Let’s Change

BY JUBRIL ADISA

God is for us but we are against ourselves. All the facts underscore this imperative. We haveone of the world’s biggest reserves of natural resources across the breadth of this country, and we possess the most important factor of all – human resource, in multiple millions. What more goodwill can a people get? Yet we squander our luck every day.

One thing is noteworthy, and must be remembered always, God will not do for man what man ought to do for himself. Nigerians, nay Africans, do not even pretend that they want their governments to be run directly from heaven. That dispensation has not arrived – desirable as it is.

In The Trouble With Nigeria, one of the most seminal books on Nigeria’s malaise, Chinua Achebe, enumerates indiscipline as one of our country’s undoing. I think it is our greatest undoing.

1. Willard Marriott, one of the world’s foremost business visionaries noted: Discipline is the greatest thing in the world. Where there is no discipline, there is no character. And without character, there is no progress. . .

We bring this lack of discipline, and lack of character to everything we do as a people. Indiscipline is a national culture. Ditto corruption, impunity, inefficiency, love of mediocrity, bigotry and the rest. It will be trite to list our mannerisms that stem from this attribute. Methinks this is the very reason we have not been able to progress significantly from where we were in 1960 in spite of all the resources at our disposal.

Africa is a basket case, largely! A host of countries that started on the journey of development at the same time as us, have taken great leaps forward. See for instance, the countries of South East Asia, their GDPs, HDIs and all the other abbreviations that underscore development. We have no excuse in the war or military incursion into politics. We can either choose to make progress or simply make excuses.

Lee Kuan Yew, knew this much, when he opined: It seems to me that the fate of a nation doesn’t really depend on democracy, natural resources or history, it mainly depends on the vision of the leader and the quality of leadership.

There you have it, that great visionary, while not disavowing democracy, underscores leadership. It is anybody’s guess what an undisciplined leadership class can do to a nation – we are living witnesses.

We only have to look closely at the advanced countries of the world to see how discipline in all spheres of life has resulted in good quality lives for the people of these countries. Serious and disciplined judiciary, diligent and business-minded parliaments and efficient and thinking executive organs.

It is incumbent on the leadership class to install certain ideals and values in society. Entrenched interest for the common good will cause patriotism to be rekindled – elected officials will act for the welfare of those who put them into office and reboot the faith of the people in the electoral process and public office. For this to happen, however, the best among us must elect to direct our collective affairs. It should be sacrilege, and it is, when the best and the rest of us are led by the worst of us.

Often people speak about the importance of institutions to development. People build institutions. Institutions cannot exist without people of character. They infuse certain ethos that become the lifeblood of those organs and organisms of the state that become precepts to be followed. Institutions need people with character to perpetuate values that become cultures. Efficiency, discipline, diligence and honesty in a people tell the world they are open and ready for business. If we cannot run our airports and seaports with ironclad efficiency, we cannot unlock the opportunities that will stimulate local and international businesses that will create employment for the bursting labour force. This is true for all aspects of the economy.

We have a good constitution, whatever the imperfections. No human document is perfect – America’s constitution has had twenty-seven ratified amendments. It is our ability to live according to the rules that we have more or less set for ourselves that makes us better as a society. At the moment, the leaders do their very best to subvert these rules for selfish gains. You can imagine the brazenness of the recent CCB/CCT Amendment. It rankles! Ambitious and scheming onlookers want to get to power for self-aggrandisement and thus runs the vicious cycle.

If we are to be better, even a little better, we’ve got to make sacrifices and tough choices. There cannot be change without sacrifice, there cannot be wealth without work. The world doesn’t work like that. We must reach a point of saturation where looking up to rich countries for help churn our bellies, where consistent darkness becomes repugnant, where absent or poor infrastructure becomes an unthinkable anathema.

Greatness is not thrust on a country, it is not a matter of circumstance, it is about choice, it is about action. We are not great because we are the most populated or because we have vast natural resources. Potentials do not make greatness, conscious choice and decisive action do.

We will be great when we can provide a decent livelihood for all who live here and those who seek refuge here. We will be great when we can feed ourselves and cease to be panhandlers seeking ‘aid’ from donor agencies. We will be great when we use our resources to our own advantage and the advancement of humanity, when our leadership class begins to think in terms of the common good and the next generation.

Sitting on our hands and carping will not solve a thing. A class of hungry leaders must emerge. Hungry for glory, hungry for results, hungry for advancement, hungry for true independence, and interdependence in a globalized world. A class of discerning and visionary leaders in business, politics and elsewhere who will be physicians that heal the country, not marauders who inflict ruin on a people by their avarice and shortsightedness.

A different and better attitude in all our affairs is certain to earn us good results. Let man begin to do for himself what goD has endowed him with capabilities to achieve.