Celebrations naturally come with this attribute. In their condition, it is understandable if Nigerians are eager to celebrate her best and jealously lay claims to ownership of their gems.
It is perhaps in this spirit that they celebrated the re-election of Hon. Chinelo Chi Onwuorah, a Labour MP, back to the commons to represent the Newcastle Constituency. The lift in their gait was that much higher because Chi is, by their assumptions, a Nigerian.
But is Hon. Onwura Nigerian? or British of Nigerian heritage? or British of Nigerian Father? I have published below Hon. Onwuorah's brief biography of herself and it is clear by its drift that she does not consider herself anymore Nigerian than Barack Obama is or considered Kenyan or Trump a German.
We stretch our national habit of denial too far. Why have we claimed Hon. Chi, (particularly after victory)? What exactly is the Nigerian intervention which led to Onwurah's commendable achievements? What can then justify our qualification to share in her achievements or call her one of us? Or is it now a Nigerian normal to lay claims on the result of other people's efforts?
Reading through her biography, Nigeria was just little more than a footnote and rightfully so. We have been pretty much absent in her life, the very way we have been absent in lives of our youth, the way we have negligently absconded from the duties of preparing our youth for adulthood or responsibilities at home.
Right from birth, Newcastle and Britain have been there in her life with quality interventions. So she remembers and rightfully holds herself beholden to the community and country which have been there for her growing up.
The Councillors in her county did not convert the revenues accruing to the council into personal estates as Nigerian councillors and Governor's do. Her government invested in her and her growth.
Her politicians built First Class schools and Universities which she could access if she was brilliant enough. No quota or discriminatory cut off points to disturb her trajectory.
And as an engineer she had a country whose successive governments had built enduring economies and productive environs for talented young people.
Our politicians have no clue about what to do for the future. They would rather sacrifice the future on the alter of current expediency.
After a productive stint as a chartered engineer she went into politics. In politics she did not have to borrow or steal to run. She was adjudged fit in character, experience and learning to be elected by her constituency in an orderly electoral process devoid of any unsavory practice.
Can we all say that this, even remotely, approximates the Nigerian woman's experience? Of course not, but we have made a life out of lieing to ourselves so we claim 'Chi' as ours.
If she grew up in Anambra state for instance, what are the chances that she would have made it into a university, let alone one at par or near to the Imperial College in quality? Even if she did (and we are dreaming here and we all know what goes on in our campuses), her experiences under the Nigerian University system would certainly have dampened her enthusiasm.
Could she have qualified within the Nigerian polity to contest and win the senate seat against say, Andy Uba, whose certificates are being contested or been allowed to contest in Kogi state against _"our man"_ Dino whose third class degree did not get a mention in his university's convocation records? Would she even have been allowed to contest in Imo or Enugu States? Please Give me a break.
Onwuorah is no more Nigerian than Steve Jobs was Syrian, Christianne Amampour and Andre Agassi are Iranians or My young niece who was born and is in the eighth grade in Houston, Texas, is from Oron.
Until we can lay claims only to achievers for whom we provided the environment for growth and not those nurtured by other enabling environments we must man up to accept our failures as a shameless nation who, despite all our endowments can not produce world beaters in any field of endeavour due to our very inept systems which are deliberately programmed to promote mediocrity.
Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and young Ahmed Musa, Mikel Obi and Chimamanda are Nigerians, thankfully; so also are Akeem Olajunwon, Jelani Aliyu and Philip Emeagwali. In these aforementioned ones, we at least did _"small work"_ in their start up and so can claim some part in their metamorphoses into world beaters.
But then just recall too that Sergeant Rogers, Mustapha, Dieziani, Tarfa Balogun and Etete; along with the iconic Naija prostitutes in Europe, the drug pushers in Brazil, South Africa and Malaysia _, all fellow countrymen and women"_ who carry the green passports, also qualify as full blooded citizens of our _"great"_ country and we have an equal and balanced duty to also count them among our gifts to the world.
Just to further make the point: while the former world heavyweight champion Samuel Peters _is pure Naija, after all we gave him a start as a traffic warden; all those exercises standing in the sun or arm wrestling with Okada men for motorbike keys or _'egunje'_must have done wonders to his physical development.
_'Derefor we fit claim am full mouth'_, the current heavyweight king, Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua, MBE, is a British professional boxer. No more, no less; as we say in these climes.
The icing on this brief roll call of Nigerian "achievers" must be the Government Security Agency which claims it kept tons of slush money in cash in a private unguarded flat in Ikoyi? Quite bewildering yet brilliantly simple, but while no one is celebrating the agency, we must have lost count of those who claimed (and denied) the hot dollars found in the apartment. Well that's Nigerian and something to celebrate.
Abi? Now if we did not earlier claim and celebrate Micheal Adebolajo and Micheal Adebowale who attacked and killed the British Army soldier, Fusilier Lee Rigby of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, on the afternoon of 22 May 2013, near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, southeast London, we should go easy on selectively celebrating the accomplished Onwuorah, since they are also British and of Nigerian heritage.
No such luck for the underwear bomber, Murtallab, distinctively uncelebrated but definitively Nigerian.
It is not as if Nigerians lack legislators or other icons to claim and celebrate. Not at all. We have over 400 national legislators, all of whom are begging to be celebrated.
So why dig up the good lady's exploit in far away Britain and hold up as a shinning Nigerian Accomplishment, as if we are in a drought? So what of Oga Saraki, Ekweremadu and the commonsense man Oga Ben? Are they not worth some celebration? Dino and our own Akpabio nkó?
Please let Onwuora be jaré. She will not even give us _"transport"_ after the celebration. If it was the great teacher now.... Sekem! Let's find something authentic, some home grown stuff to prime our unproductive and uncompetitive existence.
Onwurah and a host of other Nigerians and people of Nigerian heritage in diaspora who are accomplishing magnificent achievements are just a teaser to the world of what it has lost and continues to loose due to the mismanagement of a country which has the capacity to be great and change the world. Time is running very thin.
TotalChair
*AS PROMISED, HERE IS HON. CHINELO ONWURA IN HER OWN WORDS*
My family
My maternal grandfather was a sheet metal worker in the shipyards of the Tyne during the depression. My mother grew up in poverty in Garth Heads on the quayside. In the fifties she married my father, a Nigerian student at Newcastle Medical School.
In 1965 I was born, whilst they were living in Long Benton where my father had a dental practise. I was still a baby when my father took us to live in Awka, Nigeria.
But two years later the Biafran Civil War broke out bringing famine with it and, as described vividly in an Evening Chronicle article in 1968, my mother, my brother and sister and I returned as refugees to Newcastle, whilst my father stayed on in the Biafran army.
This early experience of the impact of war on ordinary families left me with a strong sense of my own good fortune in living in a peaceful parliamentary democracy where it is possible to bring about change without taking up the gun or the sword. I am not a pacifist, I believe that our country is worth defending and fighting for.
But we do live in a democracy and, increasingly, there are international institutions at the European and global level to enable us to pursue and defend our legitimate interests through debate and discussion.
My education
I benefited from a comprehensive, inspirational and free education for which I will always be grateful. I attended Hillsview nursery, infants and junior schools.
A good start in a good school is critical in determining a child’s experience of education and the opportunities that it can bring. At Hillsview I learnt to enjoy learning, and to think that anything was possible.
My mother made sure I understood how lucky I was to be able to walk two hundred yards to a great school when some children had to walk for hours to share a classroom with a hundred others.
At 11 I went to Kenton Comprehensive School. I studied for my O and A levels, but also played for our netball and hockey teams, had my first taste of public speaking and learnt to play the saxophone moderately badly. My education enabled me to hold my own with people from every walk of life, and to earn my living doing something I love, engineering.
I want every child in Newcastle to have that opportunity. When I was 17 I was elected Kenton School’s MP in a mock election.
My working life
Newcastle’s great industrial past was my inspiration to become an engineer and I enjoyed a fulfilling career in engineering after I graduated from Imperial College in 1987.
I worked in hardware and software development, product management, market development and strategy for a variety of mainly private sector companies in a number of different countries – UK, France, US, Nigeria, Denmark..During this time I also studied for an MBA from Manchester Business School and gained Chartered Engineering status.
As an engineer I specialised in building out infrastructure in new markets and standardising wholesale Ethernet access. My last role before entering parliament was as head of Telecoms Technology for Ofcom the Communications Regulator
credits: Wikipedia
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