvious that we are marching straight back into subjugation – either at the hands of Islamic Imperialism via a hegemonic section of the Fulani power-holders assisted by their lackeys in the other tribes; or at the hands of White Western Supremacist economic, military and political control; or at the hands of rising Asian globalization of dominance spearheaded by the Chinese.

One way or the other we’re going to get it unless we become truly independent and the governments of the Nigerian peoples get right the two points mentioned above, and find a way to tie it into Panafricanism.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

INTERVIEW IN OSAKA

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

BEGEGNUNG IN OSAKA, 23.02.2020
So eine schöne Begegnung, aus der ich so viel mitnehme. Vor allem: Es ist gar nicht so schwer, Verständnis für einander zu entwickeln und in Frieden miteinander zu leben, wenn der Mensch es einfach wirklich will! Und was anderes habe ich auch gelernt: Die Macht des früh (falsch) Gelernten oder Verinnerlichten. Ich zähle seit ich von den Alpen das erste Mal erfahren habe, vor vielen Jahren, die Zugspitze irgendwie zu der Schweiz! Frag mich nicht warum. Liegt nicht mal an deren Grenze. Dieser Fehler hat mir jahrzehntelang still schweigend gefolgt und mich heute in Osaka eingeholt. Anhand solcher Kleinigkeiten merke ich, daß ich nicht in Deutschland zur Schule gegangen bin. Bei “Wer wird Millionär?” würde ich eher an den ersten 5 Fragen scheitern, als an den restlichen 15. Also muß ich, nach dem ich Osaka besucht habe, auch endlich mal die Zugspitze mit einem Besuch erstatten. Denn interessante Menschen und interessante Begegnungen gibt es überall, wie man sieht. 😉

*ps – the highest mountain in Germany is called the Zugspitze.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

MEIN GROSSVATER

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Er nannte ihn den Hitlerkrieg.
Der Ausdruck 2. Weltkrieg
Wurde erst später populärer,
Nach der Allierten Sieg.

Davon war er ein Teil,
Ein Schwarzer Kolonialsoldat
Aus britischem Nigeria –
Danach erfuhren sie den Verrat:

Tilgung aus den Geschichtsbüchern.
Alle Seiten wechselten Seiten –
Freund in guten Zeiten ist nicht
Immer Freund in schlechten Zeiten.

Wiederdaheim wurde er Polizist,
Lehrte seine Kinder 3 Dinge lieben:
Einander, die Bildung und Gerechtigkeit –
Der Schlüssel, hat er gelernt, zum Siegen.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
2019: Das Jahr der deutschen Dichtung

HERBSTGEBUNDEN

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Wer hätte gedacht
Als ich unweit der Mittellinie
Unserer Erde geboren wurde
Zwischen Regenwald und Wüste
Tropenbewässert
Harmattangetrocknet
Sonnensohn und Savannahsäugling
Daß ich einst den Herbst
Lieben lernen würde?
Den fremden Herbst.

Wer hätte geahnt, daß das
Was mich ergänzen und stärken
Beruhigen und besänftigen
Verstehen und inspirieren und heilen
Und fesseln würde
Ganz ruhig
Die ganze Zeit in der Fremde
Lebte und webte?
Erschien und verschwand und erschien
Egal, wer ihn erlebte oder nicht.

Als ich das erste Mal Deutschland sah
War mir alles fremd und abweisend
Außer dem Herbst
Der Herbst war mir vertraut
Wie eine Hälfte meines Lebensgedichts.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
2019: Das Jahr der deutschen Dichtung

THE BEST OF THE GOOD IN US

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

For those people (and leaders) who like to blame the masses and exonerate the leaders who, as they say, afterall emerged from those same masses and from those same people… well, as logical as your argument is, I would nevertheless like to say this:

This is the magic and importance of leadership -:
If you aspire to leadership and campaign for it or willingly accept an appointment to it, you thereby indicate your willingness to be better than the masses, to be an example for the masses and to pull, inspire, chaperone and lead the masses out of the wrong towards the right. You indicate your certainty that you KNOW and UNDERSTAND the masses, from out of whom you also arose. Your campaign is an assurance that you know their weaknesses and strengths, their qualities, history and idiosyncrasies, their needs and problems. And that you know how to pull them together and bring out the Better Them. The best in them.

No one expects you to be perfect, but they expect you to strive towards perfection. If they experience you doing so, they will be ready to forgive you your shortcomings.

Blaming the masses is not the solution. The masses are yearning and looking for a leader – a GOOD leader. And that’s why they voted for you. They believed in your rhetoric and put their faith in you. Now YOU have to lead them towards what is better – instead of turning around and blaming them.

Especially in a young country whose institutions are still weak and forming, where there is mass under-education and massively one-sided congregation of wealth, we need powerful circles and groups of leadership personalities to break into the driving seat on all levels and power the birth of the best of the good in us. One day we will hit that critical mass that tips the scale. Good people really need to stick together and work together – because evil people always do. Irrespective of colour, class, cut-out, conviction and creed – on both sides.

The leader should first give his best, his honest and noble best; and then leave posterity to be the judge. Don’t blame the masses, don’t blame the people. Blame the leaders. If you are not ready or able to lead, do not step forward in the first place to ask for or accept the staff of office. If you do that, then you represent the worst of what you condemn in the masses.

From now on, we want leaders who represent and reflect The Best of what is in the masses of the peoples. This is what Nigeria needs now. This is what Africa needs now. Afterall, there is a reason why leadership is called “public service”.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

www.facebook.com/686560623/posts/10162636576420624

NEEDED: QUANTUM LEAP IN OUR LIFETIME

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Nigeria IS a Crisis.

It‘s been almost 50 years since the civil war ended; … and today someone was dejectedly complaining of being without electricity for 24 hours straight – and of just feeling as if she was still in the civil war devasted Biafra zone where everything broke down under the onslaught of war. Sitting in the dark. Feeling unsafe. Not knowing when the Danger will manifest. But you know it’s out there, coming at you, waiting for you. Nervous about the present and the future. All you have is just your resolve to survive, and the depressing certainty that the difficulties are far from over. You struggle to find hope. Only the super rich can afford a more or less uninterrupted self-supply of the basic necessities. Normalcy becomes a luxury. But this is not Biafra 1969. This is Nigeria 2019. On the day on which you should celebrate in exhilaration, you just feel miserable as you see the state of your country.

Almost 50 years after the Civil War. From Gowon to Murtala to Obasanjo to Shagari to Buhari to Babangida to Shonekan to Abacha to Abdulsalami back to Obasanjo on to Yar‘adua on to Jonathan … back to Buhari. It‘s like we have just gone round in a vicious circle back to darkness and hopelessness and sadness. On Independence Day, on Nigeria‘s 59th Independence Day – and in fact a full 121 years after street lights were first installed in Nigeria – millions of people in Nigerian towns and Nigerian villages are sitting in darkness in their homes on Independence Day 2019. This is Nigeria‘s sad and shameful report card.

People, we need a QUANTUM LEAP forward. But this is the question: Who will trigger it? Who will chaperone and manage it? Who will deliver and anchor it, and safeguard it and programme it with the software of the internal logic of self-perpetuation, so that it will keep on leaping forward henceforth? The people who created Nigeria did not design it for the people who live in Nigeria today. We were not on their minds. Nigeria was designed to function as a Colony, not as a self-governing Entity. At so-called Independence in 1960, the White leadership of that Colony was simply replaced by Black leadership. But a Colony by nature it remained and still remains until today.

And because Nigeria, at its heart, in its design, in its internal logic, and in its set-up, is still a Colony and is still wired like a Colony, it thus lends itself most easily to be conquered by and to be subservient to imperial leadership, to ANY imperial Leadership. And that is why any tribe or clique or gang or cabal that is versed and experienced in the ways of Imperialism will always find it easy – both in military and in civilian times – to work their way into the center of government and snatch the power and keep it to themselves, and there will be no mechanisms or dynamics or institutions in place to stop them from doing this. Even Democracy by itself will not stop them. Because Nigeria was designed for just this purpose: to be ruled by an Imperialist. The foundational nature of the animal itself, Nigeria, is that it was designed not to be a free King in the jungle, but to be the broken, driven, crazed and manipulated servant of an Imperator. Always remember this. This will explain to you why power, real power, always keeps returning to or remaining with a certain type of people. This is the DNA of Nigeria. Imperialists understand this. Republicans don‘t.

Until this system is broken up, a new kind of nation-being will not break through from our midst. A new kind of leadership will find no space to emerge. A new philosophy of followership will not be able to manifest itself. The united upbuilding will not take place. We all feel the right way things should be done – but the system just keeps on sabotaging every new attempt to correct Nigeria.

How much longer can Nigeria bear the weight of this chain? The World is galloping ahead. And one day the difference between where Nigeria is and where Nigeria should be, will tear Nigeria apart. If it ever comes to that, which would be the worst catastrophe that would have ever hit Africa, then, from the broken parts left behind, Biafra will strive again to rise again out of the darkness into which war once plunged her, rise again, rise up like the Rising Sun.

And I bet you, others will do the same too. Unless Nigeria can make that Quantum Leap, in our lifetime, away from the imperialism-prone colony-at-heart country she still is, and restructure herself into a balanced continuum that liberates her peoples’ internal powers of invention, organisation, self-correction and equal-footed association which can propel her forward. Forward into that future that is about to leave us behind.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije