Last week the factor of sacrifice in creative development was the issue. It was intended to synchronize with the seasons of Easter and Ramadan. Very important moments for lessons on spiritual sacrifice. In spirituality, some fundamentals must give in, in the form of sacrifice for great gains to be achieved spiritually and materially. Jesus Christ was on earth for only about 33 years, died and resurrected over 2000 years ago before returning to heaven. Since then He has remained a man with the longest-lasting influence. No man in recorded history has matched His level of impact and continuous influence.
Over two and half billion living persons out of the world population of eight billion persons subscribe to the Christian faith which got its foundation directly from the tradition of Jesus Christ. Scholars have projected Christianity would remain the dominant faith by 2050. Islam comes second with almost two billion adherents. Now studies have equally shown Jesus appears as a recognized personality in one form or another in almost all the other faiths.
Life of Christ is a classical example of sacrifice. He thought less of himself. Everything about his sojourn on earth was about the other man. He was concerned about how to help them and the sensible organization of the larger society. He had an overdose of compassion and desired a near-egalitarian society. People in our world doubt if egalitarianism can be found in reality.
The Western world insists the concept is utopian so they insist on private initiative. But the truth they hide would be that nearly all those countries that make so much issue out of capital today built their modern foundations on egalitarianism. They have a policy none in the country, put it better, no bonafide citizen should be allowed to stay out the day hungry.
Apart from social security which is backed by law, in most city corners, one can find food kitchens where foods are served free of charge to the indigents among the population. Forget what they teach us and the twisted logic they infuse into our leaders, many of these countries run free education for their citizens. Health insurance gives access to the medical attention they won’t be able to afford if left to cater for themselves as individuals. Christ propagated the servant leadership model and the meat of it is a sacrificial kind of service to the society and people. We end the run on sacrifice since we took on that last Sunday.
The other vital matter that should be of concern to us would be our intention to have development (I could have used resolve but that goes with painstaking efforts which many of us don›t see in the way we do our things) but to have it without subscribing to the rigours associated with the expectation. Those who genuinely desire sound development must of necessity be ready to take on the hardships along the paths. Desire must transform to resolve. Hard work is involved in that. When people insist they want an inspirational leader, part of their objective is to have a leader who can galvanize the entire citizenry into action in a given direction.
Leaders who can produce a very interesting and relevant vision. Great visions on their own contain the power to drive passion. No one needs to be bullied to fall in line. Citizens see programmes and their key in. Visionary dispensation naturally diffuses centrifugal forces. When leaders can make programmes that cater to a variety of aspirations, when their speeches are delivered in ways and manner citizens’ souls are stirred, the roads to sound development can be walked by citizens with joy.
When the contrary is the case, negative, disruptive influences throw up themselves ever so frequently. In this kind of atmosphere, the task of nation-building becomes very herculean and strenuous to bear. Our way to development hasn’t met the required standards at all. It has been so terrible since we got independence in 1960. Our case has been at best a procedure of waiting on chance. Bring in different layers of security perhaps state and community policing, especially against the background our country is large and population very huge. Those who ought to have said yes get on with it given what they have seen elsewhere become the first to say no and what is their reason, “We are not ripe for such”.
Or the governors will abuse it. Isn›t the governor a Nigerian? Isn›t he supposed to be the chief security officer of his state? What are the factors that drive men in power «crazy»? Poor education? Poor enlightenment infusions and a terrible electoral system in place. Can’t we sit to find credible and sustainable solutions to the questions? We hardly can sit to do articulation and the reason is simple. We don’t like philosophy kings. We subvert the system and take through the wolves.
When the wolves stay in office we expect them not to be true to their nature. We want them to become the lambs, the great shepherds. This is the root of tragedy. When contradictions arising from this and other situations force us to take some practical actions, what we see is very far from excellent, well-calculated moves, what they do and their responses dangle. We just had an example of misplaced priority a few days ago. For education loans, President Bola Tinubu budgeted nine billion naira but Muslims going for pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia shouted for money and an unbudgeted sum of N90 billion was released to them. A good case of trial and error in the governance of a complex country.
It is not like this ugly trend began with the incumbent administration. As we already observed, it has been there all along. We have entrenched this political culture of wobbling and fumbling all the time. We saw during President Goodluck Jonathan’s era when our country’s security forces couldn’t adequately handle banditry and insurgency, they had to pay mercenaries from South Africa to come into a strange territory to take up the responsibility. They were succeeding when the Muhammadu Buhari administration took over and without a review sent them packing from the country. It was not that the battle had been won or over.
That happened because the country hadn›t and still doesn›t have a national policy on such a crucial matter. If we had soldiers, we wouldn›t be parading local communities in search of crude oil thieves. Police would have to be strong to do their work. If unity is a goal we won›t desire to send Nnamdi Kanu to jail knowing agitation is popular from where he hails from. The solution would be more political than legal. National positions define approaches. The challenge is still lingering and has grown worse, very huge public funds are been being expended on different matters with no commensurate results. We just keep throwing money on challenges, forgetting that as important as the money factor is, money when not properly targeted in terms of expenditures brings no results. It could compound the processes.
President Bola Tinubu took over office on May 29, 2023 and had barely gone two-thirds of his acceptance speech, when he took his eyes off the speech and made the declaration, “fuel subsidy is gone”. He said no other thing, just continued to read his address. He didn’t say why he was so much in a hurry to take out the subsidy, he didn’t articulate expected possible fallouts and what he intended to do to handle or cushion a predictable negative backlash. He left it that way and like a bang everything began to tumble economically and of course socially.
In places where it is a tradition to think through policy options, to anticipate the effects of policies and programmes no true leader would take up the responsibility to touch on a national economic nerve centre just anyhow. Leaders would send out indications, fly kites, take time to take in citizens’ responses, hold consultative fora, and pick ideas before running with what they have in their heads. Not so here. We all are witnesses to the destruction rocking the land and people.
Those who have the responsibility to lead and do things give us the same message we have been hearing for over 30 years if not more, “swallow the bitter pills today for our great health tomorrow”.
We have been told the same thing for more than 30 years running and none of the actions we took on this account have yielded positive results. We have severally increased the pump price of petroleum products and yet what is troubling us from the oil has never abated. Instead, it has increased if not grown to become a monster. Today the high cost of petrol has correspondingly made life very difficult for all. Those who patronize hotels will attest that those businesses can›t run efficiently.
In most hotels, the lights are put on very late in the evening and switched off before or by 6.00 am
Prices of basic commodities have gone up so much that the far majority of the citizens can›t afford things that hitherto made life a song worth singing. Finding three square meals has become a big issue. Perhaps or of a certainty things won›t be this way if we were to be a society that applies rigour to all we do. It is an insult to our collective standing as humans for any group of leaders to say we cannot find honest and very competent Nigerians who can manage our public corporations on the best of workman ethics.
The challenge wasn›t the provision of subsidy, even though subsidy wasn›t the best policy yet inside it was a temporary ability to cushion pain until we get a leadership that could run on the best levels of rationality and give us the ability to either effect repairs to our refineries or build new ones if repairs looked wasteful. But we went into a terrible mess because as we were told Nigerians capable or not couldn›t manage both refineries and the regime of subsidy that followed. Could this be? Many of us believe this is a story from hell.
We can build new refineries and we ought to have done that a long time ago. Even with the subsidy market. We have got men who can do the job and not touch one kobo. The obstacle has to do with the attitude or negative political culture which pushes everyone to choose many kleptomaniacs as leaders and while in office expecting them to become the Obamas and Bill Clintons of this world. It is impossible to sow yam and reap rice. If anyone desires rice then at planting season he must ensure he or she sows rice seedlings. We in our case sow tars.
The first responsibility of great leaders is to define reality. Just like great communication the objective must be very clear and the message relevant to the target audience. As Nigerians who amongst us can say he knows what the reality is. Who knows? Let him tell us. Must importation of petrol be among the key pursuits, especially when it is clear we have crude oil? Why are our leaders not running with local refining of crude? Why are we expecting strong value for local currency when the only commodity that earns us money is sold and the proceeds wasted on foreign-acquired needs including importation of the processed crude in very large quantities?
Everything, it has been said, begins and ends with leadership. This of course is the truth. The quality of leadership personnel means a lot. Some questions follow: What is the character trait of the Nigerian leadership class? Is it suitable for sound development or is it antithetical? What vision drives their efforts? What level of thought processing goes into the efforts to develop our country? Are such thoughts germane to our wishes and aspirations? Do they ever envisage we ought to be a productive country? A plane without a flight plan would be in for great trouble.