Man Thinking of Idea --- Image by © Chat Roberts/Corbis
As a people, we are not only unpatriotic; we are also very thoughtless.
I tell you, man, this country is full of
contradictions. Here we are, a deeply unhappy set of people living in a
happy land. We are among the poorest countries living with a small
number of those who got stupendously rich on stolen funds. We are said
to be a brilliant people who make incredibly stupid policies. We have
cars and technologies and buildings cast in the latest architectural
designs, yet the larger population live in hovels. We have the world’s
highest number of churches and mosques yet we are the most godless
people on earth. The question is, why are we so blessed?
There is a rumour going the rounds that
Nigeria’s (stolen) money is at the heart of many international banks’
and cities’ projects the world over. In short, it is rumoured that
Nigerians have taken government’s funds and have sort of scattered and
sowed them into various world projects, not on behalf of the people but
on their own sweet behalf, yet her citizens are living in penury. Now,
there are people calling for a conference on the state of the nation’s
economy.
The question is, who are the people we
are going to call to that conference? Are they going to be the same old
politicians and old soldiers who ran the country aground? And where are
we going to dump the reports? I imagine the stores in Aso Villa are full
to overflowing already with such reports. The so-called national
conference reports are somewhere there gathering dust. The
ex-president’s cronies came, ate and left, and nothing happened.
Since that conference, many things have
been happening in the country. News reports keep telling us how people
are being killed for debts of less than N2,000. They tell us how female
teenagers are running away from home and willingly agreeing to be used
as baby-producing factories. They tell us how fathers and mothers are
willingly selling their children for a bit of cash. Just last week, the
news reported how a father sold his son for N250,000.
Yes, we are gradually reaching the point
where return will be impossible. Early in this year, poor Oyelowo
Ajanaku was said to have been stabbed to death by his wife Yewande in
one of Nigeria’s cities due to one pressure or the other. And this one
was reported because it involved some high-profile people. Do you know
the many such related cases that are not being reported because the
personalities involved are not high-profile? I tell you, the Nigerian
situation is beginning to get to us.
To say that the Nigerian economy is in
trouble is an understatement. I am scared about it, and I am not even an
economist. I think the real economists would tell us to be more scared,
if they dared. I am not sure though that many of them would fly the
kite of a round-table discussion on the subject just yet. I think we
should first look at our management profile and tackle a few issues. Let
us tackle the root cause of our problems first before applying the
plaster. It will do well to get somewhere with this fight against
corruption before we pile on the salutary measures.
Practically all Nigerians agree that the
nation’s jugular has been gripped by the cold and merciless hands of
corruption. The national, state and local area executive/legislative
arms, large corporations, small and medium scale enterprises, etc., are
all grappling with corruption. It has got so bad now that even owners of
little shops and kiosks are complaining that their sales/front-desk
persons are corrupt! Those ones have now learnt to inflate the price of
the goods or services in their charge, give the owner the advertised
price of the good or service and pocket the difference.
In short, every Nigerian you meet now is
just waiting for their chance to be corrupt. Whenever they have been
placed in a position to choose between their grasping hands and the
country, they have patriotically chosen to satisfy their grasping hands.
This column has stated it again and again that this country’s problems
can be traced to two things only: FAILURE TO THINK AND FAILURE TO TRULY CONNECT WITH THE COUNTRY. As a people, we are not only unpatriotic, we are also very thoughtless.
Failure to think is not the result of
the breakdown of the thinking faculty. After all, you think, therefore
you are. I truly believe that our thinking faculty as a nation is truly
intact; what has broken down is our failure to focus our thoughts on the
things that matter. I have reported on these pages again and again what
Golda Meir, a one-time prime minister of Israel, was reported to have
said once regarding African leaders but I will report it again. She said
that African leaders have no vision for their continent. All they are
interested in is consumerism and displaying their egos to their
neighbours’ envies. The prime minister effectively told us that African
leaders cannot think deeply enough to conceive ways of bringing their
countries out of poverty.
Just imagine her country, Israel, having
the kind of leadership that is common to Africa. That country would
have been annihilated long ago by any of the myriads of her enemies
surrounding her. So now, what Nigeria lacks in the form of external
threats, she has thoughtfully provided in her own citizens. Good news:
Nigeria is threatened by her own citizens.
I am always full of wonderments. Have
you noticed that nearly, if not all, the people who have pilfered from
government coffers and stashed their hauls abroad still live in the
country? I don’t know what for, but I keep wondering: is it so that they
can see the effects of what they have pilfered on the rest of the
country? Or is it to see if there is any fat chance that they can get
more to nibble? I don’t know, but there they are, still hanging around
and talking into microphones.
Really, I am not too optimistic that
much can come out of any conference right now until these nibblers are
good and properly fixed. They are still in leadership. They are wiser
than the rest of us in the matter of contriving wily ways of beating the
system. They are close enough to the presidency to get policies changed
in their favour and at the expense of the country. Who is to say that
as soon as a solution is got to end the nation’s economic woes, these
nibblers would not immediately begin to dig up ways of working contrary
to the rest of us, eh?
I honestly do not have much faith in
the present crop of politicians, whatever party they may belong to, to
bring out any lasting solution to the nation’s socio-economic woes or
any other
woes for that matter. Most of them are
too self-absorbed to really be interested in lifting up the country. As
it is, the whole country seems to be tensely still, as if waiting for
something to happen to give the signal to some action or the other. This
is not a feeling that calling an economic conference can cure. There is
much more wrong with the country than a failing economy.
This is a feeling that calls for
something more profound; something akin to deep thinking on the part of
every Nigerian of thought. This is a time that calls on every Nigerian
to become a philosopher king and queen for choosing an economic, housing
or health policy and sticking to it no matter what, banning
non-essential imports, actively promoting Nigerian manufactured goods,
relaxing import tariffs on raw materials, encouraging the people to seek
knowledge and information, etc. In short, the time has come for us all
to connect to the country by thinking deeply about her. Happy thinking
day or week.
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