Post by Danny Angbashim (@db_angbashim)

Currently reading Condoleeza Rice's memoir "No Higher Honor" and cannot but marvel at Americans' selflessness and intense patriotism for their country.

She recounts how passengers and crew members of United Airlines Flight 93 on learning that terrorists had already used other planes to crash into the WTC and the Pentagon that morning jointly resolved to battle the terrorists (who by then had already seized control of the cockpit) and crash the plane in open fields rather than allow it to be used to crash into, possibly, the White House or the Capitol.

As I stop to reflect on this September 11, 2001 incident I asked myself whether Nigerians caught in a commercial plane in similar situation would choose to down the plane in the bush or allow the terrorists to accomplish their mission to kill their leaders? Most likely the latter option.

Not because we're inherently bad but rather that over the years our leaders have not governed or conducted themselves in a manner that inspires unalloyed love for country in us.

No matter how flowery the national anthem and pledge are, reciting them daily will still not inspire the needed patriotism in citizens if their lived reality is different from their lyrics. In which case they become mere platitudes.

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