By Daisi Israel Omofe
Without a shadow of doubt, Nigeria, our country at 60, should have by now cut her niche in the comity of nations.
What with the vast, mouth-watering, and stupendous wealth of resources mother nature had commited to her. But in reality, the ineffable giant of africa is still crawling like a toddler, whose mother had expected to walk, standing shoulder to shoulder with the affluent nations of the classical west or the nascent asian tigers.
When a child is reaching the age of eight, for instance,but still crawling, what a mind-boggling trauma the parents would go through! It is however obvious, that our collective psyche as a nation, has been battered with despondency, And our hope of politico-economic survival as a nation is at an all-time low! Ours is like the drowning folk, who though waving his hand for an emergency rescuer and finding none, he decided to resign himself to fate, waving bye-bye to the world as he sinks deeper into the waters ! The reality of this analogy, though having a trepidatious resemblance to the state we have found ourselves as a nation, yet we owe ourselves the need to muster up courage, resolve and a renewed hope to come out from our culdesac!
For indeed, we have hope yet ! We can still make it! If China,Taiwan,Thailand and other asian tigers could confront their monstrous economic miseries and had transformed their nations into the neo-economic wonders of the world, then, Nigeria still has hope.
In less than 60 years of the immediate past,these countries entered into the crisis of decision-making, came out of the crisis with what they wanted for their societies,drew out socio-economic plans and models, religiously implemented same, and today they have become the bastion of word-class economic glories! So, our bane as a nation is that we have not really navigate in our own crisis of decision-making! A faithful and unbiased review of available development literatures vis-a-vis, the already developed, the developing, and the under-developed nations, would convince any doubting thomases, that development is a collective responsibility- the upper class, the capitalist, the bourgeosis, the proletariat, the middle class, the creme de la creme, the novou riche, the money bags, the flotsham and the jetsham, the hoipolloi (the masses)-nay, everyone in every stratum of the society is equally responsible!
We all must navigate in this moment of decision making, determine what we want for our society and implement same. As it is on individuality basis, so it is ,corporately ! Decision determine destiny ! What then do we want for our society ?
Orderly, organized, systemized, functional, egalitarian, prosperous, peaceful society ? A nation of equal opportunity and merit-based reward system ? A society where corruption, nepotism, tribalism, bribery etc, are seen as anathema and cancerous and hence must be swiftly expunged with the sharpest exorcist’s knife ? We must also decide against wastage, embezzlement, judicial malfeasance, electoral misdeeds, and other vices that eat us up l We must decide against violence, and against the newest addition to our societal plagues-the virulent ethnic tension and killings! Our diversities as a society are unparalleled ,the world over.
Saner climes have exploited similar diversities for their betterment.Hence our maker that made us of diverse natures, yet put us into one enclave did not make a mistake ! We must accept one another, love ourselves and eschew harm against one another ! No nation, or any family, for that matter, develops when there is infightings, hatred or binkerings .
The chinese, at the brink of pervasive starvation and poverty, few decades ago resolved “we must save our nation from hunger,we must put bread on the table for our children,we must save our unborn generation from shame” Today you and i know they have made a beautiful success of their resolve! No nation transfers technology to china.
They acquired it by their national wittiness, initiative and the drive from their, then need. So Nigeria must not sit idly by, in our wishy-washy hope, in some transfer of technology! No, our home grown technology and aggressive acquisition of technology is our best bet!
This is our ultimate challenge! As i draw the curtain, i like to recall the famed speech of late USA president in the 1960s, John Fredrick Kennedy, of the famous Kennedy dynasty, “think not what your country will do for you, but think of what you will do for your country” Leaders, and the followers, this is our collective challenge! Should we fail to come out from our doldrums of indecision, we might be acutely treading on a dangerous precipice,and our unborn children we hold us all responsible ! And to us present generation, we might be committing harakiri of indefinite corrigenda!.
Daisi Israel Omofe
is a trained accountant, he is also a feature writer.