The trouble with Nigeria according to late novelist, Chinua Achebe is squarely that of leadership. Also, our diversity in culture has become one of our biggest setbacks when it should have been our strongest selling point. This unique quality which should be an advantage has become an instrument we use against each other for selfish reasons to gain power, wealth and status.
Nigerians have become so delusional that they now believe in this status quo rather than making conscious effort to confront the reality that as a people we are all flawed. We rather apportion blames while exempting ourselves and regions from the fact that we all contributed to why we are and what we are either by our actions and inactions.
Nigerians must not allow the past to define us. The past is history and dwelling on the past can do us no good. Rather, we must use the past as a reference point towards building future we can all be proud of. As Nigerians we must be ready to reinvent ourselves taking advantage of our unique problems and converting them into opportunities for our people to thrive. Yes, we are at that point where we cannot afford the luxury of trusting our leaders in government to better the situation alone as history reminds us.
Therefore, we must become partners in this project of nation building. We must try to use what is naturally available to us, aided by technology to create the experience that makes the difference and once we have achieved that we would have created a system that breeds responsibility and competency. We would have produced a pool of leaders good enough to keep steering the wheel of nation building.
As Nigerians, we must collectively accept that activism is the way to begin. It is only by being active that we can stop those who are benefiting from the current rent seeking structure that promotes idleness and unpatriotic patronage in and around the corridors of power. These benefactors and their idols would fight tooth and nail to maintain their grip on our collective resources. They would continually want the masses to remain occupied in a muddy fight while they fleece our country.
For once, pause and look around what is supposed to be affordable education and you will notice how inhabitable the environment of study is. While we struggle with the high cost of education for our kids, they got the best teachers and schools, home and abroad paid from the states stolen funds to school their wards and upon graduation, jobs in our nations must revered government institutions and companies are already waiting for them.
While this is the true state of our nation today, let us not forget who present day crop of leaders are. These are a set of generation who enjoyed the best of all the country could afford in their youth: free education, health care and Jobs that were readily available. Life was safe enough for them to aspire towards greatness and they did. At a tender age of 23 to 29 and above, some became commissioners, ministers, governors and heads of state or presidents. This same generation did not know what it meant or felt like struggling to buy a used car or Tokunbo as it is popularly called, or a used electronic set, or even used clothes as the leaders before them were good to them.
But they have blatantly refused to replicate the same thing for this generation. While in their 60s and 70s they are still fighting each other for the jobs, appointments and opportunities, they were once given. They even accuse us of being in a hurry. Just to keep us off their back and away from competing they have perfected the tool; ethnicity and religion to tear the younger generation apart turning the youths into enemies of themselves and each other. They have ensured that the young of this generation are kept in the dark, blinded by hate and anger created by frustration and unemployment, poverty and more.
Those that make up this older generation are supposed to have a duty not just to their kids but to the entire nation that had been good to them. They owe this nation a debt they should be paying but have refused to pay. They are taken away by pure greed and lack of contentment.
It’s time we stood up and say enough is enough. We the youths of this country must rise to the challenges of today. It’s time the youths reminded these leaders of their over-lapsed responsibilities in case they are overtaken by age to claim ignorance or amnesia. It is time these older leaders gave back or better still retire if they lack what to give as it is looking more and more obvious they lack the will to, neither is the nation or its youth willing to wait for them to ask what they can or should do for the country.
It is even more disheartening at this time that the likes of General Ibrahim Babangida (retired), supposedly the architect of a failed modern Nigeria speaking up and telling us what to do. First, he needs to apologize to us and secondly, return all he looted. Most times people say don’t worry about the messenger listen to the message, I’m sorry to say but one very important lesson I have learnt as an entrepreneur is that you never seek mentorship or advice from a person who has never succeeded as an entrepreneur. I can never trust anything that comes out from that group of unpatriotic, self-serving generation whose only achievement is nothing other than failure.
If we go through their records one after the other to question what they have done for their wards or villages not to mention their local government areas you would meet an empty set.
As Nigerians, let us take opportunity where it resides; right now we have an open but slim window. We are in the digital age, an age of limitless enlightenment and an age where education and information is no longer limited to the four-walls of a class room, an age that opens the mind of any person seeking for greatness, an age of globalization. Let us take this opportunity to redefine ourselves and our togetherness by ending our collective bondage. Let us free ourselves from their strong-hold while we can and while the sun stills shine. We should also make it a point of duty to teach our kids to be better, to rise against people who would threaten not only their future but that of their kids and grandkids. But now, we need that first step, we have to show our kids that we are not weak, we’ve not been broken, this was not the Nigeria that our founding fathers fought for.
We must stand up, we must to rise beyond our pettiness, we must raise our voices, we must embrace our differences. We must cut across our religious and ethnic divides. We must know that those same things they use to tear us apart are the strength in us. We are better, we will make our kids and our grandkids proud.
Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as the pathway to peace. Long live Nigeria.
- Nahuche is an entrepreneur.
