Tunde Leye: Don’t tell us what it means to be patriotic

by Tunde Leye

tunde-leye1

So don’t get it twisted. We know what it means to be patriotic and it is not what you say it is.

 

It was Theodore Roosevelt that said “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public”.

There is a growing mantra that those that speak on behalf of the government continually repeat in the hope that we will accept it unconsciously that interprets patriotism as the following

  • Always speaking in support of every and any action of the government
  • Always justifying every action and inaction of the current government even when it violates the constitution and the intent of setting up a government
  • Not ask any questions of the conduct or the outcomes (or non-outcomes) of government actions when all logic points to clear discrepancies that require answers

By this definition, these ones label everyone who doesn’t conform to their brand as unpatriotic. They create a bubble around themselves, disconnecting from realities on ground in order to offer blind and unconditional support to the government. Their collective bubble surrounds the president and insulates him from the realities of the people he leads. Their collective perception of whoever asks questions or blindly praise the president as an enemy or one sponsored by the opposition is all the president hears and he therefore acts from this paradigm. We need to remind them what real patriotism is.

Let us take a practical and current example that causes pain in my heart whenever I think of it. Our military is currently fighting the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East. When one hears details of the engagements between the insurgents and our army, the magnitude of losses we sustain and several reports of interviews granted to the press by soldiers, the questions pop out even if you don’t want them to. In the brand of patriotism these patriots currently tout, everyone should ignore questioning why it is so easy for Boko Haram to overpower our soldiers severally or why they seem to outwit us over and over again. They say we should show our patriotism by simply lining up and vociferously supporting our soldiers to keep up the fight.

That is no patriotism and it is not saving the lives of our soldiers. True patriots will ask questions. They will pressure the government to investigate what is going on with the welfare of the soldiers, the various allegations about theft of money meant for army weaponry and operations flying around and the repeated incidences of Boko Haram overpowering our army in shootouts. By asking these questions, bringing them into the spotlight and forcing the government to act on them, if there are people culpable, they will be brought to book. If there are deficiencies in the weaponry and logistics, they will be handled. If there is a need to reassess the tactics and strategy, it will be done. This will ultimately save many soldiers’ lives and end in Boko Haram being defeated militarily. Blindly supporting the way the fight is being conducted will never achieve these kinds of results. It is not just the right of the citizen to ask the government questions when it is glaringly required, it is a responsibility.

And when citizens ask questions, the government should respond positively. When the #BringBackOurGirls campaign started, a smart government would have seized on it as a rallying cry to galvanize support from its citizens in an unprecedented way in the fight against Boko Haram. It would have ridden on the momentum to overcome many of the obstacles in its way before that time. But the Nigerian government would not do that. Rather, it assumed the stance of “them against us” and at first ignored the citizens, then had police disrupt the rallies and finally their agents tried to discredit hashtagging whilst ironically trying to promote a hashtag. They forget it is the people’s right to question the government when they perceive that it is being inept.

The people are angry with the government, not because of Boko Haram’s rampage. That evokes fear and there is a healthy dose of that in the nation now. But the anger is towards the government response rather than the occurrences. We are not so inattentive that we will forget where a government spokesman says on international TV that Nigeria has all it takes to bring down Boko Haram on its own, only for the president to accept international aid in the matter less than twenty four hours later. What we demand is a better, more decisive and result oriented response from our government.

So don’t get it twisted. We know what it means to be patriotic and it is not what you say it is.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

 

 

One comment

  1. Mr Leye, now you are getting it right. We in Borno know that bh overrun our soldiers because they out numbered and more equiped than the military. In addition to this, our soldiers are starving. They are given food not fit for dogs and most of them ignore the food when it is brought to them because of its quality. Those who collect the food give it to almajiris. Leye this is the situation on ground. Although the authorities may not like it, we interract with the soldiers freely and they tell us their predicaments. To add insult to injury, their allowance is being cut by half under the guise that it is to be used for their feeding—the type of food earlier described by me. The soldiers tell us that food or allowances aside, if properly equiped and their numbers increased to appreciable level, they will crush bh in less than 2 weeks. They are not happy that common thugs as they call bh have overpowered and out-numbered by bh. This they compromises the nigerian armed forces with short and long time implications. The military have no contigency plans including rapid response force for sudden bh attacks, hence they run away or refuse to appear when bh attack is underway. This is because they know that if they dare approach bh, the next minute they are corpses. So please people like you should continue to talk, because it is not as if we do not have the financial resources, but its because of corruption that even our military has been compromised. Afterall trillions of naira is budgeted for security. What do they do with the money? So sad!!!!

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