The Emrys Ijaola Commentaries

For want of a horse-shoe, the battle was lost... I remember learning my first lesson in warfare and civics by that poem. The import of it is to teach that everyone and everything has its place in the order of a society.

When a watchman sleeps at his post, he leaves the town-guards at risk when enemies invade. There is a place for everything, and everything must be in place. Orderliness is a sin qua non for socio-economic or political development. Where chaos reigns, there is utter confusion from the top to the bottom. But, whose responsibility is it to create or foster order?

A nation is known by the perceived collective characteristics and mannerisms of its people. Thus, it is possible to believe that Britons are conservative, the Irish like to get drunk and brawl, the French are passionate lovers, the Indian must always have spices, and the Nigerian is a fraudster!

In reality, only a few such stereotypes are true for the majority of the identified group. The untrue stigmatization with which the others are labelled is a mere result of a few rotten apples, spoiling the whole bunch. This situation is the consequence of the many good people sitting idle and disaffected, while a few folks run mad in the international streets. In essence, the public cannot be faulted for believing (and expecting) that the whole group would normally act in a peculiar manner, as there is really no difference between the perpetuator and the passive, non-chalant observer. One does not have a higher stake in the good of the society than the other. One steals from the market place, and the other receives the stolen goods.

A people will always deserve the ruler they get; either by active installment, or passive acceptance of the dominating institution. No Nigerian ruler since 1960 came from planet Mars. They are results of the social standards we have bred for ourselves. Nurtured in the cradles of generations of happy-go-lucky, anything-goes, pseudo-civilised faculties. Is it any wonder we cannot re-produce home-grown alternatives to the infrastructures the colonialists left behind? A presidential candidate once said during a national debate, that his plan for technology was for the white man to build, and we'll buy... and he was made president!!!

Where do we begin to rebuild? Exactly where we began the decay. In every home. But, how do we do this, yet maintain a collective front, voice and balance? First, every teacher must learn the desired objective, and every leader must learn the desired direction to go. We must determine to run the country as a big company with diverse departments, where the board of directors, and management team are accountable to the people. We must have the seed-sower mentality, where investments and developments must precede harvest and consumption. That is the natural order of growth.