They bring integrity, empathy and the passion to do whats right by us all. #TheWinningTeam Hear our VP: It follows therefore, that the present state of our nation- the poverty and misery of the people, the failure of law and order, the corruption of the electoral system, the legitimization of corruption etc, are consequences of the failure of the privileged to discharge the obligations of their status. If the Nigerian elite were even sensitive enough to save itself as a collective not as individuals, that consensus will probably save the entire national project. Unfortunately coming together for the common good appears far too onerous a distraction from the chronic selfishness that defines those of us who constitute that elite. But the self-centeredness of our elite is greatly compounded by a seeming lack of deep reflection. That ability to think deeply, not about self-alone, but about community. In any event, self is endangered or at risk if community is disorganized or prone to arbitrariness. What best serves all is what makes sense, so that our lives may be lived in some measure of peace and happiness. Introspection helps us all, it helps to remove selfishness. Take a simple issue, the availability of power. If power is so crucial to the livelihoods of all, if it affects livelihoods of the lowest, the carpenters, tailors, battery chargers, hairdressers and the highest, professionals, industry, services ,why is it not so high a priority that all effort is geared daily towards solving it? Why for example did the Obasanjo regime so vehemently oppose the Lagos private power initiative? Introspection may help answer the question – so if I have all the money and I have all the facilities but I cannot prevent robbers from plundering my house (some of who are my purported bodyguards) or kidnapping me or my children, what then is the point? As I ride around in my jeep, it is not to the adulation but the resentment of my immediate neighbours in all the slums around me, all believing that they too can become like me, rich anyhow, selfish and uncaring about the rest. Introspection might help move us from the childish one upmanship that manifests itself in more money, more jewellery, and more cars, so that I can show off to my neighbours and I oppress them with my wealth. In a society without power, water, healthcare, one which has the highest rates of malaria, tuberculosis and infant mortality, how can the conversation of our elite be : “”when are you going for mid-term? (Mid-term holidays of the children abroad) Or why do you prefer Virgin Atlantic when BA has the best first class seats? How can those of us who went to good schools here in this country now see how our schools now believe that they must have the token white headmaster or mistress regardless of real qualification, to answer our childish desire for the foreign. Introspection might help us to reflect on the state of education. An open sore. What to do about cheating in exams, fake results, and the desperately poor quality of teaching and teachers. We know of course that knowledge will determine the place of any community in the coming years. Where is the big investment in education? Who are the educators and policy makers? Are they thinkers, planners who know what needs to be done? Are we engaging the best minds to plan and plot or most significant resource – human capital? If not, then how do we get out of this educational rot? What sort of teachers do we need? How long will it take? How much will it cost? Surely we cannot afford the proliferation of fake graduates in every discipline emerging from our campuses and especially the so called satellite campuses – themselves, victims of a failed school system. Reflection will probably show why the insistence of our elite on “quotas” and ethnic balancing in public service appointments is usually not for altruistic or nationalistic reasons. Why would the advocates of ethnic balancing not apply the same principle in the choice of doctors who treat them when they are ill? I will not risk my life on a plane flown by a pilot from Ikenne, (my hometown) if I was told that the reason why he was hired pilot was not because he was the best but because the management of the airline was in search of an Ikenne man to fly the plane. But our public services, our vital government ministries have been known to be run by appointees whose main qualification for the particular assignment was “state of origin”. Why would anyone insist as is the case in state universities across the country- that their vice chancellors and heads of departments must be indigenes? Yet the same decision makers- dispatch their own children to foreign universities built on principles of universalism of knowledge and where the smartest men and women are sought to head their institutions regardless of race, colour or creed.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 15:31:16 +0000
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