Editorial Column
Editorial Column: We All Have A Country To Protect
By
Ishowo Oluwatosin
Socrates is known for asking probing, thought-provoking and humiliating questions which earned him a death sentence of corrupting the youths in Athens, I am not ready to die, that is why I will be asking probing and thought-provoking question leaving the humiliating ones out. Beyond the dreams of Nigeria’s founding fathers, what are the dreams of citizens of this nation? There is no part of the nation that is peaceful, we are more divided now than ever, has it ever been like this in Nigeria?
From economy to security, nationhood, and every block of our social structure is collapsing. Beyond the irreplaceable loss of life due to terrorism and banditry (insecurity), education has paid the biggest price for this unpromising nation of ours. Then, if you sit down and look deep into Nigeria’s destiny, it appears like an impossible project. “In a democracy, blame the people, not leaders” is an assertion made in a book written by Pastor Dare Adelaja titled “Nigeria and the leadership question”. I initially disagreed with his assertion, but on second thought, nation-building is beyond the job of one man or reducing it to the search of great men, we should begin the search for good men. The most important lesson of 21st century has to be “integrity is not an economic policy and beyond the razzmatazz nature of campaigns launched by our politicians such as 4+4, Next Level, Change, #Otoge, #O tun ya #EdoNoBeLagos, among others, we should start looking into issue-based campaigns and how these people intend to turn things around”.
The search for men of capacity must begin, not men of volume. There should be a significant change of attitude in this century and those before us, the major difference between us and people who existed centuries before us is the knowledge we have acquired which must be used to advance this nation. If you are a teacher in schools, you will see dreams fading away in classrooms, once upon a time people wanted to be president, doctors, teachers, astronauts, pilots, soldiers – all these dreams are dead. It is not shocking to see such a turnaround in our social values, “in a nation where leaders think of profits, what do you expect of the citizens?”.
Rather than regime security, we should all come together and make this nation ours, only people can hold the nation together, the survival of Nigeria is not divine, it is in the hands of its people. These institutions and the prosperity of Nigeria can only be influenced by the people. The future of Nigeria will be greatly determined by what they failed to do, aspirations for prosperity they failed to launch which may restrict Nigeria to a mere third world country even 500 years after now.
John Adams said “ facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence…”, it is glaring that the only resources cherished in this nation is oil, not the people whereas people are also natural resources, if they are prevented from going through the process of transformation, they will remain natural. That is the plain truth, Nigerian people are still natural and those that do not want to become wasted talents are deserting the nation. No serious nation will sit comfortably with a collapsing civil service, losing a portion of her own citizens to other nations, and total disappearance of the middle social class. Never has it been heard that many Nigerians want to desert their nation to alleged “saner climes” as now. Nigeria needs to become a place where dreams are possible, where prosperity is and will not be automatic, it must be determined with the proper groundwork of leaders and citizens.
2023 is fast approaching, are we going to pick national security in all spheres or regime security again? Whatever we decide on, future generations will remember us for it. We owe this nation a lot, as Barrack Obama rightly said, “we did not come to fear the future, we have come to shape it…”, let us shape Nigeria’s future. We should have a government people respect and a government that fears the people. Everybody definition of a country is different, to some, it is by the amount of food on their table or how many times they can afford to eat daily, how prosperous their business is, the quality of education in the nation, employment opportunities, environment to thrive and succeed, WE ALL HAVE A NATION TO PROTECT!
ISHOWO, Isiaq Oluwatosin
Twitter: @Tosinishowo
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