Is it right to say that Nigeria is where it is today because of lack of leadership…
I won’t say lack of leadership but poor leadership and bad followership. Nobody can be exonerated; we are all in it. I have repeated it times without number that even within our family settings, some people are corrupt against themselves. I believe the solution starts from attitudinal changes.
We need to look at ourselves and strive with everything at our disposal to attempt to do what is right. Once that is done, we would be returning to the sanity path. The leadership must live by examples, not by precept. You can’t ask the common man to tighten his belt when your tummy is protruding beyond normalcy. You can’t ask people to go fasting when they are seeing you eating gluttonously. You can’t ask people to learn to use public transport when there are no means of transportation. The rail system and waterways are not working.
The roads are totally bad and you have people constructing gigantic bridges. Can the bridges work without the roads? Would the bridges in urban centers serve the purpose of those in rural areas who constitute over 70 per cent of the population? Housing is one of the problems in the country but most of the housing being constructed both at the federal and state levels are meant for the elite.
They are not meant for the downtrodden and that it is what made it possible for the elite to continue to buy governmentowned housing estates at subsidized rates, with some buying between six to 10 houses only for them to become shylock landlords.
Is that satisfying the housing needs of the people? Human need is very minimal but you find some people accumulating items that are not needed; primitive accumulation. How can you ask common people to pay tax when you are not paying? You are flying a private jet and your tax is not reflecting your affluence.
You have a mansion that is worth billions and you are not paying tenement rates or any tax and you want a man living in a mud house to pay tenement rate. That is height of corruption. We must all be equal before the law. If the leadership is providing the needed impetus, you will discover that people would have attitudinal change. And if the leadership leads by example, followers will follow willingly.
New Telegraph
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