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Good people Great nation Credit

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Ask an ordinary Nigerian what the problem is today in Nigeria, the first thing that most of them will tell you is “corruption”. Some of the more enlightened ones will say “leadership”. The truth is, if you assemble ten Nigerians and put forward the question of what Nigeria’s problem is, you will get ten different answers, views, opinions and responses.

Nigeria as a country has suffered untold neglect and unquantifiable torture in the hands of its leaders, from both the upper and lower cadre, upper cadre consisting of the ruling class and lower cadre consisting of the ordinary Nigerians who occupy leadership positions no matter how little, in their various endeavours. People both within and outside has waited for far too long to experience national effectiveness, true fresh air and individual or rather, personal growths and development from which the nation will draw its strength from. Someone once said that no man is an island and today, I have come to see that such statement does not apply to all nations or to all earthly existence. Some people, some leaders think that some deaths serve as a unifying force for those who remain behind, there are however, great men and women who have given up their lives for the betterment of this country, for the development of this nation, today, and we are still where we were before.

Adding to Late Prof. Chinua Achebe’s identification of Nigeria’s problem (the failure of leadership), Nigeria suffer “discipline” problem as much as they do leadership problem. Nigeria was born out of extra-ordinary circumstances and so, needs an extra-ordinary measure (discipline) to reclaim our glory as a people and as a united entity. Our leaders take oaths to preserve and protect the constitution as well as the Nigerian people but none of them uphold this oath.

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Nigeria is where she is today due to insincere leadership, corruption but most of all, indiscipline. It is indiscipline that will make a police officer to receive bribe that will jeopardize national security as well as hamper the trust the people they swear to protect have on them. It is indiscipline that will make school teachers, lecturers to collect money in order to pass an unserious student. It is also indiscipline that will drive a decorated army officer to sell out his nation for a price. Indiscipline is the chief of all misconfigurations of our national problem. The day the Nigerian police will careless about the school fees of their children, about his welfare, about the booth that he wears, uniform or the money to be used in fueling their patrol vehicle, that is the very day we as a nation will begin to experience change. The day a school teacher or lecturer will worry not of his children’s school fees, his welfare, his family’s welfare, the uncontrolled number of lectures he gives or takes in a day, the uncontrolled and unchecked number of student he/she has to lecture and what have you, that very day, we as a people, will begin to drive safely to national advancement and individual development. The day a graduate will wake up one morning to see that there are no jobs provided by the government for them but that there are thriving environment for them to be self-employed, that very day, peace and stability will return to Nigeria.

The people of this great nation don’t ask for the impossible, they only ask for a stable step to take, to climb to the heights of making the unchangeable change required to drive Nigeria to the next level. We all have a role to play in this measure of redemption.

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Jeff Okoroafor is a leading member of a new generation of civic advocates for government accountability and democratic change in Nigeria. The Citizen Affairs Initiative is a citizen-driven governance initiative that enhances public awareness on critical issues of service quality in Nigeria. It encourages citizens to proactively seek higher standards from governments and service providers and further establishes new discussions in communities about the standards that citizens should expect and deserve from those they have given their mandates. Jeff is the Managing Director of SetFron Limited, a multimedia development company that is focused on creative and results-driven web, mobile app, and ERP software solutions. He is the co-founder of the African Youths Advancement and Support Initiative (AfriYasi), a non-governmental not-for-profit organisation that provides tertiary education scholarship for young people from low-income homes in Nigeria. He is a Fellow of the Young African Leaders Initiative and the United Nations World Summit Awards. A Strategic Team member of the Bring Back Our Girls movement, and a member of the National Technical Committee on the Establishment and Management of Missing Persons Database in Nigeria. Jeff holds a Bachelor and Postgraduate diploma degrees in Computer Science, and a Certificate in Public Administration from Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, GIMPA.

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