Nigeria is teeming with zestful and ambitious men and women, young boys and girls. We are blessed with abundant natural and material resources. We are advantageously situated in the Sub-sahara Africa, with an overwhelming population that should be our strength.
We live in a country where freedom of expression is guaranteed, the right of participation in government is a given, and the opportunities to hold players and policy makers accountable is limitless.
Ironically, we are being held back by our fears, our docility, and our belief that as ordinary citizens, we bear no responsibility in the gross corruption and developmental stagnation we found ourselves. This waka-pass attitude of ours has real life consequences. It has led to the inability of our nation to compete effectively with its contemporaries in the committee of nations.
Our educational and health systems are in parlous states and gradually crumbling even in the midst of plenty institutions and health centres. It is so because, policy makers and players would rather send their wards for schooling and treatment abroad, while the standard here is left to deteriorate.
Majority of Nigerians do not have access to basic amenities. The rate of unemployment and crime gets boosted on daily basis. Economic opportunities are retarded as there’s little or no means of empowerment for the masses. Our country is this way not because there are no resources moving into the treasury; it is because the ones we get is grossly mismanaged and embezzled by the same people whom the masses gave opportunities to serve. It has always been the case of indiscriminate corruption, which has inflicted untold hardship on the electorate.
The local government, the only level of government that is closest to the grass-root, exist as Automated Teller Machine for the satisfaction of the interests of local political lords and the governors.
Our country is strewn with abandoned projects because our leaders never complete what their predecessors started. There is no coherent policy. Most of our leaders are only tizzled up when there is something to line their pockets and that of their croonies.
From Osun to Benue, Bayelsa to Adamawa, Gombe to Lagos and from Enugu to Kano, the story remains unchanged. The case with MDAS and Parastatals both at states and federal levels is not different.
In fact, it has been a geometric progression. They are able to get away with this ugly trend because we do not care.
Once a Nigerian can afford a square meal, live in an improved condition, we take little or no interest in what goes on around us. We fail to hold anyone accountable because where anyone tries to do so, he is chewed and spat out.
However, what we should note is that the journey to repositioning our country for greater achievements is a collective responsibility and collectively, we are more powerful than the few who are saboteurs to a holistic national integration and development.
Our leaders are not strangers, they are our kiths and kins. Whether as a Hausa or Yoruba man, Idoma or Igbo, Christian or Muslim, we must ensure that genuine representation, accountability, transparency and good governance are our watchwords.
We must take our destiny into our own hands and move our country and Africa forward especially in whatever capacity we are privileged to serve. Nigeria deserves to be better!
Omaga E. Daniel is Chairman/Executive Director of Beyond Boundaries Legacy Leadership Initiative.
