NATIONAL CONFAB....A ROAD TO NIGERIA RESCUE TO THE HAND OF ENEMY OR SAVIOUR? Nigeria is a crumbling edifice: cracks are everywhere in its architecture. But for our stubborn hope and audacious faith in our troubled union, there seems to be nothing left for anyone to hold and cherish. Ours is a sick nation. Every sick society produces its own grave diggers, vultures and vampires. We seem to have a throng of all these. Corruption is not just staring at us, it is slapping all of us in the face. Unemployment is a god feeding on human sacrifices. Insecurity has become a wide-eyed monster stamping its bloody feet across our land. Our innocence is brutally assaulted by the demon of terrorism and now, on a daily basis, we weep and throw away our hands in surrender, waiting for a miracle to save our souls. There is famine of hope across the land, drought of opportunities for meaningful living and a morbid desert of joy. Those who promised us a lifeline yesterday have no life of their own: politicians have no light within them and how will they give what they don’t have? We have embraced a culture of celebrating half-measures and half-performance because the optimal life is foreign to us. Our commonwealth has become common woes because we only hear of fat budgets and bloated estimates which only succeeded in making our welfare and standard of living bone-dry. Prayers are the only oxygen of our souls and the oxygen is being polluted by the putrid smell of sweat and blood all around us. The head of our nation is bloody and it is bowing rather sadly. What do we do? The 492 wise men converging on Abuja for a new-found confab is the newest thing in town. But can it be a way out? Already, tongues are wagging on the configuration of the confab. The proposed N4million allowance for each of the delegate is creating unease in the minds of pauperised Nigerians who are merely surviving by the mercies of God. Do we really need such naira rain to make the confab a success? Besides, how truly representative of real Nigerians are the delegates? Although there is a sprinkling of progressives among the delegates, can we stake our hopes on them for the turn-around we desperately need as a nation? There is a role wandering aimlessly in our land seeking a hero. This role calls for a leader, a statesman, a courageous and compassionate leader that will bring out our real essence. It is not religion or ethnicity that will deliver this. It is vision and focus, selflessness, integrity and proven intelligence that will produce such a leader. We have been so badly beaten that we have to carefully choose who will offer us rescue, so that we will not be beaten again. We need a leader that will tell us the way ahead and will be ready to lead us in the journey. A leader that will not preach God and live as man, that will not tell us about a shoeless past and still work to make us shoeless; a leader that will fight graft the way God fights Satan and insist on distributive justice and prosperity. A leader that will give value to our patience and honour to our hopes. A leader that will join us in the sunshine of labour and dig with us until we need some rest. We need a leader that will eat what we eat, wear what we wear and sing with us in the night. This leader needs not be a textbook model or a movie character but one of us who is thinking what we are thinking and is ready to do what we all know is the right thing to do. The leader that will fix Nigeria will not come from outer space and he does not need to be versed in rocket science. All he needs is to be a true mouth , a ready hand, a pure heart and a true spirit. A successful leader is he who is saying what everybody is saying and in the loudest voice! Nigeria is steeped in unimaginable rot and decay, corruption and I nsincerity. Anyone that will lead us away from all these must come with clean hands, appoint credible and tested brains to work with him, throw open his agenda for all to embrace and offer inspiration that will culminate in collaborative governance. It is obvious that an average Nigerian is not a pervert. Nigeria is the easiest nation on earth to govern: just set the rules and live by them! Offer exemplary leadership and the people will follow. Give your word and live by it. Call for sacrifices and show the people that you are also involved in the sacrifices. Create values and exemplify them in governance and you become an ins tant hero. You don’t need to teach Nigerians to be industrious because they are already: just offer the right environment for their industry to yield fruits. Admit challenges and tap into the resourcefulness and strength of the people to overcome such challenges. Nigerians need a good head to be ahead: the question is: who will be that head? As the nation is being taken through another jaw-jawing session in the name of a confab, the time has come for all sane people to reject illusion and stereotypes as solution to our problems. All those that have failed us in the past have no basis telling us what to do in future. They can as well be blind guides that will not lead us anywhere. We don’t need some tired voices to tell us what we already knew, we need fresher voices of truth and integrity to tell us new realities that will lead us to a new hope. If the present government cannot move in the direction of new imperatives that will come out the new vistas, it should be honest enough to give way to those that will do us good. The future is good if there is a clear break from a sorry past: but if it is a rehash of ignominious past, then it will be worse than the past it is trying to improve upon. This is the role wandering aimlessly in search of a hero. We are waiting for those that will give it a voice. Credited by: RT. HON. AKIODE EBENEZER
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 06:38:52 +0000
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