We are the architects of our own misfortunes 

By Ayo Akinfe

(1) Today is June 3. Another historic day in the narrative of mankind. It was on this day in 1934 that Dr Frederick Banting, a 32 year old Canadian medical doctor, the co-discoverer of insulin, was knighted by King George V. I think it important for Nigerians to know that Dr Banting shared the Nobel Prize honours and award money with his colleague, Dr Charles Best who he worked with. How many Naija people have this mindset?

(2) Banting, whose picture appears here is probably regarded as the greatest Canadian ever. There was simply no limit to his thinking. This is a man who was prepared to think the unthinkable and rewrite every single rule out there. For instance, during the Second World War he was involved in using and treating mustard gas burns. Banting even tested the gas and antidotes on himself to see if they were effective

(3) During World War One, Dr Banting served as a military doctor with the Canadian Army. He was wounded at the Battle of Cambrai in 1918 but despite his injuries, he helped other wounded men for 16 hours until another doctor told him to stop. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1919, for heroism

(4) Also, on this day in 1972, the first female US rabbi was installed. Sally Priesand became a rabbi at the tender age of 25, debunking the myth that religious leadership is strictly a male affair. She had no time for religious orthodoxy. Rabbi Priesand was only the second ever female rabbi to be ordained and suffered unbelievable discrimination during the course of her career

(5) I have always maintained that a nation is built on the spirit of its people. In the middle of the Great Depression, on this same June 3 in of 1935, some 1,000 unemployed Canadian workers boarded freight cars in Vancouver, British Columbia, beginning a protest trek to Ottawa, Ontario. They did not just sit on their backsides and complain, they got up and acted

(6) You see, with citizens like Dr Banting and those Vancouver unemployed workers, Canada is never going to be a poor and hungry nation. Do you think they will ever tolerate armed Fulani herdsmen kidnapping thousands of their citizens on a daily basis? Do you think they will ever tolerate 10.3m of their children being out of school?

(7) Nigeria is the poverty capital of the world today because we tolerate it. As a people, we show no revulsion to the mismanagement of our resources and have adopted this “walk-on-by” approach to life. Once we can enjoy our owambes and worship freely in our churches or mosques, my people are happy. As long as a governor does not interfere with these, he is free to steal as much money as he wants

(8) Let me just give you a perfect example of how docile, compliant and complicit we are in our own misrule. We have just sworn-in 29 governors. Not one of them had the vision to name their cabinets on day one. Where are the protests and demonstrations against this?

(9) Leon Trotsky once said: “Whenever the soul of a nation is stirred, the bottom most parts always come to the top.” So far, I have not seen enough about the ordinary Nigerian to inspire me. If anything, our economic crisis has produced armed criminals, religious zealots and ethnic bigots rather than inspiring people like Dr Banter and Rabbi Preisand

(10) Where is the pressure on the governors of say Kano, Zamfara, Katsina, Borno and Yobe states that are the worst affected by the out-of-school crisis to act? I think it is highly irresponsible of them not to have announced their education commissioners at their respective swearing-in ceremonies. It is double irresponsible of the citizenry not to scream blue murder over this. As you can see, we are the architects of our own misfortunes!