We want our society transformed and turned to a very productive, thriving entity where life flourishes. This has remained the wish since our country became independent on October 1, 1960. If wishes, as they sages would say, were horses everyone, including the beggars, would ride. If wishes could turn to reality then those harbouring the wishes must be made of sterner stuff.
Wishes must turn to dreams, and from dreams to vision. Vision would bring the expectations in very clear, vivid terms and that would set the stage for the pathway to achieving the intended. This is how development should roll but it would seem everything required to move society forward is omitted.
We would leave the necessary task of outlining all the factors on account of space constraints and take a particular one that would tally with where we have pushed ourselves to on the development ladder. The important ones are stewardship and accountability.
Stewardship is crucial. Citizens must endeavour to serve the state and to do so sacrificially. No one person owns anything; it is about commonwealth or better still common patrimony. If the best is to be realized, what comes is only the best. The very equipped and well trained should take the front seat in all of these. Tied to the above would be the question of credible electoral process.
The biggest challenge in relation to the issue in question would be the bastardization of the concept of true leadership. Rather than we see public office as service, it has been interpreted to mean business. Many see public office as a business venture where they have to invest maximally and to gain ultimately. This misinterpretation has in turn made the prospect for credible electoral process a far flung expectation. The entire process has become so terrible that the courts rather than the people decide election winners, a big aberration by all standards.
One consequence of the above scenario is the preponderance of low quality leadership materials parading the political space at the very commanding heights. We all know what this portends in terms of positive transformation of society. If our development trajectory is very slow, if not off the mark, you have one good reason things are the way they have turned out to be.
Perhaps the biggest damage could be found in destroyed structures and institutions and in accountability. Institutions can drive development if those put in charge are competent, work hard and keep to the rule of taking responsibility, either for success or failure as the case may be.
The pattern as has been observed where countries grew to become first world nations is to acknowledge and reward effectiveness, efficiency and proficiency in service of the people. Those who do well or excel in service get noticed by the higher authorities, penciled down in private but rewarded publicly.
They are rewarded by letters of commendations, due promotions and cash rewards. They can be given national visibility by way of national awards. This way awards can serve as incentives or motivation but this is not what we have.
Our national award has been a list full of men and women who fought their way into hallowed very top positions of public service. Some of them get our awards even before they begin their service to the people. They keep the awards irrespective of performance. The worse is would be the inability to carry the people along on what they are doing, the conception and the execution. They hardly want to tell of the cost implications.
What has held up progress is “taking responsibility” for either omissions or commissions. An officer under who headship things go bad should take responsibility and resign and where he fails to understand that he ought to bow out, the person ought to be shown the exit door by fiat.
In the country today, citizens die in the manner humans kill cows for food every day. Life has become so cheap that citizens no longer get shocked when people’s lives are taken away in very brazen ways. We are not at war but the casualty figure every day is far more than what obtains when countries are at war.
The defense budget has become very astronomical, such that the budgetary provision to fight insecurity makes development of key sectors very difficult. The soldiers have become embedded in civil protection with attendant huge financial implications. There is obviously a fight back against insecurity but unfortunately, results don’t match expenditures at all. It has gotten to the point many are beginning to think the fight against insecurity has become a big business.
In public service, the country is earning huge income, budget for physical development is big yet the situation at hand seems to be the case of the more we pour funds on our national challenges the little we see in terms of achievements. Nations who together with us reaped gains from crude oil exploration and sales have left us far behind in terms of what they have made of their countries development.
By 1960, when we got independence, the economy we inherited from British colonialists was higher than that of Brazil, Malaysia and Singapore. Our currency competed very favourably against those of the countries in this modern time referred to as developed countries. Today things seem to be low with us while these others are riding the crest of glory, such that their level of attainment is provoking mass migration of our people to those other lands.
What went wrong? The simple answer is lack of accountability. Before developed nations became what they are currently, they put in place a system that made it compulsory for public officials to take responsibility for the acts of their units. Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Goodluck Jonathan, Muhammadu Buhari and now Bola Tinubu would not have lasted through their tenure with the kind of killings of innocent citizens that took place under their watch. They would have resigned or been forced to quit office by the citizens.
Such exits would reset government and governance styles. It would help to reorder priorities. It will help to steady focus and to propel passion. There would be dedication to excellence.
Imagine what civil servants would do and how they would have to deal with service delivery if they knew their progression was tied to effectiveness and efficiency.
Why is it in a federal arrangement the people will be talking of forest guards instead of different layers of security. Why is the diversionary choice when terrorists are rampaging everywhere doing great harm? Why has insecurity persisted despite huge funds put out to fight the scourge? Dereliction and abdication of cardinal state responsibilities have continued the culture of no accountability. Public officials know nothing would happen to them or the office they hold irrespective of what happens.
We must begin to emphasis accountability. Let all public officials be subjected to the dictates of accountability. Let their rise or fall be determined by the results they produce. When they fail they should go down with it. If a Divisional Police Officer can’t maintain security in his jurisdiction, rather than turn a blind eye or posting him out, he should be retired from active service with immediate effect. By this procedure others will learn. Same should apply across board. The plain truth is that we are capable of turning out a 21st century country in the shortest time, say in the next 20 years. Yes, it can be done.