“I love my country, I no go lie na inside am I go live and die”…
I remember singing and dancing to this jingle when I was much younger. Maybe the song did something to me because I do not consider going outside Nigeria to live for any length of time and when the good Lord decides its time for me to go, I definitely want to leave from Nigeria 
I remember thinking (yes again, when I was much smaller) that the whole of Nigeria was no bigger than Lagos. I was in my own world then.
These days my love for this country has not changed and I consider myself fiercely patriotic. Patriotic enough to lash out at my foreign colleagues when they start bashing my nation.
A few times I have paused to consider what right they have, they do not know Nigeria, have not lived here long and only parrot what they have read in Newspapers. What gives them the right or anyone outside this country the right to bash us?
Browsing through the blogosphere and online media and various social networks, I feel in a community with my Naija people (No apologies, Reuben Abati) because we sure are a proud people. We pride ourselves on being the inhabitants of the biggest and most populous country south of the Sahara (what does that mean??) amongst many other media-fuelled attributes.
I stand back a number of times and consider that we probably have given these ‘foreigners’ enough fodder to abuse us! We have grown comfortable accepting leaders who cannot lead their homes, talk less of a country, we have acquiesced to the demands of greedy men and women who are bent on looting us dry and leaving with nothing, we have grown comfortable looking after ourselves and neglecting the other man (our neighbours), we are too busy speaking that we have forgotten the dignity of silence and its ability to help us think properly.
Nigeria as much as I love it is on a steady downward spiral, one which I fear would lead us to ‘nothingness’. I was going to add ignominy to this list but we are perceived by most to be a disgraced nation. Must we allow this tumble to continue? Can we shake those leading us and ask them to choose another path altogether, a path that will take us up and not downwards? Can we ask that our President either come back home, and rely on the health infrastructure he has helped build and support instead of Saudi Arabia’s’ and rule us and if he cannot then he should follow the constitution.
Can we ask that all the Bode Georges and 70 thieves who deserve jail time and more jail time be sent to the congested prisons and serve their times without preference or undue favor? Can we be honest and reacquire Nigeria’s wealth stolen by the very people we hail as saviors today?
Can we like the little child who pointed out his Emperor was naked sincerely say Nigeria needs a turn around?
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