I know for sure that to be the best that I can be, I need to be in an environment that supports my growth!
Take plants, for example, they need adequate soil nutrients, water, and sunlight to grow. No matter your potential, you need the right system to bloom.
Now, insert Nigeria. Do you think that the Nigerian system can adequately support your growth? No.
I’m not anti-Nigeria, but we also need to address the fact that Nigeria needs to do better for all of us citizens.
So, what should Nigeria be?
However, maybe the right question to ask is, what shouldn’t Nigeria be?
Tina Ezekwe
1. It should not be a country where a young girl standing at the bus-stop gets shot by a policeman accidentally. Tina Ezekwe was shot by a policeman who was trying to arrest a driver for breaking the law.
Vera Omozuwa
2. It should not be a country where a young girl is brutally murdered inside a church building while studying for exams. That happened to Vera Omozuwa.
3. It should not be a country where kidnappings are so common!
4. It should not be a country with very poor healthcare because of corruption at every level of the healthcare value chain.
5. It should not be a country with a failed public school system! I heard people even embezzled the monies meant to feed children at school. Shame!
6. It certainly should not be a country where a senator’s income is at least 100 times greater than the income of the average citizen! Seriously, whose interest is that senator representing?
7. It should not be a country with illiterate policemen. We need ALL of our policemen to be very educated, measured, and articulate. And they deserve to be adequately remunerated.
8. It should not be a country with poor policemen because what then happens, is that whoever has the money, controls the gun!
9. It should not be a country where the less privileged die of malaria because they have no money to adequately treat themselves.
10. Let’s talk about social infrastructure. Let’s forget about the bad roads and all that. My question is, are we ever going to have stable power supply in Nigeria? Are we ever- Like seriously, for real?
11. It should not be a country where your privilege gets you a job faster than your qualification.
12. It should not be a country a lot of young people want to leave. There is a reason we are the most educated people in the United States. Really, the truth is that we would keep going to school (study visa) just so that we don’t have come back here.
13. It should not be a country trying to put an end to terrorism. They are “trying” because the funds to end terrorism will keep coming.
Generally speaking, The Nigerian government would have you believe that they are “trying”. But the truth is that we would know if they were really trying (not to steal all the funds meant for the entire country).
So, what should Nigeria be? Even if nobody has an answer to this. We should all be clear on what we don’t want.
So, this is where we start, by all of us making sure that Nigeria is not any of these things I pointed above. Hopefully, if we try this long enough, we will be ready to take the next step.
