These resilient, humorous and ostentatious Nigerians By Prince Charles Dickson PhD 

“In elementary school my parents told me it didn’t matter what I did when I grew up, so long as it made me happy. ‘Happiness is the whole point of life,’ my father said. ‘But it doesn’t always come easy. Your mother loves to help people in need, so she became a psychiatric nurse. I love reading, writing and poetry, so I became an English teacher. We both find happiness in the hard work we do each day.’

A few years later when I was in junior high, my sixth-grade homeroom teacher put me in detention for ‘being difficult.’ She went around the classroom and asked each student what they wanted to be when they grew up. When she got to me, I told her I wanted to be happy. She told me I was missing the whole point of the question. I told her she was missing the whole point of life.”

An indigenous firm has commenced the production of pencils in the country using old newspapers. The then Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu said the firm has capacity to produce 2.4million dozens of pencils per annum which will surpass local and sub-regional needs.

Don’t ask me where the firm is located, whether they are still working, or how many people they employ, because my findings would in no way be funny, to say the least my findings are just humorous. A nation as big as Nigeria, the giant of Africa attempting to produce pencils in 2019, the year Before COVID.

It is 2021, precisely the month of August, the then Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, has said Nigeria will start the production of airplanes before 2023 when President Muhammadu Buhari leaves office.

Sirika stated this after he paid an inspection visit to the Magnus Aircraft Industry in Pogany, Hungary, a statement by the ministry’s spokesman, James Odaudu reveals.

He said, “If we venture with them, we may start with assembling plants and later manufacturing.” Sirika said the Magnus aircraft is lightweight, good for military training, has an aerobatic manoeuvre and is made of high-strength composite materials. 

The plane, he added, uses normal car petrol and outperforms any training aircraft of its kind. He expressed satisfaction with the features and readiness to facilitate the production in the country.

According to him, a partnership with the company will boost the growth of Nigeria as a regional aviation superpower as maintenance and repair facilities will attract patronage from neighbouring countries.

The partnership will be subjected to further analysis to verify the market and government willingness to release a significant amount of money and logistics.

Meanwhile, in more than six years in office, the Buhari administration has failed to actualize a national carrier.

Sirika, a self-acclaimed “Buharist”, has given a time frame for the start of Nigeria Air at least thrice.

In March 2020, he promised that the proposed airline will fly local routes from the third quarter of 2021.

In May 2021, Sirika said the carrier may start operations in the first quarter of 2022. The minister blamed COVID-19. Until he left, there were no visible clues to confirm Nigerians will witness a state-owned air service, but for the Ethiopian Airlines koskorima fraud.

However, one thing I will share with us free of charge is that by January 2023, The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the sum of N2.3 billion for the commencement of local assembly of Magnus Centennial Aircraft at Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria, Kaduna State.

Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, disclosed this after the FEC meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Mr Sirika expressed optimism that the Nigerian aviation industry would soon progress into local manufacturing of aircraft. “I am happy to announce – today is the reality; we will indeed assemble the Magnus aircraft and will continue to do so and in the not too distant future by God’s grace, the industry of civil aviation will begin to manufacture aircraft right here in the country.

The plane, aircraft, helicopter, flying object, any name you call it, was supposed to be delivered in 18months, so we are some six months away from seeing the first made in Africa aircraft.

Trust me when I say this, we are resilient, humorous and ostentatious people, simply put that money has gone into voicemail, it has simply fed the ostentatious lifestyles of some political class, while the drama lasted we were entertained to some good humour, they made us laugh, like a Minister who mistakenly paid money into private accounts, or the reporter who came home with a Benoiniose degree certificate earned in less six months and fully mobilised to serve Nigeria.

We are indeed resilient, that is why we don’t know whether palliatives have been shared, or legislators simply put the rice in their warehouses, or it was shared like the school feeding programme that was on while kids were on COVID forced break.

Again, like I have said countless times whatGODcannotdoexists, but what cannot happen in Nigeria does not exist, because God cannot lie, in any form you understand and believe in a supreme being, He is not our Nigerian variant.

This is me in not many words telling us that all the drama in the humanitarian ministry aka Ministry for Human Beings will end like that. Whatever the British Broadcast house BBC really does about TB Joshua or not, Nigerians will believe what they want to believe…

We forget that in this country, we gave money to marabouts to pray out Boko Haram, snakes swallowed money, monkeys got their fair share during an era in which animals simply became bankers.

Let me end this essay this way, there’s this fable, that among the Tombaku people in Africa, they have a way of predicting the future of their children, they put water in a bucket and let them shower, while they observe. If the child starts with the head, it means the child would be an intellectual, a book smart and should be encouraged in that direction. If the child starts with the hands, that’s an artist, tradesperson, crafts person, so no need to send them to school. If the child starts from the feet, that’s a traveller, a baller, basically a smooth operator.

Now, one day a visitor from the west upon hearing about it, decided to try it on his daughter. When his daughter took the water, she started washing her below. Rumor has it that he hasn’t spoken to her in years and she doesn’t even know why. Moral of the story. Leave people and their culture.

Now, I can ask of us, what is the essence of life for as Nigerians, whether leaders, citizens, followers, what defines us, which is our national culture, who is a Nigerian, what does being Nigerian entail, what drives us, who are we as a people, is the sum totality of us as a people, just about being resilient, humorous and ostentatious or there is more to this people regarded as the sleeping giant of Africa, the beacon of hope that more than ever now seems endless. Are we on a journey, what part of us did we wash, will we get it right—May Nigeria win!