"Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?" (1 Kings 3:9) This was Solomon's supplication to God. This was a man that had everything, but was humble enough to realise that he lacked the wisdom to govern. He received wisdom in abundance and his reign prospered. History is peppered with leaders that were empowered with the spirit of discernment and posterity has been kind to them. History is also littered with leaders with huge egos but with zero virtues, and we know the lousy legacies they left behind. Every nation on the planet has, in abundance, both categories of leaders, but the forces of evil have ensured that, in Nigeria's case, the vast majority of those that regard themselves as leaders are of the corrupt, ungodly and murderous breed. Mind you, this is not just in the realm of politics, but also in other walks of life in our nation.
You may ask, 'don't we already know this for a fact?', and you're absolutely right; asking it is by no means impertinent. I'm not trying to tell you that the Pope is Catholic either. But you see, by asking it, aren't we then, as a collective, questioning what our leaders' raisons d'être are? I bet you that even the most 'clued-up' of them has not got the intelligence to come up with a sane response. Hardly any of them is articulate enough to rationalise the reasons for our backwardness as a nation and the consequences of their inclement attitude to governance. Therein lies our national affliction.
Many moons ago, James Madison (1751-1836) who was the US 4th President (1809-1817) summed it up when he said "The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions to hold their public trust." How many of these mindless and gutless lot can lay claim to being discerning and virtuous? If one doesn't have the wisdom to discern the common good, how would he have the virtue to pursue it? If it happened that he blagged his way into high office, does it take the brains of Einstein to work out that neither the common good of society nor the desire for public trust would feature in his list of priorities? Therein lies the lowest common denominator of our problems as a people, and as a nation. Greed is the new virtue, money is the new god and avarice is in vogue. Pity.
They come up with scurrilous ideas about how to cure the affliction that they were so patently the author of. They ceaselessly pontificate about the virtues of patience and hard work while they send entire generations of their fellow citizens to the scrapheap of indigence. They have rendered over 98% of Nigerians clueless, hopeless and confused. In Oyo State, the governor dully thinks he's the new Messiah. He has embarked on the wilful destruction of markets and trading stalls which ordinary people rely on for feeding their families. He has set his heart on the gentrification of Ibadan. What alternatives to eking out a livelihood has he provided for the hapless traders and hawkers? No social security in place; schools and hospitals in terminal decline. How do these people now send their children to school and feed them? He's so daft and cruel that he thinks nothing of this. Nigerians are patiently impatient and impatiently patient at the same time. Worry is the new currency, hopelessness is the new ambience. Just imagine, for instance, the so-called CBN governor, the massively insufferable Sanusi, advising Nigerians to stop consuming 'ponmo' (cow hide) so that the country would be able to produce 30 million pairs of shoes annually instead of importing them from China! What condescension! What preposterousness! When they have ensured that most Nigerians can't even afford a tiny piece of red meat, and what little they can afford is being cited as the reason for shoe importation. Next, he will advise us to bag the air we were meant to breathe in and export it. These Godless lot just open their foul mouths and spew gibberish non-stop, oral diarrhoea is their incurable disease, oratorical incontinence is their familial affliction.
Over in Pakistan, it is a religious leader that has taken over the mantle of responsibility to try to instil a regime of fairness and true democracy. The Supreme Court of that country has ordered the arrest of the Prime Minister on charges of corruption. Hundreds of thousands of people have besieged the seat of power and demanding the defenestration of the whole government. Only yesterday, the government acquiesced, and now Parliament will be dissolved before the elections scheduled for later in the year. That's what I call real People Power. Not in Nigeria. Most religious leaders are complicit in the wrongs being done to Nigerians. The legal profession daily ensures that those wrongs go unpunished. It's a free-for-all government. The more you 'chop' the more you get away with. Do these people not know God? Mindless thievery is everywhere.
If we don't raise our voices with absolute intent and unrelenting regularity, we'll be ceaselessly oppressed and ignored. One way or another, they just have to go. Now, who leads the charge?
Many moons ago, James Madison (1751-1836) who was the US 4th President (1809-1817) summed it up when he said "The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions to hold their public trust." How many of these mindless and gutless lot can lay claim to being discerning and virtuous? If one doesn't have the wisdom to discern the common good, how would he have the virtue to pursue it? If it happened that he blagged his way into high office, does it take the brains of Einstein to work out that neither the common good of society nor the desire for public trust would feature in his list of priorities? Therein lies the lowest common denominator of our problems as a people, and as a nation. Greed is the new virtue, money is the new god and avarice is in vogue. Pity.
They come up with scurrilous ideas about how to cure the affliction that they were so patently the author of. They ceaselessly pontificate about the virtues of patience and hard work while they send entire generations of their fellow citizens to the scrapheap of indigence. They have rendered over 98% of Nigerians clueless, hopeless and confused. In Oyo State, the governor dully thinks he's the new Messiah. He has embarked on the wilful destruction of markets and trading stalls which ordinary people rely on for feeding their families. He has set his heart on the gentrification of Ibadan. What alternatives to eking out a livelihood has he provided for the hapless traders and hawkers? No social security in place; schools and hospitals in terminal decline. How do these people now send their children to school and feed them? He's so daft and cruel that he thinks nothing of this. Nigerians are patiently impatient and impatiently patient at the same time. Worry is the new currency, hopelessness is the new ambience. Just imagine, for instance, the so-called CBN governor, the massively insufferable Sanusi, advising Nigerians to stop consuming 'ponmo' (cow hide) so that the country would be able to produce 30 million pairs of shoes annually instead of importing them from China! What condescension! What preposterousness! When they have ensured that most Nigerians can't even afford a tiny piece of red meat, and what little they can afford is being cited as the reason for shoe importation. Next, he will advise us to bag the air we were meant to breathe in and export it. These Godless lot just open their foul mouths and spew gibberish non-stop, oral diarrhoea is their incurable disease, oratorical incontinence is their familial affliction.
Over in Pakistan, it is a religious leader that has taken over the mantle of responsibility to try to instil a regime of fairness and true democracy. The Supreme Court of that country has ordered the arrest of the Prime Minister on charges of corruption. Hundreds of thousands of people have besieged the seat of power and demanding the defenestration of the whole government. Only yesterday, the government acquiesced, and now Parliament will be dissolved before the elections scheduled for later in the year. That's what I call real People Power. Not in Nigeria. Most religious leaders are complicit in the wrongs being done to Nigerians. The legal profession daily ensures that those wrongs go unpunished. It's a free-for-all government. The more you 'chop' the more you get away with. Do these people not know God? Mindless thievery is everywhere.
If we don't raise our voices with absolute intent and unrelenting regularity, we'll be ceaselessly oppressed and ignored. One way or another, they just have to go. Now, who leads the charge?
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