The
Memento of a Stagnant Society
|
T |
he sky was
cloudy. The thunder lightning flashed. There was a loud rumble again and again.
The normal heavy tropical rain poured down. The sky was once again clear as the
sun shone. The rainbow appeared. There was also the new moon. The people came
out and paid the traditional respect. They jubilate. It was the beginning of
the planting season, a ray of hope.
We wonder what
to do in order to make our society stable. We drift from one form of
administration to another yet we do not seem to find, perhaps, an optimum
solution to our persistent political, social and economic problems amidst of
abundance.
There is no
foreign country that will actually guide our society, for us, to the
destination that suits us. It is those we do not supposed to listen to, that
will not force us to listen to them and will not force us to open our door to
them, if we do, would always manipulate our society for their economic ends. If
anything goes wrong, they will stand by and watch with smiles as we beat our
heads in confusion. Any foreign relationship, however, is nothing but only
one-sided game of economic interest. If this does not exist, there is no actual
relationship.
We
should be grateful to God that we have a society of intelligent, clever, hardworking
and ambitious people. That our land is endowed with all forms of natural
resources. That our land is fertile and suitable for any cultivation. The fact
is, we do not seem to know what we are doing or where we are going as a
Government while other countries race ahead politically, socially and
economically, in earnest.
The struggle for leadership and materialism have destroyed stability in
our society thereby negating our ability to concentrate on issues that matter
for self-reliance, sustenance, survival of our people and country. Today, our society tends to worship
money and take delight in short-term gains.
As money has always been there and earned, it will always be there to be
earned. Why should we then have to be unnecessarily materialistic and in haste
ahead of our times to acquire material things as if they are exhaustible
mines? Should we allow these to cloud
what should be the actual value of our society?
In this
respect, we need to redefine the terms of value reference in our society for
the more essentials such as discipline, morality, principle, respect and
priority for education and health care matters together with those who deliver
the services. These, in our opinion, are the real values and pillars of any
society. It is not the pot of gold some individuals tend to brandish which
today creates an inferiority complex especially in those learned elite that
actually count in society, who do not have the same pot of gold but have the
more valuable qualitative assets to give to society. We must remember that, sometimes,
short-term satisfaction often becomes a long-term problem. A society who aims
for material acquisition without moral consideration and principle does not
often have a suitable destiny nor does such a quest for short-term satisfaction
offer any hope for advancement.
For many years now, Nigeria and other African
countries have turned out highly educated people in all fields of study. Today we have specialists in every field, but
how many of this group together to perfect our own design or clamour for the
development when they could not do it within their own resources? At tertiary
education level, we often work very hard to reach the highest attainable level
but thereafter we often neglect further research work and instead follow the
non-essentials. The acquisition of higher education qualifications is often the
beginning of research work and forward thinking, not the end of it.
What
have we achieved in relative terms on our own since? What contribution have we
made to the world, on our own, in terms of research and inventions? What have
we resurrected or restored since independence from our forefathers’ inventions
and methods, which were in the forefront of world progress but were destroyed
by colonialism? Today we simply consume and thread others’ originality rigidly.
Where will this lead us? How long will Nigeria and other African countries
continue to be a consuming fire, waiting for aid of any type directly or
indirectly? As we have the education, people, materials, very good traditional
methods and natural ways of life, are we going to use these for our own
advancement in our own way? Looking at our society today in relation to the
quality of people, educated people and other resources we have, are we stagnant
or have we gone backwards considerably?
Although we
sometimes plan very well, in some respect, we do not organise well, execute
honestly and efficiently. Our
administrative blunders must not be mistaken for bureaucratic problems. Some of
the problems in our governance are misplaced priorities, ambiguous and wrong
procedural design, duplication of functions in most departments which are
exacerbated by weak leadership, incompetent management, inadequate supervision,
corruption and insubordination by certain people from certain section of the
country. In these respects, workers do not have the driving force to impel them
to carry out honestly and efficiently what they are paid to do. There is
nothing as bureaucracy in a country with effective, impartial, principled,
courageous and strong leadership, competent management, adequate system of
control and effective use of the control mechanism.
Today our
society may be said to be suffering from the disadvantages of unnecessary
individual ambition. One of such disadvantages is greed. Our greediness may
only be tamed through brave, strong, effective, principled, impartial
leadership and an adequate system of control. To control our society, we do not
need to copy any foreign system verbatim. However, we may apply the principles
involved in foreign systems if we lack originality. Within and with our
tradition, are we short of originality?
Our systems
should be flexible, adaptable and such as to recognise and respect our
traditions and culture. Whatever systems we adopt in this way to achieve
harmony will always be misinterpreted by some foreign countries. To these, our
measures are always wrong if they are not exploitable by them. But when they
continue to praise our measures, we must then watch out. This means we may be
going in an exploitable direction, which will put us at a disadvantage. An
example is the majority of International Monetary Fund economic structural
adjustments. How many African countries
that embraced the International Monetary Fund prescriptions do not now find
that their citizens have sunk deeper into poverty and economic misery?
We must
remember that we are totally a separate society, which is totally different
from any other foreign country whose methods we may try to follow rigidly. What
is feasible in other countries may not be fully workable in our society due to
factors such as geography, cultural and traditional differences. We are already
Africans. We cannot be westernised nor easternised.
Our country
has all along been abased as a third world or developing country in their
obscure meaning of an area of political, social, economic instability, an
absolute and relative poverty, which can be manipulated and exploited. Should we allow this to continue to
happen to us even in connivance by our own conduct?
But, there is
no such thing as a first, second or third, developed or developing country.
There is no country that has ever stopped developing or growing. Development is
a matter of what you can afford to do at a particular point in time, where you
are and your desire. There is no ceiling in development. It is, therefore, an
infinite race by every country. Those countries who arrogate to themselves the
position of first world may call themselves advanced countries as they may be
ahead of other countries in the infinite development race which is often
measured in terms of relative stability, resources, efficient management and
technology. What matters most in every country is stability in every respect. It is not the amount of resources that are at
the disposal of the country.
Our key factor, the scarce factor, which we rely upon for survival is
dictated to us from outside yet we do not ask why, we simply surrender. Are we to continue to allow our
society to be used to foster the political and economic ends of foreign
countries at our own expense? On the other hand, are we to look for scapegoats
from outside in a society where bribery and corruption are endemic, the person
who seeks is sometimes not straightforward, the person who gives is sometimes
not straightforward and both are prepared to, unlawfully, short circuit the
system. How can things work effectively in such a society?
To work
towards stability in our society, all of us, not only the elected leadership,
have got a part to play irrespective of who we are, what we do and where we
are. First we must examine ourselves as to how our individual, group or
sectional attitudes and activities have contributed to the problems we have
experienced, the current problems that have not only make our country stagnant
but also are drawing her backwards.
Military
dictatorship has occurred many times through commission and omission in our
county, Nigeria, and many other African countries. Its advent, however, created
much awareness and punctuated the holes for the much needed reformation. As a
result, the people welcome the regime as a temporary reformatory Government
directed towards our self-discipline, good governance, right leadership,
efficient management, effective control and unity. As each military
dictatorship has not been able to address our actual problems but put us into
much deeper problems, was its welcome, today, a mistake in ignorance, in trust
or in desire?
As things are
now we must tackle our problems and the factors that allowed them to breed once
and for all, at their roots. We must not wait nor deal with them only in their
manifestations. In addition to those measures that are successfully in
operation, our strategy should look at the issues that allow the present
malaises to breed, the issues that divide us and those issues that will unite
us as a solid nation in a solid Africa.
Among the
factors that militate against us today are our technical ignorance,
unwillingness to assume responsibility and work in accordance with our
individual positions, under-utilisation of our ability, slack control and
misuse of available resources etc. These, however, are by no means unique to
our society. But to what extent do they manifest themselves elsewhere? In order
to eradicate these endemic factors, we need to restructure and redesign some of
our existing systems.
We
must agree that nothing has changed, as such, as to our traditions and culture
in education, enterprise, language, legal systems, etc. since independence from
colonial occupation of our country. However, a well-defined measure in one or
more sectors would make other sectors to be self-regulating. Therefore, the
much promulgated control and accountability reinforced by effective leadership
at Federal, Regional and Local Governments level may allow us the stable
society we dream of but only in a continued democracy.
As we have
educated people in all fields of study, our inability is more of technical
rather than mechanical that is what versus how. This means we will know how to
do it if we know what to do. This relates to who leads or who directs in every
respect. The types of people we commission to lead us in today complex society
are very important. So far the innumerable opportunities in our country, which
could give everyone something to do, are never exploited because of lack of
creativity among our leaders. The necessary issues which should be addressed,
by those who rule us at all levels of Government, to ensure harmony in society
are never attended. A country does not have to be exposed to unlimited amounts
of foreign exchange, finance, foreign assistance, etc. before the necessary
issues are addressed, opportunities are created for the people and for the
benefit of society. The means to do what we need to do are at home with us.
Let us ask
ourselves, at whose expense are our persistent political instability and other
related insurgencies which some of our people are brainwashed to carry out
against our country? Do these people who agree with the so-called outsiders to
destabilise our country by different methods ever think? To what extent would
these outsiders agree to work against their own countries for whatever reasons
or rewards?
Our military
must be more advisory, tolerant, respect the laws of the land and allow a
democratically elected Government a gradual self-adjustment in periods of
political error of judgement and economic problems. If we are to meet the
challenges in our country and the African continent today, every African
country must have a steady democratically elected civilian Government. The
sporadic military regimes so far have only greeted us with the problems of
going and coming back to square one.
Nothing else
will rescue our country from the present political, social and economic
predicament other than uninterrupted democracy. The more democracy continues
uninterrupted the more it helps society to stabilise in every respect.
The
prescriptions in the book, Towards A Harmonious Society, which this edited
article is the opener, “elucidate how far the country is behind the advanced
countries in spite of many years of education, relevant education and abundant
resources. Our destiny, however, is in our hands. As these were the thoughts in
the first edition in 1989, they are still the thoughts in the revised new
edition of 2001 since nothing has changed since then for the better in the
country other than a democratic system of government that began on
This article was adapted from his book Towards A Harmonious Society.