Time To Take Responsibility
I've wondered if it's ok to blame the misfortunes of this nation on past leaders. These were people who hardly got the benefit of what most of us enjoy now- and irrespective of their weaknesses or missteps, still remain references of a nostalgic past
I've wondered if it's ok to blame the misfortunes of this nation on past leaders. These were people who hardly got the benefit of what most of us enjoy now- and irrespective of their weaknesses or missteps, still remain references of a nostalgic past
We refer to Awolowo and his contemporaries as the Golden Era but we have forgotten that they really didn't have anyone to guide them. They were pioneers- people who had to chart a course the best way they knew. They had no mentors. They had no books to guide them.
They had no history to refer to. Illiteracy rate in 1950 was 84.4%- that means for every 10 adults, just about 2 had any education. They were like orphaned teenagers hitting puberty, grappling and struggling to understand the change.
It was in that era that we had the civil war. Ironically, that was a period of unprecedented progress where oil money was not as significant. Truth be told, those were real men- warts and all.
We can blame the military rulers like IBB, Abacha and Abdul Salam all we like but with their limited exposure and education and inspite of the tyranny and anti-democratic posture of their regimes, there were more significant developments than we are experiencing now.
The Third Mainland Bridge still remain a reference point in this nation ditto the liberalisation of the financial space. The foundation for the success in the telecoms sector was laid by Sanni Abacha.
We now have a generation that is widely travelled, has superior education on the average and possess several advantages our forbears never had- the internet and access to unlimited information.
Literacy level is 62% yet at no time have we had such a high level of wiful ignorance in our body politic. The nation is barely crawling towards progress. We can't organize and we are not given to excellence.
We can't think beyond today and we are simply clueless about almost everything. Leadership is at an all-time low with the possibility of hope fast reducing. We continue to benchmark performance using the Awolowos as SI unit.
This generation must take responsibility. If we can't do better than our parents, it's not the fault of our parents. They didn't fail us. We did!
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