Christopher Odetunde, Ph.D.
The issue before us is leadership and followership. It is time for the old politicians to retire and for the youth to take over. It is time for them to go. Many of our leaders were sent to school on our scholarships, and to the NDA to defend Nigeria against external threat. Instead, they decided to use their education to pauperize the nation, teach the next generation about art of looting, and use their military training not to fight our nation’s enemies and external threats but to wage war against us. Yet, they think we are stupid enough to continue to accept them as our savior. The question for the next generation (the youth) is, “Are you going to accept the status quo? “ Are you going to follow your parents’ grab and kill mentality or will you be courageous enough to initiate new policies that will allow Nigerians and Nigeria to move forward, advance the course of global human endeavor leading to prosperity for all and respect from both developed and developing nations. It is time for the power usurpers to go and leave Nigeria alone. Today is when little sacrifices by citizens will lead to: invigorating and exciting educational system; better healthcare delivery; better roads; adequate energy; and advancement in technology that will bring our nation to the 21st century.
For the youth, I say, do not fail yourselves and your nation. Please ask the following three questions: 1) Who am I? 2) Where did I come from: and 3) Where am I going? It is time for you to fight for your nation not necessarily with arms but with your skills, your knowledge, your wisdom and understanding. The rouges cannot kill all of you. The bible says, “do not fear those that can kill your body but not your soul/spirit.” So far what you and those before you have done are to: a) take no responsibilities for your actions; and b) adore those that disenfranchise you; and those leaders that think healthcare system is embedded in transporting themselves to London, Dubai, US while trained Nigerians physicians are wasting at home. These leaders often found out that the rejected Nigerian physicians are the ones running most of the hospitals they visit abroad. Fellow citizens, it is time for these rogues and their copied and unaltered political system to go to oblivion. The next generation must fight on the side of justice and fairness. American youth took a risk on a young politician, Barack Obama and the world is appreciating what a black man can do when given opportunities. The choice is yours should you accept this new assignment. Remember, it's not what you do, but who you are and the legacy you leave behind that will eventually become the most important in your life.
In 1990, Carl Sagan reflected after looking at the earth from far space, it is merely a dot. But on this dot are where we live and the only planet that harbor life. The earth contains all those we love, every creator and destroyer of our world, those that fight for humanity and those that destroy humanity. We must make the earth work for us and for humanity. For those that still insist on destroying Nigeria or make Nigeria a failed state, let them remember that the earth is not given to us by our parents but loaned to us by our children. Thank God for President Jonathan Goodluck for sending Iwu and his likes to a timely and well deserved retirement. President Goodluck, you must turn our darkness to light with abundance of renewable energy that will allow Nigerians to work and create jobs. If you solve this problem, one cannot imagine any reasonable Nigerian opposing your candidacy except those who insists on a regressive zoning formula. May the Lord of host allow reasonable electorates come to life and chose real leaders for the first time after 44 years independence. So, then, it is time to stop the destroyers of Nigeria and it is time for them to permanently go into oblivion.
Robert Frost’s poem “The land was ours before we were the land's” is relevant for the conclusion of this article and it states “She was our land more than a hundred years before we were her people. She was ours in Massachusetts, in Virginia. But we were England's, still colonials, possessing what we still were unpossessed by, possessed by what we now no more possessed. Something we were withholding made us weak. Until we found out that it was ourselves we were withholding from our land of living, and forthwith found salvation in surrender. Such as we were we gave ourselves outright (The deed of gift was many deeds of war) to the land vaguely realizing westward, but still unstoried, artless, unenhanced, such as she was, such as she would become.” Let us resist these leaders of ill repute, move Nigeria forward and tell ourselves, it is time for them to go.
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