In one of his New Year sermons, Pastor Adeniyi Ajayi of Gospel Promotion Outreach, Ori Oke Baba Abiye, Ede in Osun State listed ‘The currency of life’ as ‘time, money, knowledge and relationship’. According to the cleric, although “time is money and should not be wasted, wisdom implies the correct application of knowledge.” Furthermore, while “time and knowledge bring money, time and money produce knowledge. In general, “money and knowledge create and ultimately save time.”
“Relationship can get something for a man without spending a dime! The wicked can waste your time; thus wasting one’s life.” Taken together, “everything that happens to one’s time happens to one’s life.” Therefore, knowing “organizing time and managing money is important in the race of life.”
Without being immodest, I also share Pastor Ajayi’s views! Take, for example, when people talk about leadership in Nigeria, they sometimes forget that ‘the bad things we see are symptoms of a deeper root of an ailment’ and that it is not just leadership but also the prototype of our leadership. which is riddled with flaws. And when a prototype is designed to fail, transferring responsibility for that failure to leadership can be compared to leaving the object behind.
Once again, it is as if we are no longer aware of the fact that this “mere geographic expression” is a peculiar country, inhabited by peculiar people, and that it is from this population as a whole that we draw the willing and available individuals who eventually govern the mass of the people. Undoubtedly, ours is a country that looks like a ship in an immense ocean without a rudder. And, as we know, a ship without a rudder is obliged to submit its destiny to the dictates of the waves.
‘Idalu n’iselu, bi a ti n se nile yii, eewo ibomiran ni’ (The constitution to manage any place must be indigenous to its cultural base).
If we have agreed that “everyone who wants the office of bishop… must be blameless, husband of one wife, sober, sober, decorous, hospitable, apt to teach…”, then whoever wants to be, say, a governor in Nigeria should not be a criminal, should be kind to everyone without exception, and should not be self-centered or nepotistic. Once these requirements are met, we should not complain about the leadership in Nigeria. After all, no leader comes to power without knowing what he signed up for!
Remember the British system of government where a potential leader must deliberately come from a cadre of the people! In fact, it prefixes certain social structures in society for a man to emerge as Prime Minister in England. For example, a man who should aspire to occupy such a high office should be someone who can debate anyone, anywhere in the world; and he must have been tested. To that extent, every member of the British Parliament is a potential prime minister.
To be frank, the foundations of civil service in Nigeria are not based on wisdom. In other words, there is no such thing as a solid fundamental philosophy. People just come into government, run it the way they like it, and leave it even worse off than they found it. Contrary to the vision of the man who made Dubai the marvels of the 21st century, there is no radical pattern that aspiring leaders in Nigeria follow with respect to how the government is run. Through the systemic understanding of the powers of the state, governance is also about aggregating the views of the people in such a way that when a policy is introduced, it will go a long way in addressing the wishes of the people.
It is because our leaders do not have a sure pattern of what to do that they go wrong in government. At the end of the day, they would have wasted the four or eight years, so to speak, as prescribed by the constitution. In addition, they would also have managed to waste the time of the citizens as a whole. For example, a citizen hoping that a particular government will address a particular issue in his life would wait eight years only for the issue not to be addressed, even when there is no assurance that the next government will even think about it.
Obafemi Awolowo! Ahmadu Beautiful! Nnamdi Azikiwe! We must bear in mind that politicians are not necessarily leaders; for while leaders are always aware of the fact that they are leading a people and that it is their responsibility to strive to build a future for those they lead, politicians only think about how to fill their pockets with the community of the people.
So when a so-called leader comes up with a dying idea, of course, people will just be running around, unable to define anything clearly. Therefore, it is very likely that such ‘leaders’ waste the constitutionally approved four or eight years to govern. From independence to date, Nigeria’s problems remain largely unresolved! Politicians are just using excuses like smokescreens to fool people. In our fattened climate, democracy has been misinterpreted as the will of ‘Mr. President’ or ‘Mr. Governor!’ And that is the problem! It is an endless circle; and it will just repeat itself until the people come together.
Of course, it’s not that Nigerians are dumb! If someone like the inimitable Awolowo could think of establishing the first television station in Africa; Liberty Stadium, Cocoa Board and many others, by now, his descendants should be thinking about getting to the moon, because the thinking should be how to be better than their ancestors.
But, here we are, no better than our ancestors. And that’s a shame! In Osun, for example, the State Broadcasting Corporation arrived long before ‘Channels Television’. Now, the difference between the two organizations is clear! Even ‘Rave FM’, which went into business only yesterday, has continued to make waves while the state radio station is becoming almost a angsty, disorganized and laughable news station.
Since the beginning of the Fourth Republic, observers have opined that Bisi Akande came with his own dream that, by all indications, successive governments did not accept. So for Osun, it was always a case of ‘starting all over again’, every time a new government took power!
When Olagunsoye Oyinlola was ousted from office on November 26, 2010, he was in such a hurry to leave ‘Bola Ige House’ that he forgot to drop his bag of dreams (and that is if he ever had any). Therefore, there was no dream for a Joseph to play Rauf Aregbesola, his successor in office. ‘Oranmiyan’ also came in with its own ‘Unusual Government’, which immediate former Governor Gboyega Oyetola did not embrace.
So, the ‘State of the Virtuosos’ was obviously predestined! Now, Ademola Adeleke is in the saddle in her long cap, dancing histrionics; and prohibiting everything ‘forbidden’. So where does the growth lie in the pattern of development in Osun since Akande’s time? One can only pray that the ‘Dancing Senator’ has changed shape! Otherwise, things will go on like this until he too finds his way out of the government.
May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!
Komolafe wrote from Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State, Nigeria ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk)
