Christmas is once again with us, by Wednesday, the atmosphere will be very exciting as a significant part of our population join others to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. This event has become a ritual because it is one occasion you expect as a particular time of the year. For Christians in Nigeria and others of goodwill, the event has become of deep spirituality because of the personality involve, the significance of his role in the lives of his adherents and the impact of his message in shaping individuals, societies and nations. In Nigeria the occasion is not only entrenched it has come to become very significant. Just for Christmas millions move across the country just to be able to celebrate the occasion with their kith and kins, one result of these, is that all means of transportation experience an overflow. The airports are jammed, the rail and roads are crowed, in some instances travelling in this season is akin to a journey to hell and back. It can be very traumatizing indeed.
In spite of some of our national festivities being routine events, our governments, talking now about local government administrations, state and federal governments, have always failed in their responsibility to sensibly and patriotically manage our seasons of exodus. In places where they take the welfare, rights, dignity and security of citizens very seriously, different tiers of government and their agencies take travel measures and advices very seriously. Weeks ahead of the events various travel advices are issued and the measures to make travel comfortable for citizens are announced and given widest publicity so that intending travelers can take advantage of such. In our country it is never the case, nobody says anything even agencies relevant to transport and security keep silent as if every issue of convenient travel by citizens is all about money. Yes money may be an issue but the truth is seventy percent of what is required is not about funding but more about routine job responsiveness.
Some of us have travelled during festive seasons and the experiences provoke many to hate their country. At the airports you see clear signs that the workers of the various airlines were not primed for efficient, effective and qualitative service to the citizens. The ticketing counters are crowded and in some instances decent citizens would have to physically fight before they can have the sight of ticketing officers and yet respite would be far because officials who should be kind and compassionate metamorphose into tin gods. They become rude and very insulting. These aberrations run for days on end without the knowledge of the fleet owners and any observation from officials of the aviation ministry and their supervising agencies. Activities at the rail stations are no different. The case of road traffic is worse.
There are traditional places where traffic would always build up but the irony is, it keeps repeating itself despite past experiences. In serious societies such do not repeat themselves and that is because relevant agencies would take note on what happened in the past and sit down to study and find solutions to them. Those discovered solutions are applied in subsequent situations and that way citizens get the benefits of sound organization. In our case the roads are bad and yet citizens must travel, if we had perceptive government in place, the first level of solution would be massive palliative efforts to make the roads at least passable, where you have deep gullies, we cover them. We have not seen much action in this regard yet a lot can be done within five hours to achieve a turnaround if federal, state and local government can see reason to work in partnership in this regard, it will definitely bring some relieve to our traveling population.
The other important would be traffic management itself and security of the traveling public. The army, police and road safety corps instead of being have become the problem; their activities at this time compound the woes of the traveling public. The issue of checkpoints and long queues is a big challenge on its own. The tactics of putting on checkpoint some of them five hundred yards from each other is out of fashion, it is moreso at a time of high national exodus. The experience these days is that one hardly finds officials of the road safety corps and security agencies on areas of high traffic jams and that makes many wonder where they are and if truly they know their major job assignments. Traffic are held up in very lonely and forested areas and the time is going deep into the midnight and stranded travelers some of them with children can’t have the sight of security personnel to give them consolation that they are at least safe, yet these are citizens the government owe the cardinal responsibility of protection. Definitely we can do things far better than we have always done in the past. States should take special interest on this matter.
This is very important; time has come when we should stop celebrating religious events just for the sake of doing so. Religious events have lessons in them. Christmas is about the great mix, the good coming into the bad and turning it to good. It is a lesson about confronting our problems and solving them based on truth, justice and equity. What we have always done is to run from our problems and the few times we make attempts we approach it from the confines of sentiments, some of them personal interests, others ethnic and religious. This is the route of all crises. Christmas says solutions based on justice can make everyone happy. Last week, our representatives in the House of Representatives dealt with a bill which was to prescribe six years one tenure as solution to electoral violence, malpractices and waste of public funds by incumbents for re-election. What an idea what a solution? People stay eight years and still use public funds to install mediocre into power, that alone should show them is not about laws but about the spirit driving people.
Christ in Christian theology is the son of God who for purpose of classical service did not find it demeaning to come into the world in human form to reconcile the human race back to God the father. The scripture says he had a unique mind and that mind made him to focus on service and not on self, the same scripture admonishes us to have Christ kind of heart. If our politicians have the mind of Christ, the cut throat contest that follows scramble for public offices won’t be there. Corruption is a choice; it is not law that states you should not steal it is you. That is the core message of Christmas, carry the right spirit know why God has sent you here, if you know, you will be ready to die for the country and not making the country and her people die for you. This is Christmas! Happy Christmas to you all my readers!www