When water is poisoned at source it will also have the traces of the poison wherever it flows.
What we were handed as a government was a tainted one. Upon this, most governance and leadership were patterned after. Check every tier of government and every sector. We have leaders and people who are there thinking of what they could make out of the system.
The colonial master’s primary goal is about how best they could harness their colony with the intent of maximum exploitation. The leaders they breed follow suit.
At the federal level we have been able to raise many presidents who thought the resources of the nation are theirs and to be used as they wish. Many of them successfully diverted huge sum of money for personal gains. To make it worse, they stole their people’s money to help the already settled economy of the advanced nations through diverse money laundering tactics. It was a case of an ex Head-of-State whose loots have to be expatriated over and over from different offshore accounts.
This implies that such leaders do not have their people’s interest in their heart in the first place. The citizens committed to their care do not matter to them. The programs that see the light of the day are those that have direct benefits to them or the cause they have vested interest in. They are vestiges of the colonial masters.
In the same vein, other national leaders take after the overall head. They share and plunder what rightly belongs to the populace: the colonial master’s style of governance. Everybody is looking for the opportunity to plunder and take advantage of the other. We think in terms of “my own” and not “our own”. There is no cohesive force of corporate drive for a common laurel and achievement. Each person, every tribe and religion want to outshine without thinking of his fellow’s wellbeing. This is the debased mind sold to us and which we kept on propagating. If we keep nourishing our debased mind of personal gain and aggrandizement at the expense of others, we should not expect so much from the system.
We could see the expression of our inordinate propensity for self in diverse ways and forms.
Example of the Lawmakers
Taking a look at the senate, the federal representatives and the State House of Assemblies one would notice that many of the bills passed in one way or the other do not represent the interest of the masses. Often those bills were created to protect or benefit a specific class.
The said lawmakers may want to argue that they are doing great; to these ones I say: talk is cheap – by their fruit you shall know them. No matter the line of defense, it is clear that the common man is not well favoured by most of the bills rolled out.
Nigeria is a wonderland where the laws hardly affect the super rich and powerful; they always have a way out. Don’t we wonder about the porosity of the Nigerian laws which seldom affect the high class, the rich, the nobles and the politicians? There was a case of a Nigerian leader who was acquitted by Nigerian law, but the same man was charged and imprisoned in a foreign country on the same charges.
Our laws are deliberately designed that way to protect the big guys at the expense of the rest.
Why do you think we have more bills protecting the larger corporations, rich individuals and the powerful? This happens when lawmakers are after personal gains: bribes corrupt good judgment. The conglomerates, multinationals and large firms have a way of paying dues to favour bills that will protect them: even when they are over charging or offering inferior services.
Many of the accursed bills are purported to stifle the growth of the common man, but in a subtle way. I believed that many of our regulatory agencies and controlling agencies are often paid hugely by some mega corporate firm to trample the upcoming under the guise of regulation. These nasty deals are done under the cover of this ill intentioned bills and laws.
Many of the bills and laws around us do not empower the common man; until the common man is empowered the economy will never be liberated. Empowered people build an empowered nation!
Good laws will create enabling environment and equal opportunity for all. But in a corrupt society some people are placed above the law because some powerful lawmakers are induced to tamper with the laws and constitution in a negative way. Somebody may not like what I am saying here, but clearly no name is called; what we want if you are affected is that you choose to make a change now.
The lawmakers were placed or elected there by the people and for the people but they never saw it that way. Once they get there the negative mindset goes to work: the evil model from the colonial masters that represent its own interest by lording it over its subjects.
It was a sorry expression of a man’s faculty to call his subject apes. This was the picture of a colonial master of his colony – he sees them as not better than apes (animals) to be used for personal own end. This therefore portends the colonial masters as bad leaders.
In their footstep we have raised from our own kindred worst leaders bedeviled with reckless pursuit of personal interests.
Examples of the Governors
Coming downward, we have governors of states who believe the state is their personal possession. They give the expression as if they own the people and whatever magnanimity they do is of personal benevolence. It is a common thing for a governor to come on air to blah what he has done as if he used his personal funds to execute projects. Their expression shows that they do not think deep that whatever they do are of duty of theirs, a mandate and rights of the people. Many of these governors go offshore to borrow loans which would put the future generations into bondage.
Why do most of them borrow in the first place? When they borrow, they have access to large fund, with large fund opportunity to “execute project”, to execute project is to gain opportunity to pocket some of these large sum in percentages. Self enriching at the expense of the people!
The colonial masters seem better in this wise: even though they came to pillage our resources, they left behind durable projects, structures and work. But our own native leaders who are of the same blood are demonically possessed with greed as they loot our common good to the skin.
Things are falling apart because of the height of greed and self centeredness of our leaders; everything falls from the center and decays from the foundation. The whole lot is excited into the race of greed and self.
Nigerian politicians are mostly of the same bunch which includes the lower cadres and tiers: the local government chairmen, political advisers, federal ministers and commissioners. Everyone seems to look for opportunity for personal enrichment.