Nations are like the families we come from. We have certain people in our various families or extended families who act like leeches. They contribute nothing to the material improvement of their family, while sucking up the family resources in disproportionate amounts. They complain of unfilial neglect as soon as they suspect demand for accountability by more prosperous family members. Rather than contribute to family prosperity, through dubious schemes, they contribute to the purloining of the assets of their industrious relatives. They waste the trust of family relatives, who, because of serial family betrayals, eventually have come to seek labour from outside of the family.
If you are honest enough, you will tell for free stories of theft of your money or assets by family members, fraudulent seizure of your assets by family members, destruction of your businesses by family members, or how a simple project such as a house building project that you committed to your family members to supervise or execute was turned into your money sink. Many of your relatives refused to get quality training either in formal schools or at the hand of a roadside technician or entrepreneur, but they seek to turn you into their ATM; and the moment they notice a lull in your commitment to foolishness, they cast your name as evil.
A nation with a huge pool of family hangers on, who refuse responsibility without refusing food, who blame everyone but themselves for their poverty of vision, and who think that the cure for their laziness is the diligence of others, shall never develop into a prosperous nation. This is the picture of Nigeria.
We must change the narrative for Nigeria. Many Nigerians, even some of her scholars, often speak as though the Nigerian government is the paternalistic Father Christmas. Wrong! The ordinance of even our Creator is that we must plant and water before he will give the increase. But whereas we plant nothing, even if we pretend to water the ground, nothing besides weeds shall sprout out of it. When we marry many wives and generate many children while producing nothing to provide them with the basic needs of life, who do we expect to cater for them? You say government? Do you know that government only makes money off the vision and industry of citizens to provide what we call “public services”? But when the majority of citizens are without vision, will the nation not perish?
Nigerians, for many years, we tolerated the blight of bearing the burdens of our family members, who only delighted in adding to the burdens without lifting a finger to help us help them out. Now that we can no more carry the burden for them, it appears like the poverty scourge is growing worse in the land. In many of our communities, young girls drop babies about like dogs. Let me remind you: Nigeria is adding a net population of over 6 million people a year! This is tragic. Yet, there appears to be no restraint to the child bearing spree without catering means.
I am concerned about the current misplaced expectation that there is one person out there running for the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who from May 2023 will suddenly create the needed jobs for the millions of the unemployed, underemployed, or unemployable Nigerians, thereby reducing poverty. I ask, does government create poverty-ending jobs? Again, rather, citizens with vision do. Besides, what needed skills do those unemployed, underemployed, or unemployable Nigerians have besides their clean certificates?
Last year, I was having a phone conversation with my then 20-year old graduate daughter. She said, “Dad, I have come across even master’s degree graduates who have no life experience.” I was impressed by such statement by someone who had just crossed out of her teens. I am afraid that many of our youths are in such dependence mode that they have kept their sense of imagination in suspense. I usually tell my students that college education is primed towards improving the quality of thought and imagination. And imagination is the internal creation of the images of possibilities. People like me often get requests such as, “Please, give me a job.” What service can you offer? What life experiences can you tap from to contribute to team projects? We get education to solve problems. What problem-solving skills do you have?
We the people of Nigeria seem to be unwilling to take responsibility. We must. Do we notice the chances that come our way? Opportunities, like angels, often come to us unawares. They are strangers that are sometimes ignored, despised, or sent away like pestering beggars. Opportunities are our chances to grab, our assigned time to strike the hot iron that has just been brought out of the forge. Government is not our God, and even God requires that we plant and water. We cannot continue this way, grooming unfaithful citizens, who harbour a sense of entitlement right from their families. No one owes you a life. Take responsibility. Have you discovered your purpose for living yet?
© Shilgba
