HOW TO SAVE NIGERIA: CIVIL SOCIETIES AS CATALYSTS!

I have been thinking about Nigeria a lot in the last one year! I have wrapped my mind around the troublesome post, our problems have become, and it does not seem to have a weak spot! 


Nigeria is like a badly built house under construction! The government, whom we could liken to the contractor working on the building, is on one side: on the other side are the owners of the house, the populace who actually own the building under construction! And their children are the civil society groups!


The owners of the house have resigned themselves to the bad deal they are getting from the contractor! 


Their children however, who are graduates of the best universities of the world, will not stand this injustice!


They see the contractor living large from the mobilization fee, but refusing to release the money needed to buy the good quality building materials required for finishing the house!


To make matters worse, the workmen are owed back salaries! 


So you can imagine how noisy it is when the three groups have a site meeting!


The children do not understand the inexplicable docility of their parents: however, the contractors feel that the children are just ungrateful, and need to give them more time to finish the project! 


A project premised on a bad foundation!


Civil society does not understand why, with all the resources available to government, the Nigerian project has become like the never ending story of the Tales from Arabian Nights fame! Incoherent, slapdash, and under achieving!


Over the years, as Nigeria has increased her revenue intake from oil, our people seem to have become poorer! It is an anachronism that is difficult to understand!


Civil society will never solve this country's problems, if it keeps doing the same thing: attacking government! 


It has not worked! a new way of thinking is required! Telling government what the problems are, is counter productive! Government does not see the problems, because it is a major part of the problem! 


Our leaders believe they are elected to do the people a favour, and not to serve them! 


Our people on the other hand, do not expect any good, anymore from those they have elected!


I believe that for our problems to be solved, civil society groups need to talk less to government, and engage with the people! 


We need to bridge the gap in development! We need to show the people how, with very little money, they can build community health centres that would save women, and children in childbirth! 




We need to task ourselves, and sink boreholes in communities that have been abandoned because they have no one in government! 




We need to teach the people how to make money in a sustainable manner, and keep it!


It is when we have shown that we care, that we are in it with them: that they will trust, and listen to us!


When the people see that we are willing to put our money "where our mouths are", they would begin to ask, more forcefully, what their leaders are doing with all the money at their disposal!


We cannot nag, or badger, the government to change: politicians are like  juvenile delinquents: words run off their backs like water off a duck's back! 


But when the owners of the house decide to register their grievances, the contractors have no choice, but to listen!


And so will come the change we all desire!


MAY GOD BLESS NIGERIA, OUR NIGERIA, FOREVER!