Nigeria Problems: No Be Today!

Nigera Problems: No Be Today!

It was Benito Mussolini, former Prime Minister of Italy who said: " Problem is to a man, what maternity is to a woman". This statement denotes several things. One, it suggests that problems and man are twin inseparable twins. Two, it means as long as man lives, problem will remain a daily experience of his life and existence. Three, the only problem free man is perhaps the man in the grave. Four, every association of man is inevitably rooted in problems. 

What the foregoing suggest is that problem exists and will continue to exist at individual, corporate or national level. Having extablished the fact that man is expected to move from one problems to the other, then, one can also rightly deduced that man is designed by God to be problems solvers from family to social institutions and not less at national and global institutions level. 

Nigeria as a country has always have its share of problems from inception till date. This no doubt is expected, but the existence of some problems are as old as the Nigeria State, and this questions what the various managers of the Nigeria State had been doing all this while. Some of the issues are so trivial that one cannot but wonder why such problems have taken a protracted course all these years. 

Let's begin with the most deadliest one - bad leadership. Everything, they say, rises and falls on leadership. This is because a good leader is someone who knows the way, shows the way and goes the way paraphrasing Maxwell classic definition of leadership. Why is good leadership a problematic endeavors in our sojourn as a nation? It's rooted in the mindset and behaviours of an average Nigerian. 

According to Chief Obafemi Awolowo, one of the chief-architects of the Nigeria State: "when the disciples are ready, the master will appear says the mystic: an eternal truth which is applicable to politics as it is to mysticism. It is the readiness and the yearnings and aspirations of the people that will determine the calibre and character of those who rule them. In a society of rogues, honesty will be heavy discount; and that as it should be. The task of a great reformer is to win support both by precepts and by examples..." Suffice to say, the society deserves the kind of leaders they get, good or bad, competent or incompetent, honest or dishonest, selfish or selfless, visionary or visionless, reformer or destroyer. 

Occasionally, when we've had a semblance of good leadership, we've regressed backward a number of times. It's either the few successes recorded by previous regimes in terms of projects and policy measures are reversed or jetisioned by succeeding regimes in the name of politics and personal aggrandizement. What this means is that Nigerians seem not to be discerning enough to choose the right leaders to govern them, or they have relegated the responsibility to certain people to do. The problem may as well be both. The next local, State and national elections are around the corner, but the preparation towards it by those who should know and do the needful are nonewhere to be found, but sooner or later, we will soon be shedding crocodile tears. 

A Chinese proverbs says: if you want to plant a maize, plan a year ahead, if you want to plant palm trees, plan ten years ahead. Where is the planning being done today by those who were canvassing for the change of the old guards? Power from ages, it is not served la carte. It has to be taken. Even Christ in His eathly mission said: since the day of John the Baptist, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and only the violent takes it by force. While I'm not canvassing for violent take over from those who have kept the country on its knees, the truth is the youths and those yearnings for change must be more voiceferous in the campaign for inclusions, justice, rules of laws, restructuring and a whole lot of issues that can bring about good governance and leadership. 

The truth is if we get it right at leadership level, the other symptomatic problems we have like insecurities, decadence infrastructures, unemployment, poverty, acute power supply, chronic debts, social unrests, and corruption are half-solved. So why are we not deploring all our efforts and capacities to get the right people into offices? It's rooted in our psychological composition and makeup. We seems to be incapable of choosing the right men for the job. 

...to be continued! 

Sanmi Adekola is an Entrepreneur, Social commentator, Policy Analyst, and Writer.