Fola Daniel Adelesi: Fix The Nation

The recent events in the country have proven one thing beyond reasonable doubts. It is the fact that Nigerians are so gentle and our leaders can take us for a ride. In fact, we have been on an excessive long ride in the past few years with no set destination in view.

At times, one wonders if the leadership has any compass to work with and get us to a great destination. Why am I even talking about destination? What is our destination? Does anyone know? How come we all seem to be following blindly and no one is really challenging the authority of the elected the way it should be challenged?

I think we have had enough of waiting for them to pull another drama, then we all shout, ask the president to sack someone, he does nothing and after a while the dust settles with no headway in view. The other day it was pension scam. At another day it was car scam. Now the scam has taken flight and it’s private jet scam!

In my article ‘Failed Leadership’, I referred to how people were killed and centenary celebration was still going on. I walk with some people who seem to have a rapport with politicians and I hear how some of these people keep sharing money without looking back or without a heart for the masses.

For a long time now I have been saying I don’t understand why our leaders cannot do simple copy and paste! You go to UK, US, Canada, Germany and so many other countries but have don’t have enough common sense to cone back home to just copy and paste what you see. The few ones that have been copied were not even copied right!

In more than nine to ten days now there has been no electricity in my house. What was the point of privatization? The private sector companies that bought over PHCN are even asking the government for a bail out of over one trillion to fix the company.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is already proposing to spend over a hundred billion for the 2015 fifteen elections that has no guarantee of bringing in the right candidates. The electoral body has figures it should work with to peg the spending of each aspirant but it says it is helpless and has no tool to monitor their spending. By implication, the incumbents spend free government money unaccounted for and at will.

To make this matters worse, it is some people like you and I that may stand aloof and watch all these rubbish go on. Some other very poor folks who should be fighting for their long term livelihood and their children’s future collect only a thousand Naira and shut up for life.

The government fixed Lekki road via a concession with LCC and started taking tolls on the road. While it may not have been wrong to take the toll, it could have been a lot cheaper than what is being charged. What happens if people are going to ply that route four times daily? Why not charge cheaper tolls for a longer period? We all sit down and say there is nothing we can do. How much involvement do we have in the decisions being taken about our lives?

A school like Lagos State University (LASU) is now asking students to pay over two hundred thousand Naira. It does not not even have the required facility to ask for such money! We all know that the private schools asking for hundreds of thousands have already put facilities in place before asking for the money. In fact, where do they expect parents earning forty thousand or fifty thousand a month to get that kind of money from? Close to a million people seek admission every year and only about three hundred thousand can get a slot. More than a million graduate every year. How many people get jobs?

You know how unmotorable your roads are. You know how most Nigerians struggle to provide for themselves what the government should provide for us (housing, light, security, water, jobs, roads, education…) They are practically not existent and we are all looking.

I am not writing today from the perspective of the solution provider or the ‘know-what-to-do’ consultant. I want to hear from you. Remember that some people are in Abuja right now to be paid four million Naira monthly for three months just to talk. We can’t continue like this. It’s not right or fair to raise children in this environment. They will begin to think that the abnormal things are the normal things.

The list of abnormalities goes on. It gives me daily headaches. Please tell, in constructive ways, ‘HOW’ can we ‘FIX’ this country?

Photo Credit: africapresse.com

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Fola Daniel Adelesi is a professional public speaker who also trains other speakers, an author, business consultant and highly skilled master of ceremony with excellent poise and diction. He was on the Debaters TV reality show season 1, presented ‘You Can’ on Radio Continental in 2011, did motivational segments on Galaxy TV from Dec 2008 to August 2009 and has authored 3 books including Writing Business Proposal