Former Education/Petroleum Minister, Professor Jubril Aminu
Professor Jubril Aminu, Nigeria’s former Education/Petroleum Minister, on loving and being patriotic about Nigeria:
Love for this country is just not there. People love their religion more than their country. I am from the North; people from the North are mad about the North but our leaders did not advise us to be as mad about our country. It is the same thing with the West and the East; their leaders did not advise them to be mad about Nigeria too. The people from the West love the West, but they were not thought to love their country, Nigeria. They were told to antagonise the federal government, because of the opposition stance. In my view, everything necessary should be done to get the people to love their country, Nigeria. Not in the fashion of what we see on the television every day, ‘We are Nigeria, we are one’….etc. Even children laugh at it. Invent real ways of making the people love Nigeria.
I remember this quote on patriotism from Mark Twain: “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
Nigeria is more than the federal government, I need to correct the professor on that. The question I hope the professor is asked is this: Is the federal government really deserving of support given the self-perpetrated rot and delinquencies in the system? Almost all federal government controlled entity (infrastructure/services) is either under-performing or collapsed!
It’s simply tough to be in love with a government that seem perpetually out of touch with its people.
good post, added you to my RSS reader.
December 6, 2011 at 10:32 am
I do agree with what Professor Jubril Aminu said. We all need to love our country NIGERIA first and then tribes and culture can come in.
December 7, 2011 at 8:19 am
True. But the fact is, we have to have a reason to love our country. What is the reason??
Adiya
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December 11, 2011 at 3:12 am