Who Is Nigeria’s ‘Mandela’

By Chinwe Ochu

‘Madiba Tata’ (Xhosa for ‘Father’) – those are names posterity would remember; fond names our South African brothers and of course ‘worshippers’ across the world call Nelson Mandela, the icon of freedom and black consciousness. Monday, July 18, 2011 is recognised worldwide as the Mandela Day as he celebrates turning 93, past the Biblical age of ‘special mightiness.’ This man’s ‘specialness’ is rather glaring as even five-year-old non-South African students study him in school. So, I would not attempt to talk much about his life, as I am not worthy.

Madiba’s birthday always comes with lots of buzz. I follow the South African President, Jacob Zuma on Twitter and early that morning (Nigerian Time), he tweeted: ‘… ending the day with a courtesy call on #Madiba in Qunu. Happy birthday Tata! #MandelaDay’ He is the sitting President, by the way. (Just thought I should reiterate that). Also not wanting to be left out of cheers to this giant, the housemates at the Big Brother Amplified house also observed the International Nelson Mandela Day, starting the day by singing (rather harmoniously) ‘Happy Birthday’ to him. And I guess international news houses like CNN, Aljazeera, BBC, you name it; are all doing spotlights on Tata today… But why not?

This brings me to the soul searching question – Do we have our own Nigerian ‘Madiba’? Answer, No. Although we have many brave figures that helped get us independent from the British colonialists, there is not a central unifying figure. No one stands out like Mandela. None comes to mind; no one comes close. Not that our ‘founding fathers’ did not display mind boggling resilience and courage amidst the odds, but none is distinct enough to have an international day named after him and ‘celebrated’ enough for Nigerians to remember his birthday. There are reasons for that.

In comparison to the South African experience, Nigeria’s independence struggles were not front page news for decades. Nigeria was ‘liberated’ (are we really?) in 1960, when most developing countries were going through that phase of development. It was trendy for colonialists to stop laying claims to their ‘slaves’ during that period and it went on into the late 70s. After then, about early 80s to the 90s became news- worthy issues; hence, the South Africa-Madiba connection. So, the world’s media helped iconize this man.

Nigeria is the most populous, exclusively black nation in the world. My high school Social Studies teacher, Mr. Bright Adawisi once said that out of every five black man in the world, one of them is a Nigerian. How true that is remains to be proven. Point is: We are a lot and considering the less than 50 million South Africans in population, which is a third of ours; picking out an icon and celebrating the individual could be daunting. We have our Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Ahmadu Bello. They were nationalists, men of valour. But would assigning them special days be a daunting job? And if that happens, would Nigerians wholeheartedly embrace and celebrate the days?

The circumstances are different. For our own Awo, Zik and Bello, fighting for independence was on their mind while the great Madiba fought racism. He was in jail for 27 years for failing to be selfish, pipe down and we give you all you have ever dreamt of. He said: ‘No way, whitey’, and stayed that long, enduring hardships and eventually contracting tuberculosis, which threatened to take his life. Madiba is an international figure, hands down. We don’t have those in Nigeria, do we?

Anyway, those are the three reasons I could come up with. Guess what I noticed while doing this piece? Although the name Mandela is an African name, it still does not come with the spell check option. It means Mandela is in a class all by himself, just like Obama and Tutu. So I say, ‘Madiba, I hail you.’

*Ochu is an Abuja-based journalist and blogger