August 26, 2013
Nigeria, a country full of potentials and opportunities to attain greatness, unfortunately has found itself in deep jumble due to many factors, from economic, political instability to social uprising, such as the wanton spate of corruption in high places, oil theft, kidnappings, terrorism and all sorts of destructive catastrophes which can best be described as merely another rough curse that have continued since independence. The country is still yet to overcome the agony of such ills which have proven very difficult to get over it and embrace a lasting peace, unity and development.
Nigeria, a country full of potentials and opportunities to attain greatness, unfortunately has found itself in deep jumble due to many factors, from economic, political instability to social uprising, such as the wanton spate of corruption in high places, oil theft, kidnappings, terrorism and all sorts of destructive catastrophes which can best be described as merely another rough curse that have continued since independence. The country is still yet to overcome the agony of such ills which have proven very difficult to get over it and embrace a lasting peace, unity and development.
Perhaps the question in the lips of many is for how long will these unfortunate circumstances last? Though, today’s mix of urgency, high stakes, and uncertainty will continue as it seems. The country’s policy makers seems not to be able to erect a firewall against intensifying anti- social vices and attacks, its failure to meet up its incessant publicised energy resuscitation, talk less of having any road map of idea for tackling the climate change, and most vital the political instability are mere part of the series.
Looking at Nigeria presently and its numerous immediate crisis, hopelessness and the feeling of when shall we ever get through has become order of the day. The leadership seems to defy evolving any serious expert technical strategies or plans adjustments to tackling the number of challenges we face, instead personal benefits and interest have overrides the national interest, it elude the nation the desired antidote for a sustained growth. Elusively the elites have remained the greatest beneficiaries of the ever permanent crisis of serious and unfamiliar challenges. As a nation where leadership expertise has been reduced to zero, trauma and hopelessness certainly will remain the order of the day. The exigencies are always at high-stakes, with no visible remedy if somewhat less urgent, while the set of challenges remains. Having recovered not a little from the pains of the civil war to the inflicted forced military reigns, the uncertainties have continued to take the place of realities as it has thrive high and making the Nigeria’s crisis far from over even in democracy.
Hence the task of leading Nigeria at periods of sustained crisis like this shouldn’t be impromptu – whether as President, Governor or Local Government Chairman. Political solution or initiative should not be treacherous and undesirably planted on the populace, as such situations always ridiculed leadership, if it serves well the emergency phase as a temporary stabilizing factor such situation will only buy time, Nigeria need an adaptive model that can best tackle the underlying causes of the numerous crisis and which will build the capacity that will enable a new reality to thrive.
As the nation’s finances is plundered and the multiple of crisis continues to display what can be said to be a seemingly never-ending dark shadow for the nation. A lot of pundits criticised the nation’s situation regarding the level of economic and social corruption as alarming, unfortunately mouth-pieces of powers that be still present the nation’s situation as really attractive and working, what a de-service to a nation. Yet, with the too many bickering in the socio-political sphere, too many young unemployed populations, the scarcity of honest and sincere leaders, too many corrupt leaders with poor governance management experience with many lacking leadership skills are some of the many inveterate problems that have compounded the nation.
These cogent problems are the very significant impediments that have denied this country attaining its desired greatness and which have eluded us the needed attractive investments. A simple factual example is the inability of subsisting regimes to once and for all sustain the most corrective funding of the education sector in general, look at the case of ASUU it has become an annual activity at the detriment of the nation. For many years, our country’s higher education has been bastardised, it not easily accessible, neither is it affordable, nor anything called quality is available in it for the vast majority of the population.
A regime once created the National Directorate of Employment to carter for the nation’s mass graduates, training young workers in basic technical skills acquisition; unfortunately the good intention of that regimes policy was denigrated. The revolving government leaders do not see anything good in continuity but preferred quick-fix approach to meeting political exigencies. Such a good example is the creation of new Federal Universities which till date I am afraid if any can or is able to meet with the ideal education cut-up standard for tertiary institutions. Equally if we care to look deeply at our nation’s path to growth, one can neither see a clear economic vision nor a road-map planning in how to become a leader or evolve development.
True leadership have eluded our country in the true sense of it, that even if the best expats are lured to accepting responsibilities to lead in government entities, they most times have proven inordinate and possessively expensive for the nation as their taste ranked high in corruption. The most challenging barriers to success in Nigeria today is the non-existent of patriots in governance, this has created a vacuum which has bedevilled cultural assimilation, conducts of public servants, and above all ability to cope with the many unconventional, unethical and faulty ways of doing government business.
Any nation in quest of prosperity and growth must adequately work hard at enthroning economic advancement, self-reliance which needs to be driven by local talent progression. Unfortunately, majority of our rulers just as their governments, lack an integral endowment management strategy that can really transformed our society to what everyone will be proud to call ours. This ill has eaten deep in to the fabric of the nation, as these poor managers of our nation’s destiny are most times wasteful all through their reign and what best they bring at the end are succession planning without convincing executive assessments that can give any credence to an objective performance management and gauging of the competency requirements empathy.
The sad picture of our society presently is the absence of talent mobility, and the increasing failure of governance, the nation is bound to face more pressure, and I share the thought of an ex-president whom at a function in Benin recently said “Nigeria is sitting on a cake of gun powder”. Looking at the nation’s ill situation apart from it getting mature, with the increasingly populace awareness if the situation remain as it is un-tackled and with lack of decisive policy approach in place that can genuinely intercede greater emphasis on building leadership skills and provision of the basics ingredients of growth and development – The Arab spring style revolution will be a child’s play and time is really ticking.
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The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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