If we say Better Days Ahead , Better Days is not unconnected with Better People. People who fit into this dispensation; dispensation of relevant technology and mind blowing innovations.
We still have people in this dispensation who think about short term benefits and not long term benefits, we need to think as smart as those leading us. Truth be told, our leaders are quite clever but the citizens ought to be smarter already.
During my basic education, we were taught elementary things we needed to know about Human Rights and Basic Amenities we are to enjoy as citizens. Basic amenities which are; electricity, pipe borne water, good infrastructures, free education and good standard of living. However today in Nigeria what do we have?
We have high level of unemployment, poor health facilities , dystopian educational standard , high cost of living, poor infrastructures and a lagging development of the economy as a whole.
Now education provided by the government isn’t free anymore. At the primary and secondary school levels, they still pay some thousands , yet most of these children still learn in the most inconducive environment you can imagine. The levy paid isn’t used to accomplish an improved environment to aid teaching and good assimilation. This is as a result of the corruption that is deeply rooted in this system.
Youths graduate from the tertiary institutions every year and in the course of searching for jobs, they are expected to have certain years of experience in order to be absorbed. Where exactly do they get these experience from if they have never been offered employment after successfully completing the compulsory service year?
We face many challenges as a nation, most roads are bad, it is so difficult for most people to have good meals, people who have little money or none can’t enjoy good health facility, the economy is bad.
Talking about politicIal sycophants and supporters , for how long will they keep giving support to leaders who treat civil servants like beggars, leaders who have no prepared plan for the youths and have used their policies to wreck the Nigerian currency.
ASUU (Academic Staff Union Of Universities) is currently on strike and despite elections being near, the government does not seem bothered. This level of confidence on the government part is alarming. Despite all these ,our politicians have been engaged in campaigns and making futile promises to the citizens as they have always been doing in the past.
Despite all these, sycophants and poverty stricken citizens still turn out to support these politicians because of the short term benefit. They get paid for a day, spend the money the same day or following day and then, suffer for the following years. I understand they have a lot to deal with, poverty and depression is real. Campaigns aren’t done everyday but during periods of elections.
So the question is, how have these people been surviving? We have to make a choice, do we keep making ourselves tools in the hands of these politicians , risking our lives while campaigning for them or refuse to be used by them and settle for long term benefits?
Why can’t they offer our children scholarships , provide shelter with little interest, provide incentives and secure a better future for us? They only make these promises during campaigns but never fufill them. Shouldn’t they do these things while in power? No, they won’t . They refuse to do these things and while poverty keeps plunging into our society, they come back as saviour, pretending to be doing us a favour and taking advantage of the poor by giving them stipends.
The poor need to be wise already because when a bad government is elected, they are the first set of people to feel the heat of the difficulty in the nation. How do they survive when the economy is bad and the cost of living is high? Yet, they haven’t understood.
