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HomeNewsSTATE OF OUR NATION: MY INPUT TOWARDS A BETTER AND GREATER NIGERIA...

STATE OF OUR NATION: MY INPUT TOWARDS A BETTER AND GREATER NIGERIA ON THE OCCASION OF MY 51ST YEAR ANNIVERSARY.

Giving God all the Glory

First of all I want to thank Almighty Allah for giving me life and the opportunity to be alive today in good health despite the ravaging pandemic of COVID-19.

SOLANKE-HAMZAT OLALEKAN
SOLANKE-HAMZAT OLALEKAN

I thank Almighty Allah for giving me all the opportunities of life, protecting me and keeping me safe to this moment, I Thank Him for giving me several opportunities from my birth till now in terms of worldly provisions, spiritual provisions by showing me His way and keeping me amongst those who worship Him. So many times I have had opportunities that sometimes I wonder ‘do I really deserve this’ but for His Grace and Mercies He just bestow those opportunities on me. Am very grateful to You my Lord to Whom I owe all my life.

Alhamdulillah! Alhamdulillah!! Alhamdulillah!! Robil Alamin. I cannot praise You enough. I thank You so much, I appreciate You, I Adore You, I give You all the Glory. Subhanallah walahilailallahu Allahu Akbar. Alhamdulillah Robilalamin.

How I met my Country – “The Good Era”

As a Nigerian child then, I attended free primary and secondary schools, I enjoyed free good healthcare, and many times we enjoyed free transportation to school from private owned commercial transportation.

There was decorum and values. Our fathers, mothers, uncles and aunties at those times too were always handy in providing mentorship, many of them were career officers living within their means while those in business were fair in their dealings.

Many of us in school then were looking forward to becoming successful career persons or genuine entrepreneur, we wanted to be Doctors, Accountants, Farmers, Teachers, Engineers, Pilots, Lawyers, Broadcasters etc. None of us were thinking about how much money these chosen career or business can give us but how much service we can give to our country often times we were motivated by the diligence, passion and honor we see from the practitioners of the various careers. Those who wanted to be farmers were thinking about contributing to food security and agricultural development in our country, those who wanted to be doctors wanted to provide healthcare to support our population, those who wanted to be lawyers were thinking of how to defend and protect the rights of our citizens, ensuring justice within our society, and also to defend and protect the best interest of our country against other countries during negotiation and bilateral deals etc, not getting a political case or to defend corrupt politicians in court for walloping sums of money, and using such to destabilize the judicial system as it is today. We were more concern and passionate about services and values.

I, like several other of my mates were hoping that our country will continuously provide us the much needed social environment, infrastructures and a level playing field that will help and support the actualization of our goals and dreams. On the family front we enjoyed good food, moderates but good clothing, livable housing and above all we have peaceful and safe environment. Elderly families and neighbours collectively check our conduct and character encouraging us to be well mannered, assist us in our school works and assuring us of the dignity in labour and the gains of integrity and hardwork.

The collapse of Social Value:

A new “black order” suddenly appeared through the collapse of infrastructure, social justice, insecurity and the legalization of corruption during the mid 1980s.

The emerging systemic failure consequentially subjected the citizenry to practically providing for themselves what the government should provide for them. Thus, if you must live and survive in our country, you must be able to provide for yourself and wards both personal and environmental security, medical care, education, accommodation, and power (electrical energy) etc. This means one needs lots of money to survive a normal standard life not talking of opulent or affluent lifestyle. We are talking of basic needs, this makes life to become a competition of survival of the fittest, a semblance of banana republic. This new “black order” shifted the attention of parents and guidance away from educating the Nigerian child to looking for means of survival.

Consequently, looking after their morals, conducts and attitude becomes neglected and their dreams truncated.

The love for money geometrically increases amongst the citizenry so does means of looking for money. Firstly, drug trafficking to acquire quick wealth became the order of the day, despite the death penalty placed on it, it refuses to abate as those laws were mere paper tigers. This quickly snowball into advance fee fraud and obtainment by trick popularly known as 419 and later graduated to yahoo and yahoo plus.

By the beginning of the 21st century, the Nigerian child philosophy has drastically changed from career based oriented to money oriented. This led to total collapse of our cultural heritage, values and virtues systems within our society. The situation is so terrible today that “yahoo yahoo” is not only practiced by unemployed youths and hoodlums but even by corporate workers, civil servant, public servant, elected officers, teachers, lecturers, students including housewives aided by some unscrupulous law enforcement agents. The “get rich quick syndrome” is no longer questionable by anybody but is even encouraged by majority of the citizenry.

Without conceding to the justification of ill-gotten wealth, this money were not acquired due to hardship, for the sake of fighting poverty, development or industrialization but purposely for intimidation and oppression of the diligent citizens who lived within their lawful means.
The most astonishing fact of this decay is the way and manner with which the ill-gotten wealth is displayed in the society, whereby the money is used to buy expensive finished products from other countries like expensive shoes, gold wristwatches, some of the “yahoo yahoo” wear expensive rings and necklaces all over their body, buy expensive phones and “pop” crystal champagne of N150,000 per bottle in night clubs etc.

One cannot over emphasis how this ill-gotten wealth has compounded the hardship already inflicted by the poor economy on diligent citizens.

The monetary influence is not limited to private citizens and the followership alone but it plays the leading role among the leadership of the political class and our political processes and proceeds. As a result of this, majority of those who have corruptly enriched themselves through the embezzlement of public funds or in possession of other ill-gotten wealth are able to finance the contest for political positions.
This excessive influence of money in politics has grossly affected government and governance leading to loss of dividend of democracy. Our democratic processes has deteriorated to what can be called “cashtocrazy” (government of money, procured by money and for making money).

Changing the Narratives

Haven determined the state of our nation, it is imperative for any patriotic Nigerian who is genuinely concerned about the development of Nigeria and the faring of Nigerians to strive on how to bring back the country to the right track of a greater future.

It is on this note that I want to re-dedicate in FIFA language my “second half” to increase my contribution towards putting Nigeria in a higher pedestrian in the comity of nations.
To bring about the change in the narratives, that is to return back to our values and virtues system, this is a herculean task that can only be achieved when we have responsible citizens in positions of authority.

A government that will be truly elected by the people and for the people. A government that will be responsible and accountable to the people, that will provide the necessary infrastructures and level playing fields for the Nigerian child to actualize their dreams. A government that will put the welfare and wellbeing of every Nigerian first along with protection of their lives and properties, one that will not wear the garment of ethnicity, religious and other primordial sentiments.

In view of the above, it is obvious that our present democratic processes cannot produce such a government. Thus, we need to reset our democratic processes by involving all and sundry, particularly bringing onboard those apolitical people who due to their uprightness and integrity do not engage in politics on the premises that it is a dirty game for dirty people. We must make them to realize that evil will continue to triumph in any society where the good people avoid participation in governance, also that politics is not for evil and hoodlums but for the best brains and sound minds. We must create a political system that can allow a retired Teacher to aspire to be governor of a state, while we must depart from a system that allows only multimillionaires who can afford to pay political party nomination form for election at the staggering price of N50 million.

Action

I am hereby calling on all like minds to let us come together for purpose of creating a mass movement towards the continuous advocacy of the importance to take part in the political processes to change the narratives that people of repute have business in politics in order to create the needed change in our political atmosphere and the governance of our great country Nigeria for the betterment of Nigerians.

Area of Concerns shall include but not limited to:
(i) Reduction of money in politics
(ii) Removal of Absolute Godfatherism
(iii) Awaken dormant registered voters
(iv) Mobilize people of voting age to participate in government (Politics) by Registering with INEC get PVC and contest election if they so desire.

Opportunity

When we come as a pressure group with large followership in our various constituencies, we can negotiate with political parties and demand for involvement in government or use their platform to contest elections.
Thank you.

SOLANKE-HAMZAT OLALEKAN M 08037255199 lakersconcept@gmail.com

SOLANKE-HAMZAT OLALEKAN

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