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And yet we keep heading out in droves, and wish to head out in droves.

There is a perpetual perplexity to it all, that seems uncrackable.

Why do we Nigerians
almost without exception love our country so very much and yet so very
much want to head away from her if the slightest chance avails itself?

From the least to
the mightiest, opportunities to be away from home either short term or
more often than not, long term are sought with unnerving ferocities or
ingeniously inventive schemes. And yet, chance a contact with any
Nigerian in the diaspora and the distinct love for home and a palpable
sense of homesickness exudes from him with the pounding force of a gush.

It is clear that
the best place to be for a Nigerian is Nigeria and only the
unfavourable net dynamics of push- pull forces lead to emigration or
desire for emigration.

At 50, how can we
get to resolve the push-pull dynamics to the benefit of our country ?
What constitute the push forces from home that trump the pull from her
resulting in net centrifugality of movement?.

There probably
will be as many answers to this seeming connundrum as the number of
Nigerians (and even non Nigerians) who care to answer it. And such will
be understandable given that different things may come to produce a
push for some just as for very different reasons an individual may get
pulled.

Today,
unemployment, underemployment, poor health facilities, poor
infrastructural facilities, particularly stemming from inefficient
energy generation will rank as dominant push factors for more than many
but perhaps for most, it is insecurity; a situation in which both the
average and the not so average live like endangered species unsure
whether the day that started with them will see them through to the
evening , still alive and healthy. At the aetiologic heart of
insecurity is either poverty or greed ; the former induces its victim
to seek amelioration through terrorisation of his neighbour while the
latter, through obsession with plenty, has come to be morbidly desirous
of plentier and must bag its quarry no matter the means to it.

As to pull factors,
it probably is safe to suggest that for most, predominant, is love of
country (subsumed into love of one’s loved ones ) and esteem for self,
and for a few, love of lawlessness , in which, though the books teem
with rules and regulations (and therefore de facto not really lawless)
they are so ignored they have become obscure and through obscurity,
atrophied or become merely toothless. Or sometimes what laws that
remain simply labour in vain unmatched with justice. Today, the country
counts her years for the fiftieth time with some of us left to wonder
whether her glass is half full, dripping down to empty, or empty,
filling up to half full. That at fifty, none sees a glass full or soon
to be full is undeniable.

Today, presents a
unique juncture for us all Nigerians to hold that big glass in our
hands, toast to the health of our country and as we do so, reflect on
what we can do to contribute to that which is in the glass and not
merely sip from it till it is empty and then jettisoned.

For too long, each
of us seemed to have merely looked for how we can come to get a hold on
the wine glass, drink ourselves to an inebriated fullness and the glass
to a sober and derelict emptiness and then wonder why the nation
continues to rock rather than roll. Today, we should look at the giant
cake in front of us not gluttonously,but rather proverbially,and for
every bit we pull away from it , we bring back twice as much; so the
cake grows and continue to do so by our collective efforts.

The dillema of the
Nigerian is how, irrespective of his location, he can get to match that
unmistakable and nationalistic love for his “giant in the sun” of a
country with practical, positive and reasoned contributions that can
aggregate from all to the upliftment of the giant. Only by personal
determination to want to do good for and by ourselves but also for
beyond selves can we resolve the dillema. Through this upliftment, we
can begin to roll back those very forces that push people away from the
motherland even as we strengthen those that pull back and retain.
Through these same contributions, we can begin to pull the rug from
under the feet of the unrepentant unreformed looters. Be they those
that loot their neighbours with their guns or their white collar allies
who do the looting with their pens.

We welcome the
minister and Head of chancery and the team who have found it fit to
travel all the way to this island to join in our celebrations. Your
representation as high table Nigerians to this celebration and the good
will from home you bring to us in the Diaspora in these parts will
remain a continuing source of inspiration to continue to do what little
we can to contribute not to the rocking of our country but her
unstoppable forward roll.

My proud and profuse congratulations to us all, both here and abroad on this fiftieth anniversary of independence .

Jide Basil Fadipe is consultant surgeon, Justin Fadipe Hospital, Commonwealth of Dominica, West Indies.