MEN OF OUR TIME

Everything on earth has its time and season. A time to live and die, a time to live for sadness and happiness, time to sow and harvest, and a time for rainy and dry season. Have you ever imagined why some people are remembered while some are forgotten? Some remember for their kind gesture, the lives they have touched, sweet memory created and values added to mankind. 

Others remembered for havoc, pains, and all forms of heinous acts perpetrated. Men like Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello, Zik, Queen Aminat, Herbert Marculey, Tafawa Balewa and Aminu Kano came, saw and conquered by serving humanity with humility.

Men of our time display ignorance of the past and forget about the reality of tomorrow. Some in the political-sphere show little or no concern to the helpless masses faced with daunting challenges. Remember, the position you are today was once occupied and will be occupied by someone tomorrow.

Surface it to say that men of our time have created more harm than good, all in the name of attaining, acquiring and amassing more and more of social-status and the luxuries of life. Think of those things you are best known for today, winning you accolades, admiration and salutation which will definitely speak for you in your absence.

That reminds me of the life and time of a military head of state who ruled draconically, denying the rights and privileges of his people, and forgetting the nemesis that will catch up with his orders and injustices. After sometime of reign of clarion call was up for him and was taken away by the inevitable death. A general who maimed thousands of his best brains, sentence to death and allowed several to wallow in prison without mercy. Among the once remanded, was freed and crowned the C-IN-C, who ruled and live to be remembered. What will your story look like? Time to act is now. A stitch in time saves nine. 

BY: OSENI YUSUF

IS NIGERIA TRULY THE GIANT OF AFRICA?

Nigeria having broken the jinx of colonization in 1960 by her nationalists who fought selflessly to give their people better government where all and sundry would be participant-contributors. But so hurriedly after independent, the dream of unity in diversity became a nightmare with various antecedent challenges that divide the nation rather than unite it.

Nigeria, being blessed with human and material-resources has been working extensively to make sure that her neighboring states survive through its foreign-policies which had benefited a lot of nations through being membership to many international-organizations. A good example is the apartheid-regime of South-Africa, Liberia-civil war, Sudan-unrest, and other memorable ones that have defined the stand of the most populous black nation on earth.

According to Fasua, who opines in the ideas of Martin Luther king Jr that “Nigeria, a self-styled giant of Africa with feet of clay, has an innate capacity of self-destruction”.

Many nations applaud Nigeria, some even mock, but none is ready to trail the path of her governance where citizens suffer in the face of many with the spirit of suffering and smiling (what a nation)!. History had given evidences of nations that start footing with Nigeria, but have incredibly surpasses it in terms of development, better standard of living, reduce unemployment-rate and delivery of services to humanity and recognize the rule of law services with exemplary qualities from their various leaders.

A nation like Nigeria believed to be a land of hope for the hopeless, voice for the voiceless turn to be the shadow of itself in many sectors of its existence. A land where dreams of yesteryears, fissile away like smoke with no destination. Women watch their spouses been killed in a broad day light and their children been enslave in the modern style of lottery and rampant insecurity of lives and properties.

Thousand fresh graduates are churned out annually to face the reality of survival of the fittest with the common slogan of unemployment even before graduation, for the few jobs available which the better part of these jobs are exclusively reserved for the highest bidder.

The 54years old nation of ours, where thousands of its workforce seek for greener-pasture even to places like Togo, Benin, Tunisia, Ghana, Burkina-Faso with inhumane treatment meted to its citizens with little or no action from its authority. Can we truly be defined as giant of Africa in the face of abject, epileptic-power supply and majority of its people live less than one dollar a day?

Let’s put on our thinking cap before nations that view us as big-brother in Africa redefines us rather than the so called “Giant of Africa” but ass the “Snail of Africa”.

God bless my dream land, and milk and honey shall flow in our cities. It’s possible. I know it is.

By OSENI YUSUF

Is Corruption Nigeria’s Biggest Problem?

When you move around the street, going to every nook and cranny of the territory, asking both young and old that, what is the main problem of the most populous Black nation? You would definitely be left in your own thought, with a repeated answer- corruption.

After reading several pieces of great writers, plus the realty on ground, I found it difficult to still sit on the fence and believe our beloved country has a bigger problem than this cankerworm that has eaten deep into the system of every sector and parameter of our institutions.

One of the main duties of youths in any sane society is to challenge corruption, hence I took advantage of my leisure time last week, to ask few people on the street on what they believe corruption is all about. Their answers no doubt, are another factor that spearheaded this write-up. I really want us to believe that corruption is not only the embezzlement of public fund. Corruption is not only buying of private jet with money meant for the development of the state. It’s not only diverting projects funds to personal accounts. Corruption is not segregated to a particular race, tribe or religion. It’s vividly in every section of the society.

Why is it that when Mr. A sells something of a market value of N50 at a higher price of let’s say N80, he is tagged a business guru and Mr. B diverted public fund, he is tagged a thief, a criminal, and even a corrupt official. The fact is, the dictionary meaning of corruption has not yet changes as its still recognizes a corrupt individual as someone who is morally degenerated and in a putrid state. If a lecturer collects money from an aspirant seeking for admission and promise to include his or her name on the list, there is no other name to address such person than a corrupt-academician.

Let’s me not bore you with instances, there are many more out there. However, it’s quiet unfortunate that Nigerians created their own encyclopedia and gave another meaning to the impurity act. Corruption is corruption no matter how little it may seem.

Going down the book of records, just recently, precisely on December 4^th, the global transparency international ranked Nigeria as the 39^th most corrupt nation in the world and ranked among the top in Africa. This clearly shows how the country has embedded the societal ill into its system. Ours leaders have legalized, institutionalized and privatized corruption. It’s quite a disgrace to a country that addresses itself as the giant of Africa.

It’s pertinent and imperative to note that any other vices a society experiences is built on this impure act. Corruption breeds unemployment. Unemployment yields poverty. And the end product of poverty is Insecurity, prostitution, racketeering, arm robbery and all other forms of assorted vices we may think of. 

Nigeria should as a matter of urgency, take clues from Denmark which is the least corrupt nation on earth and put into places, working projects that can reduce this debased act if we don’t want to be drown in its river. Tackle corruption and you have solved 80 percent of the country’s problem. Where there is less corruption there are more innovations, developments and transformations.

A wonderful quote to take home by karl Kraus, he said – ‘Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual; the former invariably endangers the moral of the society. We should stand and challenge corruption with a sole vision of making our fathers’ land a place to live.

BY: OMOLAOYE SODIQ

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