As a political analyst and an advocate for change, mine is to say this from a meticulous point of view. The problem with .Nigeria is not ordinary but extra-ordinary, majority of our leaders are not okay, and the youths are not ready. In short, our leaders are insincere and have no purpose of life. So they keep away the truth from the citizens. They remove history from our curriculum.
As a student and a youth with passion for impacting knowledge, I have come to understand that in a country whose citizens do not know where they are coming from, they will never know where they are heading to. I know some will dispute the validity of these claims of mine. That is necessary, but I also challenge and summon them to an open debate to impugn my protestation on this.
It is a thing of sadness that Africa’s most densely inhabited nation and the number eight (8) largest exporter of crude oil, a country that is blessed with more than enough of human and natural resources is still one of the least most developed countries in the world and more likely the poverty capital of the world. Maybe, maybe not.
In one of Banki Moon’s word “Sustainable development is the pathway to the future we want for all. It offers a frame work to generate economic growth, achieve social justice, exercise environmental stewardship and strengthen governance” Development cannot take place when there are no good leader’s to put things in place.
Nigeria from the day she got her independence had been lead in a wrong way; Nigeria was governed by people with zero skills of good governance and no trait of development. Our leaders lack transparency, positivity, integrity, accountability and most importantly, passion and purpose.
Sadly, the problem of Nigeria cannot be attributed to the bad leaders alone but also to people that voted them in. For example, during election period in Nigeria, political parties will start sharing money to get people vote for them and Nigerians instead of going against such an occurrence do nothing but struggle to get their own share of the peanuts. After election they are being forgotten then, they start lamenting. Undoubtedly, the docile natures of Nigerians have also turned the good leaders to bad.
Another distinct cause of bad leadership in Nigeria is that Nigerians get easily deceived by the manifestoes, wealth and political party of a politician. Some even prefer to go for party in place of good personality. We often hide under the shadows of the political party we are in support of instead of the best candidate that would be the best for us.
Unwillingness to take part in the political activities of this country is also one of the reasons why we are being robbed daily in this country. An average Nigerian doesn’t even care about anything other than his food and money but will end up blaming anybody for his/her unhappiness. Our politicians almost or definitely lead wrongly because of our lack of interest.
However, greed is one of the greatest causes of bad leadership in Nigeria, as our politicians only care about their personal and hidden interest so they get there to misbehave. On the other hand Idowu Koyenikan stated that “show me the heroes that the youth of your country look up to, and I will tell you the future of your country” Unfortunately, the youth who are supposed to be the trustees that should bring about a better nation have taken mediocrity to be their center of attraction and attention. And I wonder how the future of Nigeria will look like.
The effect bad leadership has caused us include: surge increase in poverty rate, high level of corruption, poor infrastructure and stagnant development in every sector of the economy.
However, Nigeria can still be great through the following ways;
We need to voice out, stand for who we are and fight for our right. We need to stop celebrating fake politicians whose mission is to rob us of our future and prosecuting someone who stole a hundred and fifty naira. Our politicians are the bigger thief that needed to be dealt with.
“One of our problems as people of Nigeria is taking things as they are; we are often driven by emotion rather than rationality and logic. Even our intellectuals are also guilty of this. Unlike developed nations, we seem to commence action based on mere ideas and then come back mid-way to work on methodology and strategies, most of our actions and reactions including policies and conceptualization are never given both short term and long term sustainability” (~unknown). We refuse to speak so our problems keep escalating.
Thomas Jefferson once said “The government you elect is the government you deserve” before going out to vote for anybody, look out for their background achievements, what they stand for and represent. He was once a vice president now he is contesting to be the president, don’t you know that what he did as a vice president is what he will do as a president? Make sure the person you will be casting your vote for is the person that is capable of handling your problem.
There is no need telling things our leaders need to do to get this country back to her feet, they know they are not just ready to do the needful because they believe we are used to suffering, smiling and pretending to be fine. So on this basis, I urge all Nigerians to involve in the political affairs of the country, help your country to be great. We should love our neighbors as ourselves and not give room for ethnicity and religions to sever our unity. If a country like India that has multiethnic group more than any country in the world, they face the same problem Nigeria encounter today but they have been able to minimize it, we can do better to.
In conclusion, “we love to quote the saying “Rome was not built in a day” but we fail to remember that Rome was eventually built, and it must have been magnificent that when people admired it, they were told that it didn’t just happen in just a day. The question, then, is if Rome was not built in a day, how was it built? Answer: it was built everyday” (~Nana Awere Damoah). Those countries we now call developed nations struggled and fought for it, it wasn’t by magic, they partake, work tirelessly to make their country great. We can also do the same. Let’s unite. God bless us and God bless Nigeria.
OLUKOYA Isaac A.
Founder UNIQUE MINDS ACADEMY.