Posted by Samuel on Fri 13th Dec, 2024 - tori.ng
In a post shared on his X handle, Olufunmilayo argued that people with unpalatable experiences about Nigeria should not be forced into patriotic if they choose not to be.
Amid ongoing criticism of Kemi Badenoch, the UK Conservative Party leader, for her unflattering remarks about Nigerians, UK-based Nigerian medical practitioner Dr. Olufunmilayo has stated that a hard truth Nigerians must acknowledge is that not every successful individual of Nigerian descent abroad holds positive memories of Nigeria.
In a post shared on his X handle, Olufunmilayo argued that people with unpalatable experiences about Nigeria should not be forced into patriotic if they choose not to be.
He wrote; ''This will be a long read,
But it will be worth your while if you read it to the very end. I write this from a place of pain and sadness.
I think as Nigerians, one painful truth we need to learn that not every successful person abroad with nigerian origin has a pleasant memory of Nigeria. And not everyone will speak nicely of a country that potentially ruined their families and ruined their lives.
Let me tell you a sad story I once heard.
There was a young 14year old boy who travelled home to Nigeria for the first time with his sister and his parents from New York. It was during the festive holiday season about 7years ago. Anyway on one of their trips to the village to see family, after they landed in Lagos, they got waylaid by armed robbers who attacked the vehicle they were in, and in the ensuing fracas, the robbers killed some people and carted away monies and valuables. This young boy’s father was killed that day. He returned back to the usa as a fatherless child with his sister and his mother. They have never returned again to Nigeria since then. That boy is 21years old now in an Ivy League university in usa trying to make something of his life. The pain of how his father tragically got murdered remains with him. If that little boy becomes a successful person in life in ten years time, then some people will start blackmailing him that he must say nice things about Nigeria. Of course he probably wouldn’t. And maybe he shouldn’t. But I will surely understand if he doesn’t.
Everybody won’t be okonjo iweala that you will kidnap her mother despite her actively trying to fight corruption and she will still continue to talk nicely about Nigeria. Despite all the pain and anguish that woman has suffered, including reputation damage, she continues to speak nicely about Nigeria. Not everyone will be that magnanimous or benevolent.
For a lot of Nigerians living abroad, including successful people of nigerian origin like Kemi Badenoch, and even for a lot of Nigerians living in Nigeria, they got to wherever they got to, and attained whatever great heights they attained, in spite of Nigeria, not because of Nigeria. If it was up to Nigeria and the criminal chaotic system we have, so many more people’s lives will have been irreparably destroyed. Many people have only done so well in their lives because they have run so far away from Nigeria and its evils. For such people, they have a right to not want to associate with Nigeria.
People have pain and trauma that Nigeria has inflicted on them, and unfortunately they have a right to never wish to associate themselves with this mess called Nigeria.
You can’t blackmail people into patriotism. If a country has failed its own people and the government continues to fail its own people, it is demonic and delusional to be demanding patriotism.
The countries that demand patriotism of its citizens are countries that first ensure that its citizens are treated like human beings and have a life that is worth living.
So while I personally want more Nigerians abroad to speak well of Nigeria, I am very much aware this is a country that kills its best, strangulates its brightest, and empowers its worst to rule over the rest.
Until we have leaders who are genuinely ashamed about the sorry state of the country, until we have leaders who put the citizens welfare first, until we have leaders who understand it is inhumane cruelty to divert 21billion naira to set up a lush apartment for yourself while there are over 13million children out of school;
Until and unless we have a country not led by opportunists, parasites, charlatans and criminal rogues; political bloodsucking leeches who feed fat on our commonwealth at the expense of our collective development;
Until and unless we have a country where every human life matters and every human being is valued,
Until we get to that point, we will continue to be a joke, a laughingstock, a parody and a mockery of what an actual country should be.
Thank you.''