Self motivation and improvement

THE PROBLEM WITH NIGERIA

Problems and backwardness don’t just come. They are caused. The problem with Nigeria is one that is caused by many factors. For the purpose of this blog, I have narrowed it down to just two. You will agree with me at the end of this write up that these are the two hydra-headed issues that are responsible for the mountains of problems we are having in this country. The two major issues are discussed extensively below.

The first and most important of the two issues is corruption. You will agree with me that corruption is endemic and is also contagious. In other words, corruption breeds corruption and spreads like wild fire. Agents of corruption are every where especially at the top echelon of the society. To fight corruption, concerted efforts should be focused on the people at the helm of affairs. If only our leaders can eschew corruption, then fighting it at the grassroots level becomes easier.

A common adage has it that when an iced fish is getting bad, it starts from the head region. I sometimes laugh when I see Professor Dora Akunyili on television talking about re-branding Nigeria without talking about those in powers and at the corridors of power. They are the ones that need the real re-branding. If only she can muster the kind of courage she mustered to destroy fake and adulterated drugs while she was the Director-General of NAFDAC (National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control) in her new portfolio as the minister of information and communication to re-brand first of all the executives, then the legislatures, the armed forces before talking about the rest of Nigerians, then she will be writing her names in GOLD as the best that this country has produced.

To buttress the fact that the people at the helm of affairs are the ones trying to frustrate every attempt to fight corruption to a standstill, I will like sight two major instances. The first one is when the duo of Generals Mohammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon came up with War Against Indiscipline, it was Nigerians at the top echelon, whose illegal businesses were disturbed that sponsored the General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida coupe that ousted them, thereby giving room to the mother of corruption orchestrated by the regime of the later. After many years of leaving power and it was becoming obvious that Idiagbon would soon talk, the wicked and corrupt elements in high places in our country killed him.

Just recently, another fellow in the person of Nuhu Ribadu, acting in the capacity of the Director-General of EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission), came smoking hot and cold and about to smash corruption with the deadliest blow. His only undoing was that his major captives were men in power. The so-called sacred cows. The rest is history as the men in power cleverly removed him from that office and appointed a yet-to-be re-branded Farida Waziri to do their bidding.

Without dwelling so much on corruption, I would like to introduce the second factor that is responsible for Nigerians many problems. To my mind, it is like the twin brother of the first. It is called TRIBALISM. This factor makes a not too good person to get a very lucrative appointment at the expense of very qualified people, just because he/she is from a particular tribe. This factor has succeeded in creeping into even the sacred places in this country. Places like churches, mosques and educational institutions, just to mention but a few. I think that after re-branding our political leaders, the next in line should be religious leaders. It is tribalism that caused the genocide of 1996 in Rwanda where the Tutsi killed over one million Rwandas believed to be of Hutu tribe. Nigeria might soon get to that ignoble state if this issue is not nipped in the bud. If TRIBALISM were to be a human being, I personally would have become a suicide bomber just to destroy it before it destroys my brothers and sisters. It was tribalism that made former president Saddam Hussein to use chemical weapon on the Shiite Muslims in Iraq.

Look at the two: CORRUPTION and TRIBALISM, if I am to proffer solution that will give birth to a fully re-branded Nigeria, I will mathematically express it thus:

xNIGERIA – (CORRUPTION + TRIBALISM) = yNIGERIA
where x = Present and
y = Re-branded Nigeria

posted by ANDREW CHUKWUEMEKA UKAUWA @ 23:24