Nigeria is a country of incredible promises and unbelievable paradoxes. Despite being the ‘Nummer Eins’ on the world poverty chart and performing abysmally in other developmental indices, it is believed that we are generally a country of a good number of highly cerebral and successful individuals.

And that is true. Without breaking a sweat, several names easily come to mind. We have the Dangotes, Ovias, Elumelus, Rabius, Adelekes, Otedolas, Adenugas, Chukwumas, Okonjo-Iwealas, Adesinas, the list goes on. These are people who by their exploits, whether in business or engagements in other areas, have done themselves and their country proud.

It is quite easy to understand why many young people in Nigeria, and on the continent, look up to them and some others as role models. The young people pray to achieve the same level of excellence as these people have. They even sing about them.

We are a great country with an enviable heritage but a chequered history. Like many countries, we have had our share of good, bad, and extremely ugly situations. But unlike some of these other countries that have refused to be tied to the shackles of the past, if there’s anything we do with our past, it’s that we don’t learn the right lessons, that’s if we learn anything. George Santayana said it first, and he put it quite aptly that, “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That’s exactly our problem.

We just don’t learn. And we know this to be true; we know where we are coming from and we know where we are. Has much changed for the better, or best? Of course, the answer is no! After almost 60 post-independent years and 21 unbroken years in our present Fourth Republic, the leadership narrative is still the same.

Still the same do-your-own-make-I-do-my-own narrative or to call it by its proper name – turn-by-turn fixation. And we, the people, are to blame for this descent into the depths where reason is choked to death; where excellence is shown the door and where merit is displaced by mediocrity of the starkest order.

There’s a conversation that needs to be had, now, and it must be a serious sustained conversation until everyone gets it. We are the quickest to berate people that have not ‘achieved’ or ‘arrived’ by a certain age. Your neighbour has just clocked 30 years and you are the quickest to ask why she’s not married and you are comparing her to a friend who, at 29, is married and has three kids.

We are the biggest proponents of the ‘At-your-age’ theory that states categorically that ‘until you have attained a particular level at a particular age, you’ve failed in life.’ If we applied this theory that we so readily activate on our fellow Nigerians, then it is clear we have failed after 21 years of democracy in the Fourth Republic. And the biggest problem is our approach to leadership.

The government knows and is overwhelmed by the enormity of the tasks ahead. This menace was not created by one government, but we certainly wouldn’t be discussing Nigeria as the headquarters of global poverty if the best of us were at the helm of state affairs at all levels.

If after six elections and a change of baton between two political parties, we still haven’t figured that the current turn-by-turn thing isn’t working, then something is wrong somewhere. And if something is not working, the only reasonable thing to do is to change it. ‘Once bitten, twice shy’ is a good message with an ever-resonating impact but we seem, unfortunately, to not only fall twice but to fall all the time. This turn-by-turn mentality has ‘produced leaders’ at both federal and state levels but has that arrangement produced anything remarkable?

How do we stem the tides of insecurity? How do we get our industries back up? How do we revitalise our economy? How do we put our people to profitable work? How do we lift tens of millions out of extreme poverty? How do we raise the quality of education at all levels? How do we revive our comatose health sector? How do we become the country of reference in a fast-changing world? These are some of the questions. And visionary leadership is a great place to start.

Before us is a great opportunity in the name of COVID-19. The current experience with the pandemic is a perfect test for us as a country to inform how we must begin to think about the kinds of people we entrust with public office at all levels. Amid all the actions being taken by federal and state executives – both reasonable and unreasonable, people can begin to separate those with great plans and vision from the completely clueless and visionless ones.

While politicians will go ahead with the usual permutation on the best candidates (based on ethnic nationalities) to win elections for their parties, we must be able to shun non-progressive sentiments and put Nigerians and the future of Nigeria first.

This narrative must be sustained, though it is an incredibly difficult task considering how disunited the country is. There’s just too much at stake. If we do nothing, then we are all complicit in creating a messy situation where the country stagnates because power rotates. Who are we ‘doing’?

Source: https://www.thecable.ng/nigeria-stagnates-while-the-power-rotates-who-are-we-doing

See as the naija flag be like roofing sheet.

Me

Summary please

abeg the write up too long and somehow confusing.

Let's devide Abeg,almost nothing is working to full capacity in sw since.... Awolowo

K

u

When the youths are tired of the incompetency of the ruling elites,
When the youths are tired of the ever burgeoning state of insecurity,
When the youths are tired of their unemployment status,
When the youths are tired of complimenting political vultures that have destroyed their future,
When the youths are tired of endless distractions like bbnaija,

When the youths are tired of all these and other abnormalities, then Nigeria will be better for the next generation. Till then Nigeria scatter scatter.

Nigeria's problems are endless ...and people would have a day dishing out well composed articles addressing it but shit would always remain the same

Sensitivity:
Summary please

Real change, not the audio type we have urgently needed.

donbachi:
See as the naija flag be like roofing sheet.

Who Are We Doing? as a question. But then, who i go ask?

Anyway, if you need a content writer for your blog kindly contact me on WhatsApp 090-675-080-91.
I charge lesser and can write 1-2k article, 2days delivery.

NIGERIA WILL CONTINUE TO STAGNATE UNTIL YORUBA GET OUT FROM THE MEDIA SECTOR.


LAGOS IBADAN EXPRESS WAY, THIRD WORLD NEWS HAVE DONE GREAT HARM TO THIS COUNTRY.



THAT IS HOW THEY GAVE US BUHARI. TODAY WE HAVE KILLINGS AND HUNGER EVERYWHERE.




THEY WILL JUST WAKE UP IN THEIR FACE ME, I FACE U AND BE WRITING RUBBISH.

This make me believe the more that the garden of eden is here in Nigeria why


because here is where the confusion begins


and devil make woman deceive the man

When is Nairaland going to fix disgusting porn pictures on frontpage threads? Seun, abeg now.

@Topic
Everyone knows Nigeria's problems, the question is the way forward.

These porn marketers are really funny.


I had to recheck my browser address bar to make sure I didn't mistakenly typed Porn hub.

Ok

It has reached southeast turn to produce the next president and he is asking who we are doing, we are all better off if we segregate, but until then, rotation is the justified way to go, Southeast should bring forward an honest, equitable and efficient man for presidency.

This is Jesus spoken about hundred of years before he was born.

"he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him."

Note that he came poor and wretched as against the Messiah they were expecting...

"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:

and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not."

He was always sorrowful, grieving for mankind... people would be like who is this wretched guy that is so poor and always crying?....is this the Messiah?


"Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted"

Little did they know that he had to live this way because he is our substitute for sin.....he had to subject himself to the sentence of sin...

Even when he hung shamelessly on the cross, people thought he was being punished by God for his blasphemy of Calling himself the son of God.

"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed"

Not knowing that he was not being punished, he was taking our place!!!

These was prophesied hundreds of years before he came.

No wonder majority of the Jews rejected him...

Have you rejected him too?

Have a rethink...he is your substitute in punishment...

Accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, save yourself from the wrath of God that is coming.

Nigeria is seriously stagnating

explorer250:
when it is the Igbo mans turn everybody has started speaking English

When Nigerians stop hating each other, the country will go forward.

Sad.