Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire, was told by his father that nations rarely collapse. He has used that as an investment thesis. When Mexico was in the ruins of currency crises and inflation, he bought anything in his sights. Legendary Templeton did the same decades earlier as stock markets collapsed because of the second world war.
The fact is this: Nigeria would not disappear. The greatest business in Nigeria has not been started. I challenge young people to rise unto the promise of tomorrow. Thou will find pasture, and will leave any miry clay because thou liveth in the best era to be a youth.
“I do appreciate that you all feel sad and embarrassed as most of us feel as Nigerians with the situation we find ourselves in. Today, Nigeria is fast drifting to a failed and badly divided state; economically our country is becoming a basket case and poverty capital of the world, and socially, we are firming up as an unwholesome and insecure country.
“And these manifestations are the products of recent mismanagement of diversity and socio-economic development of our country. Old fault lines that were disappearing have opened up in greater fissures and with drums of hatred, disintegration and separation and accompanying choruses being heard loud and clear almost everywhere.” Olusegun Obasanjo, Sept 2020
Believe. Action. Advance
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In Nigeria, our miseducated class and the elites tell ordinary people that the best way to solve problems is by running away from them. This is what the privileged people are telling others, consciously and unconsciously.
You hear things like, ‘if you have a means to leave Nigeria, just leave’. Yes, that’s what you hear the very people that Nigeria wasted money subsidizing their education tell others. They now tell people that the only way to fix Nigeria is to ask all sane people to run away!
You want to run away from your own country because of bad guys, as if people you are afraid of hold a greater stake than you in the land. It is the responsibility of those who are strong to protect the weak, but the stronger Nigerians want to run away, leaving the weak to their fate. No one else needs your expertise or resources more than your own compatriots.
Before the D-Day landing on Normandy beaches, the message given to those young soldiers was that survival of civilization was on their tender shoulders, the hope for a free world rests on their bravery. It was a mission of life and death, they fought for a free world!
Don’t live just for yourself, think about your compatriots who can’t easily fly away; they deserve better!
This hit me well…if everyone leaves, who will fix our country?
If we can apply the economic, social, and political blueprint prepared by the late Obafemi Awolowo – the “four-point agenda”, we would be nearer the ”promised land” by now.
He had painstakingly costed his school, health, industrialization, and infrastructure (housing, transportation, power), to the letter. Not only did he cost his programs, but he also prepared a roadmap to how all these were to be achieved and withing timeframes! He also told us where the funding for all his projects would come from; one such source was the cost-streamlining of the civil service!
I will strongly advise we go back to his original plan for. If need be, make adjustments. We are too prone to abandoning development plans, especially if those don’t agree with our political leanings. Hordes of them litter the Nigerian terrain!
Whose interest are we serving? Our political parties or that of the nation-state?
If anyone is really interested in the development of this great nation, let’s go back to re-examine some of these wonderful plans. Yes, we can amend to suit current realities on the ground. But, we can’t continue like this for too long.
Let’s save Nigeria, so Nigeria won’t fall or die!
@Ed-efe Ofogda, interesting and attractive as Chief Awolowo’s four point agenda for the Western Region may be, the complex and dynamic nature of present day Nigeria require far more significant measures to achieve security, stability and economic development. We must understand that these are ultimately, two different nations and societies. Even Nigeria’s Western Region of Chief Awolowo is quite different from present day South West Nigeria. In our Nigeria of today, security is paramount! Once we can ensure a secure and stable country, the economic dynamics are in our favor. Government should focus on providing efficient and effective security for all, where it’s safe for everyone, everywhere! Meets the infrastructure deficit and ensure a stable society. The rest I assure you, would be complimented by the private sector. Capital is mobile, with entrepreneurs seeking to invest where it’s safe and higher rate of return on investment. I can not think of any better place like that, than a secure and stable Nigeria!!!
There is fire on the mountain, run run run, so the saying goes. But hey, how long are we going to keep running? We ran yesterday, many became stranded refugees abroad, hungry and destitute second-class citizens. Others did not survive xenophobia even on the same continent. And now, the corona virus pandemic has exposed our woeful unpreparedness as a country.
If at all I’m able to escape, and that is a big IF, how about my child?
Let it be said by our children, and our children’s children, that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end… this journey of significance, and that we did not turn back, nor did we falter.
Selah.