BY NIYI ABORISADE
This Article is sequence to my last Article ; what is your name Nigeria and a continuation of the ‘Trilogy’ of cultural awareness as a way forward to progress and greatness.
Before I proceed further, let me define what Dimension means. A dimension is a degree of freedom of a system. In simple words, it is the number of ways or directions in which change can take place. There are known three Dimensions before Isaac Newton’s theory of Fourth Dimension which is Time. Time is considered a new and Fourth dimension. The jury is still out on whether time is an entity of its own as suggested by Isaac Newton. All the other three dimensional space did not consider time. Backwards time travel is almost impossible but we can travel into the future with adequate planning and foresight.
Without boring us with scientific matter, The Fourth dimension, Time is what I considered to be related to our own new dimension in Nigeria, that is direction in which change can take place and propel us to a bright future.
When Cultural Revolution was launched in China by Mao Zedong between 1966 until 1976 formally known as Proletarian cultural revolution with the aim of preserving communist ideology and by placing reliance on the home products, it did not immediately produce the desire results but on the long run the long time effect is the place of China Republic in the world today as the Economic giant of the world. The Chinese placed reliance on their home products and almost shut themselves out of the modern world. Having developed themselves very well, they started launching out with liberalized economy and their products, which was initially considered as fake products are now acceptable worldwide. These Chinese products now littered Africa and submerged everything and swallowed all other products.
During, Nigerian civil war of 1967 to 1970, the defunct Biafran state as an intending country built its own Airstrip where planes could land without any foreign help but by her own ingenious people, they
produced powerful bombs known as ‘Ogbunikwe’ which they used to destroy Nigerian Tanks and Vehicles, while they built rockets and their own refinery delivery systems. According to the late Biafran Supreme leader, Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu, “the State extracted and refined petrol, individual refined petrol in their back gardens, we built and maintained our airports, we maintained them under heavy bombardment … We spoke to the world through a telecommunications system engineered by local ingenuity … In three years, we had broken the technological barrier, became the most advanced black people on earth”. So many attempts were made to do other things under the pressure of war. They relied heavily on local production to survive and defend their country.
The Cultural Revolution is an awareness of what we were, what we are and what we can be.
After the war, what those in power should have done was to have integrated those people (Biafrans) who performed the ingenious technological advancement as a necessity to continue under the Federal Republic of Nigeria and give them the resources to continue the development as initiated during the 30 months civil war but alas this was not done and thus what would have produced cultural revolution was missed because of lack of trust. There are no doubts that there are great minds in Nigeria if we harness our resources and manpower. Imagine if some people could refined oil under the pressure of war and made use of it successfully, one now begin to wonder what Shell and other giant Oil manufacturing multinationals are doing in Nigeria and why we always complain that our refineries have broken down. Why do we have to rely on expatriates to put our refineries in order when we should have trained the ingenious professionals amongst us. How long shall we depend on China and foreign experts to operate a functional, focused and target driven oil sector? What happened to our scientists and technologists and what is the true state of our association with China, is it inclusive of training our own people?
The time to change in Nigeria is now! We need to forge a new dimension in terms of Cultural Revolution to propel Nigeria to the Next Level. We must be determined to make use of what we have and that of our local talents to enhance positive change in Nigeria. As at today, we cannot produce ordinary pencil in Nigeria and even tooth pick is imported from China. The tooth paste we are using is of foreign made,
though assembled in Nigeria. We have local tooth paste of herbs that has even been proved to be healthier than the foreign ones.
Our special taste for foreign goods is destructive to our advancement. People will look at your shoes
whether it is from Spain or Italy and not Okirika and they use that to assess your quality and status as a
Nigerian. This is not encouraging at all. Is it not ripe for Nigeria as a country to develop that Okirika sector to higher level and our leaders begin to wear shoes that is made from Okirika and not relegate it to only poor people who cannot afford the luxury.
This must be shown and demonstrated from the top class to the lowest class. Nigerian leaders should be proud of wearing Nigerian made wears, shoes, wrist watches and other accessories. Although sometimes, the political class was demonstrating a little bit of this, but as I am writing this now, I do not think the tempo is still burning. With over 90 political parties currently listed for 2019 elections, the best thing that would happen to this country is for the political class as the country is currently bubbling with various preparations for the 2019 election to source for 100 Percentage of their campaign souvenirs from the local market.
We have tried everything with less success. Our industries including textiles industries are dying because we prefer laces from Swiss to our own Funtua or Kaduna textiles. It is common for rich class to travel to Swiss to pick ‘Aso Ebi’ (uniformed dress for an occasion in Nigeria) for special occasions. We need to approach the issue with a new dimension from both the government and the governed to bring this change.
Let us consider this new dimension that will kick start a cultural revolution in our country and wait to see tremendous change that will take place. The positive change will surely come.
- Niyi Aborisade, is the President, National Movement For Positive Change (NMPC) Worldwide
