On a fateful morning as I was performing my usual early morning exercise, I came across a woman and we got talking. We began to discuss what she has accomplished. “My children are all grown up today but I still blame myself for never been able to give them what they deserve”, she says. Then I further inquired, “What haven’t you offered them as a mother?” and so she continues and says, “I never gave them quality education, their health was not my concern, in the process of decision-making in the home I and my husband never put them first and today, they are not better off and I am suffering from my misdeeds, I am just 57years.”
Yet another new year in the life of Mother Nigeria, a hip, hip 57 years but what can we lay claim to as an independent country? Do we congratulate ourselves on the downward slope our most lucrative sector takes – oil and gas or do we begin to lament the deterioration in the education and health sector of our own nation? I wonder what a happy Mother Nigeria wants to celebrate, although we just got out of recession as a nation and it is worth celebrating, I think!
The deplorable state of our Federal Roads is another thing to be grateful for. The Ilorin-Jebba-Mokwa road, Enugu-Onitsha Expressway, Ubiaja-Uromi road, Edo, leading to Abuja, the Lagos- Ibadan expressway and many other federal roads are all in bad conditions. Are we celebrating Independence and more luck to road accidents?
A democratic state, where all we clamour for as citizenry and head of affairs is more money, more wealth either by crook or force. And our young ones no longer believe in the dignity of labour but corrupt practices.
The young generations no longer have access to free education and the un-free education is not well managed. We have no teachers both in our Public Primary Schools, Public Secondary Schools, and our Tertiary Institutions. And today, we have more of our children elope the country in the search for quality education.
Educated graduates roam the streets because of unemployment and the lack of adequate skill. Our university lecturers do not see themselves bridging the gap between the skilled and the unskilled graduates, all they clamour is more funds and not the nation getting better through their own inputs. Where are our inventions as a nation? When many world-class institutions are using the curriculum of the 21st century, but all we are bent on using is to teach with the 1980’s curriculum. But they, our lecturers, travel for conferences across the world, but of what importance is it to the educational sector of Nigeria? Self-aggrandizement I presume.
Yes, the President Buhari’s regime fights corruption but can corrupt practice stop if we do not take a stand against it as a citizenry?
We want a better Nigeria, but are you a better Nigerian?
Are you living with integrity and fairness to humanity?
Are you your brother’s keeper?
As a teacher would you accept that you are wrong?
As a University lecturer would you accept that you are also part of Nigeria’s problem?
As a politician would you accept that Nigerian politics is dirty and that you are a bad egg?
I have much to say to you Mother Nigeria but I will decide to withhold my ink for another plain sheet.
Happy Birthday, Mother Nigeria!
Photo Credit: Buzz Nigeria
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