BE THAT CHANGE

Change as is commonly said is the only constant or permanent thing in life. The dictionary and everyone has his/her unique definition for this word CHANGE, this is based on our unique views. For this reason I won’t be giving any definition for this word yet.

Change is a process, so it definitely can’t be accomplished in a day as most of us “should” have realized by now, so in order to effect change one has to be extremely patient. Now, that’s enough on CHANGE because that’s not the topic.

This week, we (the noble citizens of this GREAT country) celebrate the 52^nd year of independence. I’m certain some of us will be saying “so? It’s not like we have anything or any reason to celebrate” but I must let us know that we do have everything or reason to celebrate, I’ll explain a little.

-  For those of us that follow happenings around the World, we must have heard of the “Arab spring” It started as a Peaceful protest and escalated to a very violent one and for some, civil war (most recently Syria over 18 months of war now). What’s the reason for all these chaos? They want a change of leadership, they’re tired of their dictator leaders. In Africa, three countries were involved in this violence (Tunisia, Egypt and Libya), hundreds if not thousands of lives were lost during these “protests” and property worth millions of dollars were lost just to oust those leaders. Go back some 16 years (1996), we never thought (not even in our dreams) that DEMOCRACY was possible in this land (NIGERIA), yet we had a seamless transition into democracy, no bloodshed or destruction of property. Isn’t that enough reason to be joyful?

- Nigeria has 3 major ethnic groups and over 250 tribes from what I hear (I’m not sure yet) and with all our ethno-diversity and inter-tribal conflicts, notably the civil war that lasted about 3 years (1967-1970), we haven’t lost lives at the rate which RWANDA (that has 2 tribes HUTSI’s and TUTSI’s) lost lives in a one month inter-tribal war, over 1 million people were killed in a MONTH!!!!! Shouldn’t we celebrate?

- NATURAL DISASTERS; aside the current flooding (which I won’t term a natural disaster rather a product of bad drainage channels) NIGERIA has nothing to worry about nature’s forces, not too far from us here in neighbouring CAMEROUN, they suffer the wrath of volcanic eruptions. AMERICA with HURRICANE KATRINA and most recently HURRICANE ISAAC also EARTHQUAKES and TORNADOES (TWISTERS) here and there. ASIAN countries always hit by MONSOONS and TYPHOONS, most recently TYPHOON TEMBIM. We don’t suffer all these, so why shouldn’t we be happy?

- NATURAL RESOURCES; This country has been blessed by GOD with numerous natural resources; TIN, GOLD, COAL, COLUMBITE, CRUDE OIL, a very fertile soil for agricultural produce etc. Most of these resources haven’t been harnessed at all with our over-dependence on “BLACK GOLD”, this land is a haven or evidence of GOD’s riches, truly the land is GREEN (thanks TY Bello).

- By my rating this is by far the most important of them all; HUMAN RESOURCES: We’re blessed with the best of people in every sphere of life. Yes every sphere, from the Leaders to the least significant citizen (if there’s anything like that) in the country. This point is where my topic comes to play, like I stated earlier NIGERIA is blessed with the best of HUMAN RESOURCE, the only challenge is that most of these human resources have just sealed their heart with the notion that nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, good can come out of this nation, but I want to counter this notion. All this country needs is someone somewhere to begin that change, I’ll give instances.

·        We’ve been known to work with “African” time and that’s the reason a 2 hours meeting that’s to end by 12pm by original schedule would just be starting by 11:15am (an alarming 1 hour 15 minutes late). This is the case in a lot of gatherings or meetings that is associated with time, now that happens because everyone involved in such meeting believes that other participants of the meeting will also come late, so they consciously decide to go late for the meeting even when they could have been 30 minutes early. This cliché “AFRICAN TIME” can only stop when we all decide to come on time for every of our meetings. You’ll be surprised how this little change will positively change our lives.

·        Some of us just decide to break rules because we believe that we can always bribe our way out of trouble for the fact that the official in-charge is corrupt. We haven’t realized the fact that we (the people giving bribe) are actually the corrupt ones and for those that may say they were forced to give the bribe, have you considered what will happen if you just do what’s right? You won’t have to face any charges, the official will have no one to collect bribe from, hence turning or do I say transforming the official to a noble citizen (that’s one better human resource) for the country.

·        PATIENCE; we’re known to be “RUSHians” which has led to several/numerous mistakes (most notably fatal car accidents). We also rush to condemn our leaders, elders, friends, subordinates or younger ones. We don’t give them the opportunity to explain themselves, we seem to forget what the BIBLE says about the tongue (life and death are in the power of the tongue), we rush to curse and condemn people yet we want them to perform, how is that possible? It’s really difficult, please mind what you say about anyone because it may just come back to haunt you, remember:

WORDS ARE LIKE EGGS ONCE THEY’RE OUT OF YOUR MOUTH (BREAK), YOU CAN NEVER GET THEM BACK

OR

WORDS ARE SEEDS, ONCE SPOKEN WILL COME TO PASS NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES, except GOD changes it.

- LOVE: This is another virtue, which we desperately need in this country, the importance of LOVE cannot be over-emphasized, even the BIBLE explains the importance (of all the fruits of the spirit, LOVE is the greatest). If we all exhibit this virtue, there won’t be cases of tribalism or inter-tribal wars or conflict. LOVE is the only thing that can make us tolerate each other and accept each and everyone of us for who we are not minding TRIBE, CULTURE, GENDER, EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATION, SOCIETAL STATUS or RELIGIOUS BELIEF. With LOVE, this beautiful nation of ours will definitely be heading for greater heights.

There are many more but I’ll stop with these few, remember NIGERIA is ours what becomes of HER is up to us. BE THAT CHANGE, it begins with YOU.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NIGERIA

GOD BLESS NIGERIA

LOVE YOU ALL…..