The recognition of individual based on his personal attributes, capabilities and merit marked the beginning of civilisation. The time from which people began to place emphasis on individual and shy away from sterotyping through general statement about others was when rationality was born. It always pains me that we, Nigerians are yet to be civilised by this reductionist definition of the term. We are still more concerned about the 'what' of a person not the 'who' as it should be. We have not yet recognised the simple philosophical standpoints regarding collective and individual identity. For us, the general is more important than the individual.
This myopic view explains why we are always looking at people and judging them for being northerners, southeners, Yaroba, Hausa, Ijaw, Igbo, Muslims, Christians, Atheists among others. We would not stretch our cognitive ability a bit to separate the chaff from the grains by insisting on personal values and attributes and looking beyond ethnic, religious or communal garbs to see if there is an individualistic quality. I, for example, would be elated that a northerner becomes president of this country, not minding his personal qualities. I would not give a hoot whether he is corrupt, incompetent and insincere. My own source of happiness is that the man is from my village, ethnic group or religion. The funnies part of it all is that being him from my stock does not mean he caters for me or the larger constituency. One therefore wonders why all the fuss from me to see that my kinsman is appointed or elected to any position.
As if endorsing this misnomer, the FG in 1979 came out with federal character principle supposedly to give equal chance to all regions of the country. That is to say, for each brilliant person from region A, there must be another person from region B, even if inept. For me the federal character principle lacks character and it is a folly of no mean to stand. By it, the government raised mediocrity and ineptitude above merit and qualification. It was with this minset that Nigerians literally drew out the daggers to fight each other over who becomes our next president. Merit is not the consideration. What a people!