No pain no gain. When it comes to working for or exercising our rights, we are the number one at failure. We do not play our part, neither do we take responsibility. There is always a reaction, a consequence to any given situation and we are living the results. We have to make service providers keep the promises they openly and solemnly make to us. Our culture of impunity has reached epidemic proportions and we are imploding.
The biggest
swindlers are our political leaders and our civil service. Unfortunately, they
are we; we make up this political class! Empty promises, those are all we give
and get. Look into the content of these
promises, they are hollow. We elect or allow incompetence to take seats. They
are simply reacting to what they have seen played out time after time. Get into
government anyway possible, that way all our problems will be solved. The purpose
of getting into government is to become rich, to be a big man. So when a
budding young politician is making promises, it is mere rhetoric. He says what
he believes he needs to say to gain favour. We are not fooled but feel that he
is our boy or of our tribe, our local government or are distantly related to us
and choose him for that reason and that reason only. We may be lucky and
participate in the chopping.
Meanwhile,
around the world, the best man to do the job is head hunted. The governor of
the Bank of England is from Canada. He was the best man for the job. A Nigerian
is the mayor of Guangzhou in China. He is the best man for the job. Obama’s
father was from Kenya. He is the best man for the job.
We are
always proud to hear of Nigerians in the diaspora doing well in every field. We
have settled all around the world and yet we are still talking of indigene and
settler here at home.
We were promised
“a breath of fresh air” and massive infrastructural development after subsidy
removal in January 2012. We were promised that the money realised from the oil
subsidy removal would be ploughed into healthcare, education, electricity
generation, transportation and employment. Billions of naira and some 18 months
after, our leaders are fighting in Eagle Square. They are jockeying for
positions and forcefully removing any perceived threat to their 2015 bid.
We fluctuate
between 3,200 and 3,800 MW of electricity in 2013!!! We are told that
government is going to generate 10,000 MW by 2015 and 40,000MW by 2020. Last
week, we just lost 400MW of our 3,000-plusMW. Such are the promises we get in
other sectors too. We queue for visas
and fly to India, South Africa, UK, USA, Egypt, Cuba and the UAE for medical
and academic tourism, no thanks to a breakdown in our health and education
sectors. Ironically, 77% of members of the Association of Black Doctors in the
US are Nigerians.
The education sector would attract direct
investment, so we were promised. Our universities and polytechnics are shut due
to strike action by ASUU over failed promises. Our youth roam the streets and
kidnapping and oil bunkering are the order of the day. The FRSC corps marshal, Osita
Chidoka, has warned that if something radical is not done to rectify the bad
state of our roads, accidents, which have claimed 1.3m lives and made over 5
million persons disabled, will increase by 65% between 2015 and 2020. Many
death traps which were to be fixed before last Christmas
remain, less than four months to another Christmas when all Nigerians take to
the roads to visit their ancestral homes. The Benin-Ore Road, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway,
Kaduna-Zaria and Abuja-Lokoja roads add danger and sorrow to the lives of
Nigerian families.
We have left
the polity to the dregs of our society; to hoodlums who have failed us for too
long. What does that make us? Lazy shallow souls who do not have the stomach to
labour for what should be dear to us. We look only for instant gratification. We
need to look around for role models – people who keep their promises – and urge
them to deliver our dear country by taking responsibility.
This is a
job of work and will include labour pains. We cannot shy away from this if we
want to leave something behind that we can all be proud of.
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