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A whole lot of important things are happening across the land, which many of us ought to be part of because of the promise they hold out for our society, which is still suffering from the pangs of underdevelopment and general poor governance culture. We have been blessed with natural and human resources that are being frighted away, leaving behind underdevelopment and poverty, a bad combination that kills very quickly.
The development is of huge concern to a few that understand and appreciate the enormity of what is making life and living very traumatic for millions of our citizens. The concerned have not resigned to fate, waiting for time to bring change and national healing, neither are they waiting until they contest elections into one public office or another and and win before they can do something. No, they are working assiduously from their little corners to sensitize the populace and leaders, especially those occupying public offices, hoping to provoke all to act well and do things in the right way.
Such people and groups deserve help and support. But this is what we don’t do in our society. We want to see good, but when we see someone or group making sacrifices, denying themselves and families of their comforts, to set the stage, all we do is stay afar and watch sometimes in amusement. Some take folly to another level by mocking and offering harsh, very uncomplimentary words and misinterpretations capable of stalling a good effort. Sometimes, many of us wonder at the way of our people and that of the Black man generally.
Last Thursday, one of the finest editors our country has produced, Ikechukwu Amaechi and his young but very ebullient colleagues held the third edition of the Niche Annual Lecture Series at Muson Centre in Lagos. The theme was, “2023 Election and The Future Of Democracy.” the guest speaker was former governor of Lagos State and Minister for Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola. Northern irredentist, Tanko Yakassai, was chairman on the occasion; discussants included Martins Oloja, Managing Director of Guardian newspapers and columnist and Festus Okoye of the Independent National Electoral Commission.
This piece is not essentially about what they said, rather it is about organizing such a forum and getting political actors of different shades to talk. A friend told me one of the problems of our society is “over talk”, he believes very strongly that we should stop talking and embrace action. This position is very popular yet it misses a point that great visions flow from talks; even when a group is in the thick of action, they still need constant reappraisals to ascertain what has been done, whether it was done very well and gain adequate knowledge of the task ahead.
Our efforts to develop our space have remained on the wrong lane and worse still is the fact that dictators are sprouting all over the place, making life nasty and very brutish because of the silence of those who think they know. Knowledgeable people are satisfied talking from the safety of their parlours and clubs over bottles of liquor and pepper soup. The attitude has emboldened nincompoops who have left their crime beats to seize political offices leaving us with the distorted development we see around us.
Many of the leaders we see prance about the landscape hardly know programmes that transform backward environments; about 98 per cent of them point to only roads as evidence of successful stewardship. Yes, social infrastructure is crucial, but far more important is human capital development in very critical areas. So, one can talk of productive kind of education, scientifically programmed to meet very important societal needs in health, science, technology and development, agriculture and the value chain that should be attached to it. Then, we can have a society where successive generation grow and look up to a life of actualization and satisfaction. Infrastructure hanging on its own has no future. This is not talking of infrastructure with a very short life span.
So I would have loved to be in Lagos but here I was in Umuahia, capital of Abia State giving a talk same time to a quality gathering of very distinguished professional journalists on “Ethics in Journalism: News in News.” I told them we have to build a great country from Nigeria that would be the pride of the Black man everywhere. I said, ‘when we abuse our code of conduct for any reason, we bring down the thunderstorms on ourselves and the rest of the nation. Watch it.’ By this effort I am also contributing to building a great Nigeria.
Now on September 20, 2022, in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, another historic event will hold there – members of the National Association of Political Correspondents – (NAPOC 90s), men and women, fine, well groomed writers, who covered politics in the nineties would gather to present their book containing their experiences to the public. All the stars the public has been reading, watching or listening to, which include Ike Abonyi, Emeka Nwosu, Ralph Egbu, Gbenga Adesina, Ogbonnaya Orji, Olusegun Adeniyi, Gbenga Onaiga, Prof Abiodun Adeniyi, Gboyega Amoboye, Sina Ogunbambo, Akin Onipede, Chuks Ohuegbe, Abdul Jelil Adebayo, Lekan Otufodunrin, Kunle Oyatomi, Ola Jones and many others will gather to tell Nigerians their experiences, another reunion of sorts.
The historic nature of the events comes from two angles: the first is in the act of people putting their experiences in a book format for posterity. It will be both a study guide for students studying Mass Communication. They will see the steps of those who went ahead and adjust. Secondly, it will serve as an educational material for those who lead or desire to lead the country in future. There are things people can’t learn in the universities, some that can’t be published but they are reproduced in the book. In this book one will see the back stage activities of our Nigerian leaders, many of them still alive and active. In summary, the book and outing is a wake up call to all persons particularly those who went through public offices to document their experiences for the good of the country.
Our presidents and governors should write. They should be taught to keep dairy of their daily activities including discussions with people. We want to hear what people say when they make demands and how they react when they receive ‘No’ for an answer. Part of the the challenge in this part of the world is attitudinal. People being like the chameleon and examplars of Janus, that fabled being with two faces.
