The biggest problem of Nigeria in general is this illusionary belief that we can change our country by voting a different person into power.
It is this belief that all problems of a country start and stop with the President. That if you could just have the right man in power, then all of a sudden, Nigeria would transform. This is what they call chasing a mirage, imagining some utopia. Unfortunately utopias are never realized in life.
The actual problem of Nigeria is not the presidents. From where do these presidents come? From within. The problem of Nigeria, is its citizens, their shared values and mentalities. The day Nigerians wakeup and stop looking for an external enemy and realize that they themselves are Nigeria's problem is the day we shall get closer to finding a Nigerian solution.
I have often told friends that I am happiest whenever the Governors, ministers, legislators draw bigger salaries every financial year. As Nigerians we lambast our representatives in public for drawing these salaries. In private, we drain our legislators, ministers, etc. We invite them for funerals, for introduction ceremonies and expect them to contribute out of pocket to save us. An elected politician attends no less than 10 functions in a week on average. They are expected to find jobs for their people. They must contribute towards the least of needs. These big salaries they draw, they all go straight to the people they represent. Yet it seems some of us live in an illusion called Nigeria.
We expect our legislators to act as MPs in UK or senators in USA except that in our case, we also expect them to play donor to our people's needs.
We decry the corruption in the country yet we bribe to get our children in the best schools. We bribe our way out of check points. We have no respect for traffic rules. We are every evil we see in the president and his team.
Every ill you can diagnose in PMB and his government, you will find twice or thrice the magnitude in a Nigerian citizen. We complain of government incompetence, yet go ahead to champion incompetence in every aspect of our lives where government has no control.
Our traders produce or trade on substandard goods. Ask yourself; if the public sector is too incompetent, how come the private sector has not been any better? How come you are more bound to have a misdiagnosis in a private hospital than in a public hospital?
Our private media houses say or write stories everyday that highlight government incompetence. Yet, there will never be a single day where you will pick up a newspaper and fail to find an error on some pages.
Perhaps one day as Nigerians we ought to self reflect, and look within and realize, that we are demons we are trying to fight. If PMB and his government were the only incompetent people and everyone else was competent, then Nigeria would be an African tiger of sorts. Why don't we have world class cottage industries in the country? Why is it that customer care sucks in private institutions just as it does in public institutions?
Every Nigerian you meet complains of the system, of the incompetence. Then ask yourself; "you dear Nigerian, where can you find examples of your excellent output?"
The same people who complain of poor working conditions run slavery rings in their own homes. The day housemaids in Nigeria decide to speak out, we shall be shocked at the evil we sustained in our homes.
I now suspect that our anger, our rants, our complaints about the system are all because this system is a daily reminder of our own incompetences, our own weaknesses as a people. What this government has done is hold a mirror up to the Nigerian society and we are not happy about our own reflection.
Do you know that only civil servants and very few industries pay tax? To put it simply, even the taxes we complain that government mishandled, it is just meagre; more than half of the tax revenues are paid by foreign companies. In other words, we don't even have a right to complain.
That should signify an innate Nigerian problem. There is something deeply wrong around how the Nigerian societies are constructed.
Nigerian Citizens promise so much and deliver so little. Our shared beliefs, mindsets and values have been constructed in such a way that regardless of the president in power, we shall always produce substandard results. It is no wonder that all over Nigeria, we complain of the same problems. Littered cities, corruption, insecurity, failed government institutions, name it all.
It is not a problem of presidents. It is a problem of citizens. We are too scared of self-criticism, we have dabbled in escapism and found scapegoat in PMB.
As Plato wrote in the Republic; "like man, like state." We can't expect to have better leaders until we have better people. You can't create great companies without great employees. It doesn't matter how great the CEO is, if she has crap employees, she will have a crap company. That is the case of Nigeria!
All we need is a critical mass of Do-Right citizens, just five million Nigerians will turn this nonsense over on its head."
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