COUNTRY FIRST I.

'Think not what your Country can do for you BUT think what you can do for your Country' - John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Growing up in a Country with a chequered history and a profuse loyalty to region rather than Nation; with ethnic and egocentric prejudices as King over ethical and egalitarian precepts; with religious bias as Lord over nationhood and brotherhood; and with the jingoism of creed and clan diminishing returns on patriotism, this effort is not only timely but imperative, curative and patriotic.

Countrymen and women, when we look at the ills of governance and locate our pain at the doorstep of region or religion we offend logic and afflict posterity with a bile of unresolved contradictions. I know that the successive regimes that looted this country dry were amalgams of people of different tribes and faith. When in unison they looted, stole from and depleted our collective till their Iboness, Yorubaness, Hausaness, Ibibioness, Jukunness et al were never in issue, when they festered the decay of our ethical and moral plexus our religious difference counted for nothing. But when they lose power and are denied the key to our collective patrimony they seek to shoot down Nigeria form tribal, regional, religious and partisan trenches. Sad.

They so quickly forget that the reason we are where we are is because we lowered the bar of our collective engagement as a nation to the banal estate that salutes tribal jingoists over patriots and nationalists. It didn't start today, we lost it from the start.

We must rebuild our union and make Nigeria work, but we must commit ourselves first to reworking the fabrics of this union. We must make fairness, equity and justice the minimum margin of our interaction as a people and as a nation.

When we give our best to Country, our Country will work and the basic quid pro quo will be better life for all.

God Bless Nigeria.

TO BE CONT'D.