It has been said that a country gets the kind of leader it deserves. We keep complaining about our leaders, how we need better leaders and that is undoubtedly a true fact. We need better leaders but we also need better people. In every area of government we have incompetence, bribery, corruption and favoritism. No one wants to be efficient, no one wants to be thorough, and no one cares about doing what is right and proper. All people care about is money, influence and people-worship and the political elites do a good job in passing such attitude and principles down to them.
It’s only in very rare circumstances that government workers do not see the opportunity as a means of extortion. Imagine government workers who are supposed to inspect facilities asking for transport money before they can come to the place they are supposed to inspect. Who is supposed to be charged with the responsibility for their transport? Imagine each of them saying that they need transport money to fuel their vehicles. That is so unreasonable why they can’t just enter one vehicle if they really didn’t have allowance for transportation.
Imagine them also asking for certain amounts of money before they can do their job and expecting breakfast, lunch and dinner. That is the height of corruption and bias. It is obvious that such people do not yet have the means to steal properly if they do they would be over efficient with their theft. What is worst is you will see these people in their various offices criticizing those in political post. When they are part of the problem, part of the parasites and the cankerworm eating deeply into the country.
Imagine we have a non-corrupt leader how can he go into the offices and ensure that these government officials do their jobs and nothing more. Nigerians need to be people of integrity. We enter public transport and complain about how our leaders are making life a living hell for us while we extort, cheat, lie and bribe any chance we get.
Truthfully, it is a dog eat dog world in this country, the policemen collect bribes from motorist who also refuse to get their licenses and other requirements. The government through its parastatal is supposed to make life easier for us but they do not, they make driver’s license so expensive and make the requirement to being roadworthy genuinely hard to keep. What’s worst is the whole problem stems from the government inability to rule effectively and make Nigeria sane.
In summation, the whole nation is corrupt and the people need to be re-orientated if not we will always be in a rot, eating from hand to mouth, struggling to survive and putting up external shows of a fulfilled life; a house of your own, cars and if you are really well to do, visiting other countries while our country languishes and slowly fades away (when I say the country I mean those who aren’t well to do, I mean even the middle class are slipping into poverty) because of incompetence, corruption, bribery and inefficiency.
Nigeria can be a country where everything works but a part of me feels like we are just too selfish to think of the country, to sacrifice for it. It has always been about me and my stomach and my family. It is like we are living in a dilapidated building but we make sure we keep our own house is clean and beautiful while the whole building is about to fall on us.
– Temitope Ruth
