Guest Columnist By Fredrick Nwabufo
Twitter/Facebook/Instagram: @FredrickNwabufo
A number of times the social media come awash with this simple yet pertinent question – what is the problem with Nigeria or statements like – this country is crazy or the problem with Nigeria is ….blah! blah! blah! Occasionally some sane lone voice attempts to tell the world that the problem is not Nigeria as an entity but the people of Nigeria are the problem. I up my arms and say GREAT! Just great!
But come to think of, what do you do with a people that deny responsibility for their actions? What do you do when people bluntly and adamantly refuse to be responsible for their actions? What do you do with a people who have no sense of civic responsibility? How do you begin to address youths that are steep in ignorance and refuse to believe so of themselves?
From where I stand, me think that the APC that came to power on the slogan of “Change” did not quite comprehend the term and it’s connotations to different groups that make up the general society. May be to the All Progressives Congress (APC) it meant simply a change of baton at leadership levels, or may be it meant a lot more but it most certainly did not imply structural change or fundamental change to our sense of duty to self, civic duty and responsibility. And very importantly it did not include that section of the populace that makes up the civil service.
When we talk change I believe it should be all encompassing, it should be understood by each and every member of the society reaching out from community levels upwards and vice versa. Change should be genuinely embraced by all otherwise it becomes a bitter pill. The goal should be well and appropriately communicated and acted on as well; collectively we must walk the talk. For a society that has been on downward spiral in terms of principles, morals, ethics and just name it we need serious and unbreakable will to pull us out of the sad situation we relocated to.
Populated by a youth that do not like to read and parented by adults that are not interested in passing on facts and enhancing knowledge I say we got a problem beyond the obvious. A people that do not like to read, rely heavily on rumors and unsubstantiated information or news invites chaos, disaffection, and unruliness, in a self-designed rudderless boat. Then it is a journey to a land of never -never.
The ‘youths’ will chant they have come of age, they have awaken, they are not too young to run and so forth and so on. Then you ask what exactly have they woken up to? Of course at 30 years plus or even 25 years of age one is not too young to run to where ever they want to. But how prepared are you for that ‘run’? At over 25 years of age quite a number are still dependent and living off their parents waiting to be served with employment letters into positions that pay less than their pocket monies. And they are not too young to run! Their parents who are too old to be in the civil service refuse to leave so their subordinates can move up the ladder and their children could be employed.
The ‘not too young to run” and youths have nothing to build their ambition on except on crass materialism, they cannot even mobilize themselves to stand as one against those they rail against. They fail to articulate their position so the rest of us who are too old to run can empathize with them and offer support. They act like it is their right while we should feel privileged to follow. It is a comic tragedy.
We talk about change in an environment where people refuse to pay tax on anything, we refuse to clean our environments and blame the government for floods and other natural disasters and diseases, we circumvent every civic responsibility, we make nonsense of rules and regulations pronounced to make life easy for us and we blame the government. We are quick to make comparisons with USA, UK, Japan, China and so on but we fail to bring that comparative index to include the sacrifices of the people of those countries. We fail to include among the indices of comparison attitude, hard work, ethics and principles. We fail in one of the most important index of all; MERIT. Merit encompasses hard work, honesty, dedication, perseverance, objectivity, respect and knowing and carrying out responsibility for the general good. Being irresponsible, refusing to acknowledge and carry our civic responsibility that would better the collective well being are all enhancers of derailment in a society.
We need to purge ourselves of the materialistic demon that has taken us over; we hail and celebrate monies without a thought for its source. Then when the truth hits us between our eyes we run for cover and begin to denounce after the fact; yesterday we celebrated Hushpuppy or whatever, today is Cubana, tomorrow and next tomorrow would be who??? Common!! let’s wake up to our reality. The reality that until we the people of Nigeria make the bold move to embrace real ethics and principles, there would never be any change. No one has the magic wand for change in their suit pockets or agbada gowns. We need to do away with our feelings of entitlement and begin to do the right thing, do the needful.
