Renewed Nigeria Beyond History

Why shouldn't anyone say Nigeria is Great Now? Chinua Achebe responded honestly to the question of whether Nigeria is great or not, saying: One of the commonest manifestations of underdevelopment is a tendency among the ruling elite to live in a world of make-believe and unrealistic expectations. Achebe, (1983) Can Nigeria ever be this orderly? Who dares to believe this will happen in Nigeria is dreaming. Wake up, dreamer, it's never Nigeria of sheer darkness and steady blackout.- Francis IsuguThis is the cargo cult mentality that anthropologists sometimes speak about - a belief by backward people that someday, without any exertion whatsoever on their own part, a fairy ship will dock in their harbour laden with every goody they have always dreamed of possessing. Listen to Nigerian leaders and you will frequently hear the phrase this great country of ours.Nigeria is not a great country. It is one of the most disorderly nations in the world. It is one of the most corrupt, insensitive, inefficient places under the sun. It is one of the most expensive countries and one of those that give least value for money.- Chinua Achebe (1983)Do you think Achebe Was Unfair? In 1983 when Achebe Was writing those immortal words from his hotel room in Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria was better than it is today, because then £50,000,000 was equivalent to N80,000,000, hence the gap between Pound and Naira then wasn't as wide as it has become, today, when the same £50,000,000 is now equivalent to N25,000,000,000. Can you read that verse aloud three times over and over again? NGN / GBP Conversion Guide Naira Pound ₦ 300 £ 0.64; ₦ 1500 £3.19; ₦ 3000 . £ 6.38; ₦ 15000 £ 31.89; ₦ 30000 £ 63.79; ₦ 75000 £ 159; ₦ 150000 £ 319; ₦ 300000 £ 638; ₦ 900000. £ 1914; ₦ 1500000. £ 3189; ₦ 3000000. £ 6379.The exchange was £0.0021 per Naira as of Thu, 21 March, 2019. If with this massive gap revealing the massive failure of the Nigerian economy only 47 years down the line, then why do you think Nigeria is great today; whereas everything has gone from bad to worse since 1983.Let's look back again to picture the state of Nigeria in the eyes of Achebe who described the Nigeria of 1983 in the following sentence referring to Nigeria, saying: It is dirty, callous, noisy, ostentatious, dishonest and vulgar. In short, it is among the most unpleasant places on earth! -- Achebe (1983).Has anything changed in Nigeria today that has made Nigeria different from How Achebe Saw it in 1983? It's obvious that nothing has changed from bad to good. And so, if Nigeria was not great in 1983; when Achebe was writing down his observation, how can you say Nigeria is great today, when things have gone from bad to worse in Nigeria. See the picture clearly in the Pound Naira conversion: £ 1. ₦ 469; £ 5. ₦ 2,346; £ 10. ₦ 4,693; £ 50 . ₦ 23,465; £ 100 . ₦ 46,929; £ 250. ₦ 117,323; £ 500. ₦ 234,645; £ 1000 . ₦ 469,291; £ 3000. ₦ 1,407,872; £ 5000 . ₦ 2,346,453; £ 10000 . ₦ 4,692,905.The Conversion was ₦469.2905 per Pound as of Thu, 21 March, 2019. If you argue about this fact, because you're a journalist forced to obey the schemes of the information minister in Buhari's first and second term in office that kept inhibiting the freedom of the press to report the truth, then Achebe might be addressing the following lines to you and other presenters or media personnel on NTAi channel or akin radio stations, saying: It is a measure of our self-delusion that we can talk about developing tourism in Nigeria. Only a masochist with an exuberant taste for self-violence will pick Nigeria for a holiday; only a character out of Tutuola seeking to know punishment and poverty at first hand. No, Nigeria may be a paradise for adventurers and pirates, but not for tourists.- Achebe (1983) Achebe's legacy lives on in this work envisioning a Renewed Nigeria Beyond History. If history shows a Nigeria better than the present, then the future