The ‘CHANGE BEGINS WITH ME’ campaigns kickstarted by the President of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari is being misunderstood as if
the President is shifting the Change he promised to the doorsteps of
Nigerians. The impression I get when I speak to friends or read their
write-ups is that President Buhari is abdicating in his responsibility to
bring the desired change his promised the people of Nigeria. They say that
the ‘CHANGE BEGINS WITH ME’ campaigns is an attempt to divert the
attention of Nigerians from the real issues. They claim that the President
is blaming them for the economic crisis they never created in the first
place. They are of the opinion that President Buhari should bring the
change he promised.
Those who know better tell us that change will not come if we continue to
wait for other people. The tell us that change will elude us if we
continue to procrastinate and continue to shift it to some other time.
They tell us that we are the ones we have been waiting for. They tell us
that we are change we desire, the change we seek and the change we want.
Now why am I saying this? What point am I trying to make? What do I want
to achieve? As a father, as an activist, as a leader ,and as an elder I
have seen it all in Nigeria. I have seen why things seem to remain the
same even when we try to move forward. I have seen why Nigeria is not
working. I have seen why we seem to remain the same when other countries
are moving forward. I have concluded that even you brought all the money
in the world to Nigeria we may not make it because we need attitudinal
change. We need to change our character. We need to change our mindset. We
need to love this country and work for it to bring the desired change we
all need.
I have been diligently following the recovery of public funds from certain
individuals like Service Chiefs, politicians, business men, contractors,
civil servants etc and I have been asking why we steal what we do not
need, while we steal and steal and will not say enough is enough, and why
we steal for ourselves, for our children , for grand children, for our
great grand children and even generations yet unborn. I am told that “our
foreign exchange reserves plummeted from $62bn in 2008 to $30bn by 2015,
at a time when oil prices were at a historic high, reaching a level of
$114 per barrel in 2014.By comparison, Indonesia, another oil producing
economy with a high population, increased its reserves from $60 billion in
2008 to $120 billion in 2015” about the same time. Now who is to blame?
You blame the government, the rats in NNPC, the rats in the MDAs,the rats
in the Budget office, their cronies and associates, their hangers on etc.
They are all Nigerians.
A Professor from the University of Lagos once took a weighing machine to
the markets in Lagos to verify the claims of Nigerian Manufactures
concerning the weight of their products. None of the products passed the
simple test. The products weighed below what was written on the labels.
Now who is to blame? Fathers and Mothers who pay for their children to go
to special centers to write their examinations are not government
officials. Special Centers are where students go to be helped to pass
their exams. The criminal organizers of the scam buy the question papers
from WAEC Officials and get experts to provide answers which they now
handover to these students at special centers. What about some Medical
Doctors who run baby factories where underaged girls are lured with say
N50,000 to get pregnant and when the babies are delivered these Doctors
and their collaborators sell the babies to would be buyers ranging from
N500,000 to N1,000,000? Are they not ordinary Nigerians citizens? What
about the Lawyers and Judges Including the well respected SANs who run
from one court to another to defend those who looted the nation to bones?
What about the ordinary Nigerians who connive with government officials to
defraud government and sabotage the system? What about our contractors
who collect money for projects and use it to buy more cars and marry more
wives? What about government officials and ordinary Nigerians who connive
to loot the nation and stash the money abroad and sometimes such funds are
never recovered? What about the ordinary Bankers and Bank MDs who help
the looters to keep stolen funds and even help to open several Accounts
without sticking to the rules of the games? What about the Governors,
Senators , HOR members, traditional rulers, leaders of thoughts etc who
encourage criminals to destroy government installations in the name of
agitations? What will you say about University Teachers who demand sex or
Money for students to pass their exams? What about those who go to collect
our scarce foreign exchange earnings promising to use it to import raw
materials only to take the dollars to the black market and make millions
just for making phone calls to the right people in the corridors of power?
What about those who use our scarce foreign exchange to go and import
toothpicks, toilet rolls, toilet soaps, etc? What about those who divert
military hardwares to the enemies or those who work for the enemies of the
country for personal gains? What about the church leaders who connive with
any government in power just for personal gains instead of speaking truth
to power in tandem with their callings? Police who erect illegal
checkpoints across Nigeria to extort money from ordinary Nigerians are
pulling the country down. Those rats who add thousands of names ( ghost
workers) on the pay roll to steal billions every month are pulling the
nation down gradually.I can go on and on.
The truth is that some of us used to say that Nigeria is what it is today
because of what our past leaders have made it whether they are civilians
or military but today I am singing a different song. My experience since I
left the University of Nigeria in 1985 is that all have contributed to the
mess we find ourselves today. The little wrongs things we have been doing
in our homes and offices have magnified in no uncertain terms to become
the big problems we have today as a nation. A nation fails because we have
failed as a doctors, engineers, lawyers , teachers, soldiers, police,
fathers, mothers, presidents, ministers, senators, house of reps members,
governors, commissioners, artisans etc. Governance is a collective
responsibility. Government must show the way and the citizens must obey
the law and do the needful. Citizens must change their attitude and
mindset for this country to join the comity of developed nations.
Joe igbokwe
Lagos, Nigeria.