The Nigeria of Our Dreams: Never Forgotten Angels Being a speech delivered by the distinguished Senator Ben Murray Bruce

Ben Murray-Bruce
The Nigeria of Our Dreams: Never Forgotten
Angels
Being a speech delivered by the distinguished
Senator Ben Murray Bruce at the occasion of
the 10th Anniversary Celebration of the 60
Angels of Loyola Jesuit College on November
29th, 2015,
I thank you for inviting me to this tenth
anniversary celebration of your and our sixty
angels who passed away on the 10th of
December 2005 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
In honour of their memory, I would like to ask
all of us to please stand and observe a
minute' s silence.
Children are very important in the cycle of life.
In one of my favourite songs, 'The Greatest
Love of All' sung by both George Benson and
Whitney Houston, the song writer said:
"I believe the children are our future.
Teach them well and let them lead the way.
Show them all the beauty they possess inside.
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier. Let
the children's laughter remind us how we used
to be. "
This is a message we need to hear in Nigeria
again and again because we, and by we I mean
the elite , of which I am one, have monumentally
failed this nation.
I remember when I was the Director General of
the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, I read an
interview in ThisDay Newspapers about the son
of a particular former Nigerian leader who
talked about how much he loves his polo horse
to the extent that when it was sick he flew the
horse to Switzerland for treatment at an
outrageous price.
Now, I happen to have visited some of the
communities around the mansion where this
child of privilege lives and it is peopled with
children who go to some of the most
horrendous schools you can imagine.
Some of these schools do not have enough
desks. Some do not even have complete roofs.
All of them do not have enough teachers.
Yet we have the son of a man who once ruled
this nation spending lavishly on a horse while
schools within his radius are crumbling.
Now the reason I mention this is because his
father once gave an interview in the same
ThisDay Newspapers in which he revealed that
he achieved the height he reached in life
because of the free and qualitative education
he received from Nigeria in the 50s and 60s!
Why do our elite behave this way? Why do we
climb the ladder of success that was freely
given to us and then remove it when we get to
the top?
Why do we enjoy the shade that good men from
yesterday planted for us only to uproot the
trees instead of planting more?
You see, I think we do this because as a nation
we have lost our ability to empathize with the
poorest Nigerians for the simple reason that
our elite are not stake holders in Nigeria.
When you move about with armed policemen
who block you from the common man and
block the common man from you, how can you
empathize with him ?
When your children school abroad and you
never bother to know where the children of
your driver and your cook go to school, how
can you empathize with them?
When you are flown to Europe for a headache
and you never patronize the general hospital
in your state, how can you empathize with the
masses?
Today, we are fighting terrorism in Nigeria and
we are focusing on a military battle with guns
and bullets.
But the truth is that over the years, Nigeria
has neglected the children of the peasants in
the Northeast of Nigeria to the extent that
52.4% of males in the Northeastern region of
Nigeria have no formal Western education
whatsoever.
If a nation will not spend her wealth
educating her youth, that nation will spend
the same wealth fighting insecurity amongst
those same youth.
If we had spent the billions we are now spending
to fight terrorism in educating ALL Nigerian
children in the 80s, we would not be spending
trillions fighting terrorists today.
Lets plan for tomorrow!
What we need are policies that will force our
elite to become stakeholders in Nigeria and
only then would they be able to empathize with
what the average Nigerian goes through.
I propose that the President should start this
empathy revolution by ordering that his
minister of education must educate his
children in Nigeria and that his minister of
health must patronize our local health
facilities.
This will have the effect of turning them to
stakeholders. Currently they are only
onlookers. Stakeholders empathize.
Onlookers are indifferent.
I believe that the 8th National Assembly, of
which I am a part, must pass a bill to make it
mandatory that education must have the
highest sectoral allocation in every budget
cycle at the federal level.
You see, the cycle of poverty in Nigeria is going
to continue if we do not build more schools
like the Loyola Jesuit College all over
Nigeria.
And I must commend the Jesuits. Ever since
Saint Ignatius Loyola founded this esteemed
order, they continue to make this world a
better place by moulding the minds of youths
all over the world through moral and
intellectual education.
I call on the Federal and State Governments
to come to the Jesuits to learn how not to
waste the minds of our youths.
When they learn that lesson, terrorism will
become a thing of the past and the young man
who takes his horse to Switzerland for
treatment can ride it openly without the fear
of been blown to smithereens by terrorists.
Recently, some Nigerians took to putting
French flags on their Social Media profiles to
identify with and remember those who died
during the recent Paris attacks.
It is sad that while we want to identify and
remember those who are very far away from us,
we do not seem moved enough to put Nigerian
flags on our profiles when terrorists strike in
Nigeria or when tragedy befalls us.
I am glad to say that the teachers and parents
of the Loyola Jesuit College are an exception
to this behaviour and you are a beacon of hope
and a silver lining on often cloudy days.
Once again I commend you for what you have
done for education in Nigeria and even more so
for how you have kept alive the memory of the
60 angels who lost their lives on that tragic
day in 2005.
In their honour, permit me to read this poem by
Kechi Okwuchi, your former student and one of
only two survivors of that tragedy:
A tribute to the Angels
By Kechi Okwuchi
It seems like yesterday
Full of excitement
We chatted non-stop
All the way to the plane
It seems like yesterday
We made plans, discarded them
Made new ones
Our future bright
It seems like yesterday
When we dropped out of the sky
To noise, to pain, to…silence
To glory
It seems like yesterday
That God had different plans
To take us to greater heights
A future not foreseen
On angels’ wings we flew
Racing past the clouds
Racing up to glory
Enveloped by His Grace
Though not with you in glory
I am a part of you
Left behind to continue the legacy
Left to run the race
As long as there is breathe in me
Dearest 60, you are not forgotten
Through the pain of yesterday
A million tomorrows are born.
Thank you for inviting me to this most
honourable of events. May God bless you and
may God bless Nigeria.