Nigeria: A Nation Trapped Between The Interplay Of Idealism And Materialism

      

Looking at Nigeria as a nation, one will not be that far from the truth, concluding that we are closely associated with the philosophy of materialism. Wealth is not without its advantages and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive. But beyond doubt, wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding. The poor man has always a precise view of his problem an its remedy. He hasn’t enough and he needs more, the rich man can assume or imagine a much greater variety of ills and he will be correspondingly certain of their remedy. Also, until he learns to live with his wealth, he will have a well-observed tendency to put it to the wrong purposes or otherwise to make himself foolish.

It is a compelling paradox that Nigeria so richly endowed with human and natural, resources with over 167 million people according to national population commission (NPC) data for 2012, by far the most populous country in Africa, accounting for 47% of West Africa’s population and over 2.26% of world population, pacing it at 7th position according to 2010 UN estimates, with proximate land mass of one million square kilometers suitable for commercial agriculture, underlain over 34 solid mineral, largely untapped and ranked among the top ten (10) crude oil and natural gas exporters in the world by the Vienna, Austria-based OPEC, with daily crude oil output at 22.2 mbpd and second largest African economy, 6th fastest growing economy in Africa with real GDP of 6.9% in 2011 and nominal GDP of $280 billion as at 2011 fiscal year, hence prides itself as the giant of Africa!

But the irony of it all is that with all this potential, Nigeria is still grappling with trivial issues of nation building, development and optimum harnessing of its potentials. With over 12 million out-of-school children, 115 million adult illiterates, high unemployment rate at an all-time high of 20.1 percent, low life expectancy, averaging 45 years for men and women and over 70.percent of its citizens living below the poverty line coupled with its worst economic indices of human development not only ion sub-Sahara African region but the world at large, scoring an appalling 0.511 point and ranked 158 out of 182 countries in the UNDP HDI report for year 2009, placing  Nigeria at the bottom for human development in the world. The above scenario can be rationalized by the negative effects of bad leadership, wrong policy choices and the hydra-headed monster called corruption.

As with individual so it is with nations. And the experience of nations with well-being is exceedingly brief. The ideas of which the people in the favoured part of the world interpret their existence, and in measure guide their behavior, were not forged in the world of materialism and stupendous wealth. These ideas were the product of a world in which poverty has always been man’s normal lot; and any other state was in degree unimaginable. This poverty was not the elegant torture of the spirit which comes from contemplating another man’s more spacious possessions. It was the unedifying mortification of the flesh from hunger, sickness and cold. Those who might be free from such burden could not know when it would strike again, for at best hunger yielded only perilously to privation. It is improbable that the poverty of the masses was made greatly more bearable by the fact that a very few-those upon whose movement nearly recorded history centre were very rich.


Disabling social values reflect material relations of power and maybe better explained as ideology’. Idealism and materialism, these two doctrines in their common form, by which are symmetrical and directly opposed, re logically absurd. In the debate between idealism and materials, the ultimate question is mind over matter or matter over mind. Idealism, philosophy which proclaims that reality is actually nothing but ideas, our consciousness and our min is in direct conflict with materialism, a philosophy based on the idea. That everything round us is made up of matter or is totally dependent on matter for survival and hence should determine the code of human conduct.

According to philosophers, Idealism as a school of thought coined by Plato, explains reality as nothing but that which our mind tells us it is. An idealist is one who always strives for perfection. He believes that everything and everyone should be ideal i.e perfect and flawless. Idealists are basically non-conformists and futurists who want to change the accepted order of things for a more perfect one in future. Idealist seeks intellectual and moral development, rather than gaining material wealth. On the other hand, materialism emphasizes the importance of worldly possessions and physical beauty, proclaiming that they are the most important things in life.

A materialistic person is the one who seeks wealth, is superficial, selfish and status conscious, wants to look good all the time, is manipulative, works for his own benefits and always want things to go his way. A materialist wants everything now and look for instant gratification while an idealist strive to work towards a perfect future for everyone. In the course of our odyssey as a nation, it is imperative that we must be idealistic to justify our existence as human beings; but we must also be materialistic to adapt ourselves to the concatenations of a materialistic world. To steer between these two, it becomes necessary for us to be eclectic and pragmatic: to draw the best from each philosophy and make it work to our advantage in the light of reason and experience, says Rt. Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe in his autobiography titled My Odyssey.

Finally, as we escape from the obsolete and contrive pre-occupations associated with the assumption of poverty we are able to see for the time the tasks and opportunities that are before us. This is not as reassuring as it sounds. One of the best ways to avoiding necessary and even urgent tasks is to seem to be busily employed on things that are already done. Such is the purpose, but first there is some preparatory work. For we have not clung to the impalpable assumptions concerning our society purely as the result of obtuseness and ignorance, powerful as these influences maybe, they are not that strong. On the contrary, in matters of social discussion, there are active and pervasive influences which binds us to the past and which on occasions, even cause us to try to recover the moribund. We must first beware of our captivity