Saturday, July 31, 2010

Naija - We need a Plan

On 28 July, 2010, the commissioning of a bridge in Ota resulted in a fracas between the Ogun State Governor (Daniels), the Speaker of the House of Representatives (Bankole) and the Minister of Works (Daggash). These are our "leaders", charged with the running of Nigeria Plc - our own particular breed of leaders I should say. This is only the latest in a series of humiliating incidents that the media have been good enough to share with us. Who can forget the fights that broke out in the House of Reps when some tried to move a motion to proble corruption.

So, what to do about this crop of gangsters that pretend to be our government? Well, replace them of course. But how?

Many are understandably wary of the political system due to its immense corruption and perhaps, more importantly, the corruptibility of the system in respect of even well-intentioned people who choose to participate. Whereas, others insist that we must participate in it to be able to change it. But how? With a plan.

To arrive at the type of nation we so desire in our lifetimes (as opposed to some indeterminate time in the distant future where as you know, all things move in a cycle anyway), I'm of the view that there MUST be a plan, it must be credible, there must be a small core no of people to make it happen & act as guardians of the plan. The idea that "good" people should all join rotten political parties and effect slow, incremental changes is not credible. It requires too many good people to behave unselfishly over a long period of time & to do so in an uncoordinated fashion - basically, it relies on the coming together of an unrealistic set of variables for it to be successful. People are conditioned to be super-selfish & to basically not give a shit about anything or anyone else. And those that may be willing to do something are effectively discouraged when they see the "no good deed goes unpunished" syndrome that permeates our public life (examples: suspension from the House of Reps because u want to see theft & corruption probed, see what happened to Ribadu, Akunyili, Soludo & Okonjo-Iweala) etc. We (me, you & others) need to come together as a small group of people & let us be the ones to come up with a 10yr plan to make this revolution happen. The revolution must be sharp & fast & must involve a big bang. People are naturally followers when they see leadership of any sort - whether good or bad leadership, people follow - so I know once we make a big bang, ppl will fall in line & help to actualise the (yes, you got it) PLAN.

If you're interested in establishing something, hit me up.

Yours,

2 comments:

  1. V. eloquently put Olu. A plan is v. necessary...in order to see change, we need to move away from vague comments and our constant lamentation about the state of Naija to identify an effective way forward. We should really look at it as you have rightly put it Olu, as Nigeria PLC of which we are all shareholders/stakeholders...our interest is being eroded by poor management.

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  2. True...we need a solid plan but maybe am just one of those people who have given up already. I just find fellow Nigerians so difficult to deal with that I'd rather just let the people who can stomach it go ahead first, then I'll follow suit.

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