When anyone takes a critical look at oil rich Arab countries and do indepth review of what they have made of their natural resources, such researchers can’t but weep for our country. Beginning from Libya through Saudi Arabia to Qatar and Kuwait, it is all about great developments that are comparable in standards to what obtains in the countries we brand as the developed world.
In these countries, we find law and order. The leadership may be structured around the old pattern of monarchy, yet it is such a system that understands the place of progress and what it means to the overall well-being of citizens and for peace to reign. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have become world destinations. Thousands from all over the world go there for business or the other purposes. Every facet of life in those places is working at full steam.
In our case the story is different. It is progress in reverse gear. It is about a squandering of riches. Every modicum of decent conduct and institutions we inherited from the departed colonial administrators we have ran down. The economy that had life is today a shadow of what real economy ought to be. We have on our hands a closed economy. Millions are unemployed and the worst is that there is no social security anywhere, you are out, that is it. You have to struggle to stay alive or fall and fall out totally.
Members of the successive leadership class have ran down the health facilities, they leave the citizens in misery battling life-threatening health challenges, while they jet out of the country to places that have established, great medical centres for their health needs. We have had sane people teach over and over again that backward societies that earnestly desire a leap into modernity must embrace education, and not just doing so, they must give the sector all it requires to produce creative and functional manpower needed to give their enclave a lift.
Our leaders have heard this lecture severally but from the look of things it would appear they only hear it but it doesn›t sink into their mind. If it got buried in the mind the results would have been self announcing like in the case of oilrich countries mentioned earlier. Our situation is so bad that many have given up on the country. Foreign embassies of developed countries have become homes for thousands of citizens who want to embark on economic self-exile.
Running away from challenges in the country is no solution. Foreign countries may offer temporary respite but the greatest truth is east or west, there is no place like home. Sense of ownership alone gives a life of its own. This is where the Christ example comes in. Heaven is wonderful at least from the account of the scripture, Christ was was king, he could have as well taken his attention away from humans who abused their inheritance and ran a beautiful earth given to them by God into deep mess.
When by carelessness Satan took control, the biblican account says the earth became like a Hobbesian state where life and living was nasty, brutish and short. Men failed to recognize God and the consequence was everyone behaving the way they wanted, and might became right. Of course nothing of value could thrive under such atmosphere. Wars became the order of the day, fellow humans took great delight in taking captives who they turned to slaves. Economy as in our case were ran down to the point families killed and ate children as food.
Christ would have remained in his comfort zone but he chose to come, to be a light in the darkness, «and today we have a world that is fairly habitable, with about seven billion persons going to bed and waking up the next day very optimistic that tomorrow will offer far better opportunities to them and their children. Christ identified the challenges properly, that of a people disconnected from their source, so they lost their compass and so where flying about like blind bats, flying and jamming obstacles that would have been avoidable if they had eyes that really see.
Christ opted to come to reestablish the lost kingdom and to redirect vision and focus. He taught principles and the importance of a sacrificial kind of lifestyle. On one occasion he defined the servant leadership model as what is suited for any society that truly wants to make reasonable progress. Every area Christ gave emphasis is lacking in our country. He first move was to announce the birthing of a kingdom, we got independence but never worked to create a country. So we are in need of leaders would lead the rest of us to establish the New Nigeria where life would be abundant for all.
Great nations are the byproduct of hard and that is what the life and time of Christ shows, he made his vision very clear and kept at it to achieve it with the men he recruited. Same approach beckons in our quest for decent but very productive country. Some of us have said it severally and won›t be tired to continue saying that we don›t have a national vision and we must have one if we must make meaningful progress. We need some to keep focus. If we have established a country and have a bonding ideology, citizens rising whimsically to kill won›t happen, because everyone would see the other as member of the same family.
Jesus loved those his race hated and belittled; he visited and interacted with them; he held very high the concept of social justice; equality and fair treatment meant so much to him. This should be a lesson for us about ethnic and religious differences. The fights and superiority contest ought not to have a place here at all. No society grows where there are constant frictions and bickerings over mundane stereotypes.
The two biggest religions in the country are not indigenous to us yet they have been the source of bad blood on a scale not seen in countries where they originated from. On this score we want to be more catholic than the Pope. Unfortunately, our leaders have been major contributors to ethnic and religious tensions in the country by their deployment of those factors in our body politics.
As celebrate Christ, it is very important we know he didn›t come to the earth on a jamboree. He came to introduce man to precepts that remain all-time relevant for changing people and society from chaos to great progress and peace. We have ran the race on our account of limited knowledge, the result is very clear that we took ourselves into the wrong lane. The results are what we see – conflicts and blood letting on a very terrifying scale, hunger and starvation, unhealthy religious and ethnic fights at such a time sensible countries are giving emphasis to science and technology, and the production that go with it.
We need plenty doses of compassion. We need a return to communal lifestyle where we are all caregivers to each other. We need visionary and focused leadership. This era in the life of our country calls for messianic leadership. The kind Jesus offered. May it be our lot.
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO MY READERS
