With about seventy two (72) students down to the Boko Haram lethal weapons in the college of education Yobe, we need a change.
Change they say is the only constant factor in life. One era must extinct to usher in another era. This explains the inevitability of change. According to Socrates; “the secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old but on building the new”. The act of governance is distinct from the quest for the reigns of power were promises are dished out inordinately without considering the feasibility or the propensity of its accomplishment. Truly, there is no way politics can be divorced from the society that is essentially dynamic. But, the ingredient of politics and politicking aught not to be applied in such a way as to counter the virtues of governance which should derive much impetus from, an extant system. While the game of politics which thrives so much on propaganda, conspiracy and counter-conspiracy could be likened to a fad, that of skill and acts of governance should depict certain durable qualities of great historical essence.
Simply put, government as a continuum entails that decision making aught to be systematic whereas policies made to equally be sustainable. It is imperative that sustainable development depends upon good governance, good governance depends upon the rule of law, and the rule of law depends upon effective compliance and enforcement. To this end, a focused government should look beyond the distractions of traducers and be strengthened by the dividends of constructive criticism. A broad based government treasures the virtues of social criticism and always ready to take a good advantage of constructive analysis and criticism of its programmes, projects and policies that affects the society in definite ways.
The attitude of stack repugnance to constructive criticism by any government is sheer irresponsibility. This is not denying the wisdom that he who blows the piper dictates the tunes. It is not either a rebuttal to the sayings that; he who wears the cap knows where it pinches or that who feels it knows it. Except we look at the mirror, we do not see ourselves. In the same vein, the public perception oftentimes serves as a veritable mirror of the government. The fundamental essence of government stretches from the provision of security and protection of lives and property to that of ensuring the conformity of social contract essential for an established social order, equity and fairness. On the contrary, it is only self aggrandizement that begat crass insensitivity which in turn ignites discontent among the masses.
The climax of discontent where immediate demand for a change is resisted is revolution. This is what obtains in Egypt, Syria, Libya, Tunisia and elsewhere where selfish leadership is now vehemently resisted. When the society realizes (especially the led) that the leaders are despotically disposed towards the pursuit of selfish ends, they resort to utter display of intolerance at that point of Saturation where their resilience is over stretched. Ours may be such a gullible and complacent society of a nation where the public pretentiously condone executive recklessness, official perjury and financial profligacy. But, at one point the reality stares us in the faces that the white goose that lays the golden egg is being muzzled to asphyxiation in a clime where bad leadership becomes syndromes, afflicted with kleptomaniac obduracy, government policies skewed towards the protection of cabalistic interests and the national visions blurred with self serving concepts that lack sustainability. This is a typical conspiracy of a few cliques against the larger society. The elite class has not lived up to the billing as the true repository of the people’s collective mandate. The concept of representation and representativeness are therefore diminished to the parochial state of opportunism where the ‘elected no longer feels obliged or accountable to the electorates. Under these awry circumstances, the government pursues goals not truly tailored to serve the governed.
The obvious insouciance displayed by the leadership explains the woes of poor state-craft which is now unleashed on the poor masses in a Nation like Nigeria so richly endowed with diverse forms of nature and human capital resources. This is simply the consequence of an irresponsible, non-responsive and insensitive government at various levels. At 53 years of political independence Nigeria will be celebrating a nationhood where everything goes but nothing works; A nation just like a baby that is still wearing pampas; A nation without an established system or tradition of governance and its bureaucracy; A nation where foreign policy and international diplomacy dance two diametrically opposite tunes; A nation where the provision of fundamental duties or roles of government (i.e. security of lives and property) is still illusion; A nation where ethnic poverty chastises the masses in the face of huge national heritage now reduced to national cake shared only among few powerful cliques with their cronies, a nation where cupidity and cronyism reigns supreme; A nation where growth is far from the reach and development made practically impossible by gross misappropriation; A nation where oil doom spell-her doom in that other key sectors where tentatively kept in abeyance.
A nation where the truth has been swept under the carpet with many destinies of the posterity trampled under feet; A nation where the men entrusted with power abuses it without qualms and opportunists steal public funds like the way mosquitoes suck excess blood only to develop sack-like abdomen that intoxicates them to death; A nation where tribal sentiment becloud rational thinking and bigotry elevated with ever soaring altitude of religious intolerance; A nation where above all the worst enemy of mankind -terrorism was conceived, nurtured and hatched into the hydra-headed Boko Haram; A nation where the rule of law is violated and justice is perverse to the utter humiliation of the weak and exaltation of high and mighty; A nation where the live of a citizen (particularly the poor) is worth less than that of a fowl; A nation where the collective will of the masses is constantly raped; A nation where the less privileged poor masses have been abused, used but not refused; A nation where a week does not elapse without one trouble confronting; a nation where life actually remain brutish and the people are living in partial gloom and dependency; A nation where the acute dearth of the culture of shame has institutionalized sleaze and corruption. Now that we know all these anomalies, shall we still pretend that all is well whereas all is not yet Uhuru? The need to have a national conference in whatever guise (sovereign or not sovereign) is a welcome idea.
There is an Igbo adage that goes thus: “a person whose house is burning does not go about chasing rat”. It will be fool hardy for the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) to embark upon the proposed lavish cerebration of the centenary (100 years of the amalgamation of the protectorate of Southern and Northern Nigeria of 1914 by the year 2014. In lieu of this luxury, we should be concerned with the impending miscarriage which is a fall out of the cynical and treacherous copulation of obvious incompatible entities that constitutes what goes for a parody of a Nation Christened Nigeria.
Until this perfidy committed by the devious colonial overlords as the architects is reviewed or revisited to fashion out the workable modalities for a way forward, it is vanity. In every individual, three identities exist according to Williams Shakespeare who said, “There are three people in yourself. Who people think you are, who you think you are and who you really are” The country Nigeria is reputed for being the most populous black Nation but arrogated to herself the giant of Africa. Ironically, in striving to sustain the claims, the citizens are plunged into a deep miasma of miserable hardship amidst plenty resources. This anomalous situation which the bitter pills perceive as a taboo preferably is responsible for a peculiar brand of corruption we have in Nigeria which tends to defy every solution.
That is why the anti-graft campaign can never get it right. Of course, the corruption fighting agencies like the economic and financial crimes commission, EFCC and its equivalent, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) will be playing in the hot air unless they diagnose, the root course of this social malaise. This has to do with problem identification which is truly the first step to problem solving until we discover from where the water entered into the pun kernel stem, in vain do our bangles cast to nip corruption in the bud. Unless we come to grips with the facts that tribalism, nepotism and favoritism are those natural adjuncts of corruption which exacerbated the disease into a syndrome, the solution is bound to remain an illusion. Every individual in Nigeria shares his loyalty into three stages.
For this reason, patriotism at national level especially will be hardly extracted. Every body thinks about himself first, then the tribe before the Nation. That is why the FGN commands the highest attraction being the most powerful place where the cake is baked and sliced by the powerful National Lions before the states government shares and the LGAs follows. So, the act governance in Nigeria becomes majorly concerned with resource allocation and the worst case of cake sharing drags the economy forth and back, stunted growth and rendered the nation undevelopable. Now that we know what shall we do? Give your counsel. I think we need a change.
