There is a popular dictum accepted by democracies all over the world that every democratic nation (people) has the kind of government it deserves. Unlike the other systems of government, democratic nations have the opportunity of electing their leaders from amongst themselves and the dominate ideology is that which is accepted by the people. Also Von Savigny propounded a theory of law that the nature of any particular system of law had to be a reflection of the spirit of the people who had evolved it.
Over the years Nigerians have been apportioning and accusing our leaders of being corrupt, wicked and insensitive to the plight of the people but they have left to ask some critical questions, as where these leaders are coming from, where they were trained, how they formed the opinion of who they are, and to ask whether they are different from the ordinary persons on the street.
I think (and I stand to be corrected) that the attitude of our leaders is to an extant a reflection of who we are and the dominate culture in this part of our world is what we see in our leaders. How can you explain the fact that whenever someone is elected or appointed into a position of authority, his relatives will line up in the man’s office to cut a part of the national cake and when he refuse to see or give them anything, he is termed wicked and stinger. Recently, I listened carefully when a man narrated how one of his relative who served under Peter Obi during his time as the Governor of Anambra State, could not afford a million naira, for according to him, his brother couldn’t make enough money when it was his opportunity to do so and at end of his narrative majority of the opinion was that the man is a fool.
How can we explain the fact that the only reason to kill a human being in this part of the world is that someone is seen running after him shouting “thief, thief, thief “and all of a sudden everybody gathers to take the their own pound of fresh while others will bring out their smart phones to record the sweet event and immediately upload it on the social media, with no sense of humanity.
Have we also noticed that the average Nigerian is happy to see that they are better than their poor neighbor, which was what brought the notion of the small generator being referred to as, “I pass my neighbor”. This attitude is even more noticeable on our roads, when an average Nigerian drives his car across the bus stop and notice people waiting for a taxi, they immediately bring out their left hands as a sign of pride or to tell people how fortunate they are. In fact, apart from Abuja, Lagos and some few other cities, car owners hardly offer people a lift, not even to children or pregnant women who are standing under the sun or in the rain.
The very poor are even more wicked, every a keke, bike or taxi man on the road feels that anybody with a good car is a thief and they try to make nonsense of their achievements, that’s when you hear something like “remove this rubbish on the road, if the person is a woman, you hear: “is it because the man that is sleeping with you brought you a car”, foolish woman, remove that thing on the road”, if the person is a young person, you hear, “foolish boy, go and drop your father’s car key”. This attitude is so disturbing that in Owerri for instance, the moment there is a drop of rain every keke man becomes a king and a lord to himself, they will either increase the transport fee or refuse to carry people and run home empty while they see thousands of people on street.
The Nigeria police, the military and the general public servants are not more corrupt than the ordinary Nigerian because they are recruited from among us, on the other side, two parties are always involved in matters relating to corruption allegation, the giver and the taker; who are the givers and who are the takers?. The same runs across our system, is it the Judiciary, the Nigeria Civil Service, Paramilitary, University Teachers etc, these are Nigerians working for Nigerians in Nigeria soil. It is therefore uncharitable to blame the government for all our woes because we have all contributed to the current state of things in our society.
While I agree that the people in government have governed us so badly, it is important we tell ourselves the truth, as we approach this New Year, when you point accusing fingers on the people in government, some other fingers are also pointing at you, this is because we have all contributed to the current state of hardship in our land. Every act of wickedness we do, carries lot of consequences, hence the slogan change begins with me becomes very apt to the much desired development.
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