It is a shame that those we elected to represent us are now turning to us with questions rather than solutions. If we can do it ourselves, why do we need them?
My advocacy on the first week of the year will be to demand for good leadership. Nigeria is plagued with very unfortunate managers, who have consistently failed the country for many decades.
We' ve got the poorest kind of leadership and if you want to know how poorly or defective a leader is performing on the job, look at how many people, suffering under him. Take a look at how many people that are suffering under the leadership of this country - one hundred and thirty three million Nigerians, living in multidimensional poverty.
We cannot be weary in making the right demands from the relevant authorities and call for the prosecution of the leaders of the two main political parties in Nigeria - the APC and the PDP. Over the years, they presented manifestos to Nigerians, stating what they intend to do to change the country but after 24 years of a consistent and unbroken democratic dispensation we are still in the plague of poverty, in dingy slums, counting our losses in hopelessness.
When people are voted into office to make life better for the ones who vote for them and they go there to steal or remain in dereliction of that duty, they shouldn't get away with it. The consequences of complacency or shared wickedness must be visited on them for toying with the lives and dreams of millions of Nigerians. For the better part of our lives, our leaders have consistently breached the trust reposed on them to give the citizenry a better life, now they should pay for it.
The Governors of the respective states are collectively impoverishing their people. It is either they are building bridges, airports or constructing projects that have no direct impact or bearing in the lives of the citizens. The local government is either redundant or it has dreams and aspirations that can never be realized for lack of funding and autonomy.
The citizens on their part are docile. The citizens hadn't engaged the government enough on the matter under reference, so every state policy is made with the belief that the citizens cannot challenge it for any reason. The lack of transparency in governance at the state level and the concomitant docility of the citizens is the recipe for the lack of good governance at every state and at all levels in Nigeria.
Go and ask your governor how he spends your state's funds. You have a right to know how your resources are spent. If you cannot demand for accountability from your state government, you have no moral justification to keep complaining. You're a plague untto yourself if all you do is complain profusely without a strategy for self redemption.
Call on the state House of Assembly's leadership of your state, ask questions, speak up, remind them of their oversight functions, challenge them to a debate on the state of affairs in your state. Your engagement and conscious inquiries will make a difference.
Start a campaign and an advocacy for good governance, right there in your state and see how your little effort will influence the state of things.
I shall go to Rabbi again.