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nairaland.net • View topic - The Burden of Being A Nigerian

The Burden of Being A Nigerian

The Burden of Being A Nigerian

Postby Richard Akindele » Sat Jun 13, 2009 4:37 pm

Richard Akindele
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Postby Richard Akindele » Sat Jun 13, 2009 5:05 pm

Mr Dele Momodu, this is an excellent article. I agree with all your positions about how to change Nigeria. I also admire your encouraging remarks to not just give up.

Your article unfortunately stops short of an actual call to action. It's one thing to call people's attention to the inadequacies of a system, but it's quite another to actually move people toward picking up the mantle. I understand we must do X, Y, and Z for the nation to progress, but without concrete steps spelled out to the people, most would simple read an article like yours, lament the deteriorating Nigeria, and move on.

Let me put things in perspective. I recently learned that a Nigerian government website went down for days, as a result of the ISP shutting down the web services.

As a seasoned server admin myself, I decided to act. I sent a mail to some government officials, enumerating my qualifications and experience, and offering to host the website for free. Although I have received no response to date, I can at least say that I acted. I could have just written an article, and called it a day.

Another case in point, I learned that Nigeria does not have a running tally of how many police officers it has. How ridiculous and shameful this is this day and age. Again, I contacted certain higher ups to propose what could be done to resolve the problem. No response from them either. But yet again, at least I acted.

One thing we could do to move the nation forward, is to start forming coalitions of people abroad and at home. These coalitions can then send delegates to the president, or ministers on a regular basis to respectfully make proposals on directions beneficial to the country.

Another action which has potential would be for everybody to embark on letter writing campaign. When one minister or the president receives a boat load of correspondence on a regular basis, it'd be callous to simply ignore the issue.

Without concrete action, merely talking about Nigeria's problems wouldn't get us anywhere.

America is in the same boat as Nigeria. America is in debt up to its eyeballs, while bigger and bigger debt is being acquired by Obama. A large proportion of Americans are disillusioned and demoralized currently.

A solution would have been for Americans to rise and speak up against the government through peaceful rallies, but part apathy, part intimidation, has kept the would be dissidents at bay.

America is controlled by no good politicians like Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, William Jefferson, Charles Rangel, John McCain, and so forth. Yet, ordinary Americans seem powerless against these people. We see the same sort of thing playing out in Nigeria today.

My main advice is that every well-meaning Nigerian should be active. When you see something the government is doing that you don't agree with, write a letter, or make a phone call to the appropriate minister in charge. When their lines begin to ring off the hook, and letters begin to flow in in their thousands, they'd begin to pay attention, or at least be less brazen in making mistakes.
Richard Akindele
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