Nigeria @49 - Time to take a deep Breath

“Here is my advice as we begin the century that will lead to 2081. First, guard the freedom of ideas at all costs. Be alert that dictators have always played on the natural human tendency to blame others and to oversimplify. And don't regard yourself as a guardian of freedom unless you respect and preserve the rights of people you disagree with to free, public, unhampered expression.” ~Gerard K. O'Neill, 2081

We can all thank God, but we must also remember that God gave us brain, hand etc to build an egalitarian society where justice reign supreme, a society where every citizen have a decent shot at life and a society where Justice is the precursor to peace, progress and prosperity. In Nigeria Injustice is the precursor to peace especially by our so called leaders in different levels of our nation.

Year in year out we continue to celebrate mediocracy, corruption, cronyism, laziness, tribalism, and dearth of ideas and innovation - a situation where we have left so many of brothers and sisters behind. No department of the basic needs of human endeavor and index has been solved after 49 years of independence. For example more than 70% of the Nigerian people do not have access to clean water. So the question here what are we celebrating? My answer is nothing to celebrate, rather it should be a time for both citizens and the so called leaders to take a deep breath, sit back, have sober reflection, and take stock and start to think from their head rather than from their stomach. It is time to go back to the drawing board to re-plan, reshape, reboot and rebuild our Nation.

We are not talking about Hi-tech development here or rocket science, but simple things as basic as water, education and food still remain a long shot for majority of our citizens. This nation can not remain like this forever and be run as a private estate and lavishing our common wealth. We as citizens must have a shared prosperity and shared responsibility. We must be forceful, courageous and persevere in pursuing a common goal to bring decency, honesty, innovation, ideas, and hard work to the door steps of our public office. As citizens we must do our very best to do our own little part respectfully and with firmness.

It is time for each of us to brace up and do the right thing in every assignment and responsibilities given to us whether in private or public so that we can rebuild a country we can all call ours and stand tall to be proud of. Time to call out our leaders, time to hold them responsible, time to ask them the tough questions and finally time to tell them the inconvenient truth – they have all failed, irresponsible, their words mean nothing and can not be trusted with anything public as such they need to put their tails in between their legs like the old fox they are and go back to their respective villages and wear sack clothes.

The rebuilding of Nigeria remains squarely in the hands of the Nigerian people. The Chinese, the Americans, the British and the entire Western world can buy billions of our crude and make promises, but at the end of the day it is we Nigerians that will decide on the direction to go and decide our destiny. All the indexes that make a country work has failed -from water to energy, health to road transportation, from security to immigration, from education to commerce, from agriculture to rural development, from environmental cleanliness to environmental degradation, from banks to our sports to air transportation, from our justice system to our so called citizens diplomacy…what is working in our country? If you have a list please you are welcome.

Although one thing that still works in Nigeria is the never die – I can do attitude and enduring spirit of the ordinary Nigerians who no matter how hard they fall continue to standup and dust up themselves believing that tomorrow will be better than today. For that I duff my hat for them and say God bless them.

At this point of our nationhood, it will be best if every government take up at least one of the myriads of problems and tackle it one’s and for all. We can not continue like this as a nation. We can not be planting cassava and expecting to harvest potatoes or groundnut, therefore we can not expect different result when we are doing the same thing over and over again. It is time for us to wake up from that long and deep sleep.

God bless the main street Nigerians who have refused to give up irrespective of the daunting and excruciating suffering and poverty for no fault of theirs. ….this is my Independent day message.

 Hopkins-Amachree, an Information Technology Professional sent in this piece from San Francisco… He can be contacted at hopkins_amachree@yahoo.com

Robot  # 1 | 01.10.2009 08:55

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