By Donu Kogbara

IN 1999, I was married to an English fellow journalist called Dominic and we were based in London with Oliver, our small son.

For all sorts of reasons, I felt like a radical change in direction and wanted to try living in an African country, having grown up in the UK; and I was able to persuade Dominic to move to Abuja.

The marriage never recovered from this decision, largely because Dominic was appalled by the shoddy treatment we received from so-called friends on arrival – Naija VIPs who had promised to help us but didn’t lift a finger on our behalf; and Dominic bitterly blamed me for dragging us out of our British comfort zone.

When Dominic left, I stayed. My late father was very ill, so I wanted to be near him. I also still, in those halcyon days, believed that Nigeria would eventually come through for me. So I became a divorced single mother and did any respectable work I was offered in the Federal Capital or my home state (Rivers), while Oliver attended the American International School in Abuja. Oliver has long gone – he now, aged 27, lives in Los Angeles. But I am still here, taking care of my widowed mother who now has Alzheimer’s; and still accepting any respectable work I am offered.

Trust me, it has been one hell of a rocky ride. There have been quite a few carefree happy moments and quite a few lovely real friends who haven’t betrayed me. But I gotta tell ya that my Nigerian experience has been mega-traumatic overall……not just because of the bad things that have happened to me personally (being kidnapped in 2015 for example), but because of the bad things that never stop happening to Nigerians in general.

This mortal sphere is not meant to be Heaven and no country is perfect. But there is no excuse for Nigeria’s multiple failures and dysfunctions, which are off the scale. How can a nation that isn’t short of intelligent citizens be such a shameful mess? It is easy to blithely blame lousy leaders for the deeply embedded moral turpitude they display and the widespread incompetence they inflict on the governance system.

It is easy to distance ourselves from lousy leaders as if we bear no responsibility at all for their actions, their survival and the fact that most of them thrive till they die without obstruction and are never punished for their audacious misdemeanours.

But our leaders didn’t fall from the sky! They aren’t aliens from a different planet. They don’t speak languages we don’t understand. They are part of us. We hear every word they say, loud and clear. We know them very well indeed. They are our parents, cousins, uncles, aunties, siblings and pals. They are members of our families, ethnic groups and social circles. Their values reflect the values of the societies that produced them; and they get away with nonsense because we allow them to.

Long story short: followers are almost as culpable as lousy leaders if they indolently, complacently, stupidly and masochistically sit back and mumu-ishly tolerate evils they have the power to reject. My senior sister, Onyeka Onwenu, the fabulous filmmaker, actress and musician, appeared in a now-iconic TV documentary in 1984. Titled “Squandering of Riches,” it focused on the corruption that was destroying Nigeria.

Onyeka recently took to Instagram to point out that corruption is even worse in 2023 and that we are also struggling to cope with an escalating descent into lawlessness, violence and carnage. Her ultimate message in the Instagram video is clear: On the eve of the seventh general election since democracy was restored in 1999 (the year I came home), we have a choice. 

We can accept an Old School business-as-usual deal or give others a chance to provide us with an alternative type of leadership and transform Nigeria into a shining citadel, so our youngsters don’t feel obliged to flee overseas, in a quest for brighter futures.

The late great Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama have both said that the entire Black world will gain so much self-esteem and so many economic opportunities if Nigeria gets its act together. I can honestly say that the dreams that brought me to Nigeria lie in tatters. I came here to make myself useful and share the knowledge I had gained abroad with my brethren. And I’ve wound up depressed and am now seriously considering a return to the UK. Many of my Nigerian friends and relatives in the UK would have liked to come home when they had finished their studies or worked there for a few years. Dying in the UK was never their Plan A.

But they have seen what happened to me, seen what has happened to their motherland, seen the kids queuing up to escape from it and wisely decided to stay where they are. Despite being entitled to British passport since birth, more or less, I’ve never applied for one. And I now regret this patriotic decision. 

Undecided Nigerian voters should PLEASE summon up the courage and vision to try something new. If they disappoint, throw them out at the next election in 2027!