₦airaland Forum

It is not fair to tag all Nigerians as cowards but fair enough u r just voicing ur opinion. I have raed about some brave Nigerians who stood up for the right of the people and where in the process murdered by the government, I will make mention of Ken Saro Wiwa in his fight for ogboni Land, we need more intelligent individuals to keep fighting, we all need to keep fighting it shudnt just be a case of they killed one of us so everybody keep quiet and let it end there

i must say I do appreciate ur views especially where u implied that the innocence in the mind of young ones should be nurtured and encouraged.

I believe that any factor that causes any form of division amongst Nigerians should be avoided. Nobody should be apointed any role based on thier religious belief or ethnicity e.t.c. Nigeria is full of people with different religious believes and culture when one grou seems to be getting an advantage over the other, the result is violence.

Education system should be changed, we have a lot of graduates who are uneducated and unskilled. Just like an Oxford graduate would have been trained to understand the british history and culture we need to train our students to understand and be proud of the Nigerian history and culture (if u ask what is the Nigerian culture? that's another story) so that our children are trained to love who they are and why they should be proud to be that and not try to copy the western culture so much because to often in the process they pic up the wrong aspects of the culture.

It is good that Africans readily embrace and apreciate other culture but it becomes tragic when we start to abandone our cultures, morals and values in the process

We need to change our trading system to one that really suits the Nation we live in. We trade assets for assets. Imagine we sell crops to the united states for a certain amount of money but who controlls the worth of that money in the foreign exchange? If we are giving away our natural resources we request for something that will benefit the country in exchange for example "if we supply you so so amount of crude oil every year, in exchange you will reduce the international fees for Nigerian students by 50%" (maybe a long shot but hey for example lol)

These are just a few things i wanted to point out

In my opinion

Nigeria is very very divided for example why does it matter that the last president was Yoruba or that the present one is from the North. To build a house u have to get the foundation right first. To build Nigeria we have to unify Nigeria. Forget these other dividing forces such as religion, ethnicity wealth e.t.c

Dont get me wrong the fact that we have so many interesting culture in one great country is part of what makes Nigeria beautiful but let these differences bring us together and not tear us apart.

Nigerians have too much of this "one man for himself" attitude its all about "what has the country done for me". we need to ask ourselves, "what can I do for Nigeria?". We can't all just be taking from the country we have to give something.

We need to all THINK about ways the counrtry can be improved and how they can contribute and not just think, put to practise, DO.

A change in Nigeria for the better is war against greed. If you think those greedy bastards in charge are ready to give up the keys to the country that easy, think again.

But just before we all head to aso rock (or whatever it is called nowadays) with our matchets and swords, we need a strategy we need to know where we're going and what we're fighting for, what it is about Nigeria that is worth saving, we need to know our history. We need to educate ourelves, Know our history, understand how things happen, know whats going on in the world, Know how the country is run. so we know when we're being ripped off and know how to fight back.

"our Challenges may be new, the instrumnts with which we face them may be new, but the values on which our success is based; honesty & hardwork, courage & fairplay, tolerance & curiosity, loyalty & patriotism, these things are old, these things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress, "

My best part of his speech.

It starts off with a sense of regret for being Nigerian but reading on I see it wasnt just that. I do agree with your idea that intelligent graduates should be employed in the police force with a boost in salary,

According to Wole Soyinka although he was against the Biafra wanting to break away, he did agree that they were right in wanting to do so because they were indeed being treated unfairly. And I do share his views. But isnt part of the baeuty of Nigeria the fact that u can find a variety of cultures and traditions and the ultimate goal is to bring all this people together in one country. Why do we try to divide ourselves cos we feel we are better that these group or that group in terms of religion culture or whatever else. Accept the differences and work together with it.

Yes Nigeria gained independence in 1960, but independence from what to what? All we ever did since then was stick to the methods they forced unto us and never lookd back on what we had before the colonization.

We still speak their language and even some ppl raise thier kids to speak nothing else but English and know nothing of thier mother language. Go on the streets and you see 98% of the people are dressed in western clothes trying to be more like Americans or Britons.

We abandon the greenry in the village and off to the city for a "better job" in a life of stress.

What happened to Trade by batter where you exchanged value for value but now I give you my land and all I get in Exchange is a piece of paper that is worth whatever the foreign exchange say its worth (maybe its not even worth the same land tommorrow).

Once we saw all the glittery things oil cud get us we abandonned that wretched life of farming where we used to plant a seed in the healthy soil and wait for the harvest. Now that the oil is running out they're comming for the remaining nutrients in the land to use to fuel the cars that used to run on oil (biofuel)

I think we need to know our history, know where we are comming from then we can know where we are going and know our place in the world. We dnt just need a leader thats going to come and change a few light bulbs and leave with bags of cash. It begins with every single person, how we develop ourselves as nigerians, appreciating the actual concept of being nigerian, Love the history, the culture, the language the traditions and appreciate the fact that we have a variety of these.

When I say proud to be African or Proud to be Nigerian I'm thinking of the Idanre hills and the cocoa plantations, I'm thinking of how the actuall pounded yam can never be compared to the processed powdered form. Palm wine and kolanut. The Nigerian traditional wedding ceremony, I'm proud of the fact that we have so many interesting cultures and traditions, different languages, different people all part of this great phenomenon called Nigeria, thats why i'm proud to be Nigerian. Why r u proud to be Nigerian

I'm not sorry i'm not singing Fashola's praises but I do not rebuke his efforts either, but I believe the reason for a forum is to voice ur opinion and listen to that of others. And in my opinion Nigeria tries to be western more than it tries to grow.
If you have an outbreak of a disease you first find the cause before you can find the cure. If a person is hungry, desperate, with no job, feeling hopeless and fustrated, follow him around with a camera all day if you will, he will still commit crime because he has no other choice, and he'll probably hate you for spending what could have fed him for a month on a fancy camera that does not solve anything instead keeps the citizen under the close watch of a currupt goverment.

Thats how we know that we dont have very intelligent ppl running the country. Of all the problems the nation is facing the best thing they could come up with is cctv, just great.

I would like to share a bit of my thught.

We were all born with this incredible ability, as primitive as it might sound, its the ability to think. The world we are trapped in today is developing sophisticated measures to deny us access to our mind, we are loosing it every day. We are always trying to get somewhere, making a phonecall, msn, facebooking, listening to music, watching tv, e.t.c.
When last did you take at least an hour a day to sit down and do nothing but THINK. no music, not sleeping not eating, just sit, shut ur mind from ur surrounding and just THINK. (and No, i'm not talking about procrastination lol)

From my point of view our thoughts and concience are linked. We were all born with a concience, for instance you know its just not right to wake up one morning and decide to kill your entire family because you were borne with a concience. I believe that concience is each person's link to thier creator.

Thinking is in other words listening to your concience, talking to your concience hence, praying to your maker. In the world we live today where we dont know what preacher is right or which is wrong, our only genuine link to our creator is our concience. Also we are being dictated to on how to live and how to exist, what our dreams should be and what we should achieve so much so that we all seem nothing but zombies. We need to look less to the skies (which by the way is now poisoned with CO2 emmision lol) and look more within ourself and our creator.

And when I say think I mean thinking about life itself, our purpose as human being, (I mean if you created something you would have a true purpose for it other than hide and seek) not the material things about Life 4get about career, jobs, bills, traffic, Think about life from the begining and work your way up to the now.

I refer to a lot of things in writting this but since this is a Nairaland website I will use this one example. Look at Nigeria as a country, How did this nation come to exist? what existed bfore civilization? what had to go to make way for civilisation? what was good about the old ways and what was bad about the old ways and how owuld it hae been best to develop from the old ays? How can the nation develop from where it is now? What is Nigeria worth to you? what would it mean to you if it were to all of a sudden not exist anymore? What can you give as a Nigerian? How do you develop yourself as a Nigerian?, as a human bieng?.

Then think Africa, Then think the woorld as a whole

My main point is, there is no point letting other people lead us without having a clue where we're comming from, where we're going or what we're doing. We all sit back and complain about situations in Nigeria and in the world, but if we REALLY want a serious change it takes the whole nation (at least a large majority) having the right mind. It wont be easy and it wont be overnight but the sooner we get to work the sooner we get the job done. It satarts from each person developing themselves in the right way, its not about the politicians, Its the people that make Nigeria not a big man in agbada sitting in asorock.

Like I wrote aerlier, this is just my thought, in my opinion.

I know many will read this and think "wetting concern me?" true. Well if thats you "i no follow u yan I dey follow better person yan".