This title is inspired by Brian Tracy’s small inspirational book, ‘Eat that frog’. In the multimillions bestseller is given the 21 most effective methods for “conquering procrastination and accomplishing more”.
Nigeria must eat that frog it has been circling round in its plate. With good governance and accountability, the country can lead Africa. It can be done in 2014 to make for a better future.
But I need to write today opening with a note of apology to readers of this column who will have noticed my irregularity. Somehow, happenstances in the polity knocked down my zeal for many things, writing this column was one of them. It was frustrating to see how much opportunity to change the world was being wasted in spite of caution to better ways. It was exasperating that our leaders could openly undermine the constitution, and bastardise all tenets of democracy and the rule of law, and it all looks normal, while elsewhere on the globe, one can see how even very little attempt at best practice was yielding life changing benefits for the people.
The greatest blow to my zeal was the Presidential conduct of President Goodluck Jonathan, as the country wobbled from one challenge to the other, and the awesome preparedness to waste good men using state apparatus of power for coercion and intimidation. I had begun the year as an avid encourager of the Jonathan project but retracted because of fundamental distortions that, to my mind, undermine the Nigerian project. I must confess I have considered quitting. It certainly seemed pointless to harp on our abuses and profligacy repetitively on deaf ears, the maladies go on unabated. Here we are, with a chance to make the all fundamental turn to democratic good report, and we are sadly engaging in the discredited archaic methods of the past, as if there had never been 1960-64, as if there had never been 1979-83, and as if there had never been all the years from 1999 to date. Democracy appeared to have retrogressed through those republic years in Nigeria. Nigeria should be considered advanced beyond the crudity and viciousness employed by the Presidency in the effort to wrest the control the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, and to secure an unchallenged ticket for the 2015 Presidential run.
For Nigeria, politics dominated 2013 and specifically notable was the crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party, occasioned by the ambition and desire of President Goodluck Jonathan to present himself as an automatic candidate for the a presidential elections in 2015. It is to the point that over this, the ruling party is currently faced with dismemberment. It is evident that PDP’s losses imply gains for the opposition APC, but toxic gains at that, because the migration has in turn sparked off leadership crisis in the opposition.
I stopped writing on the Boko Haram insurrection the moment President Jonathan declared a State of Emergency over Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, States, deploying armies to wage the war. Without looking at the cost, one can hazard a compliment that success has been recorded, but we are yet to get out of the woods. If anything at all, the war on terror has redefined National Security, to mean the security and safety of citizens and institutions, as opposed to the convention concept of external aggression as the definition.
It is now revealed that our armed forces must be retrained and reoriented to cope with the guerrilla type of war, entailing the use of intelligence and advanced technology. Our terror perception - indeed Boko Haram itself must by now be redefined for what it has metamorphosed into. To think that Boko Haram is a religious or a terrorist organisation the way America conceives of it is to be out of touch with the dynamics of the Nigerian terror. It is not enough to fight the insurrection with immigration failing to check alien influx, customs failing to stop arms importation, and police letting camels through needle eyes for a toll. The war must be holistic and bottoms - up to the level of truly waging an onslaught on corruption and broad daylight pillage of the economy.
The year 2014 is well in flight. For me and probably a great many, the past year 2013, is still visible in some distance, billowing smoke, some of it, of dashed and burnt hopes and expectations, and yet some, of kindled and re-fired dreams. The blaring you hear is the wail of the losers overshadowing the chuckles of the ones with garlands of accomplishments round their necks. I am caught in between. I chuckle, and then wail. All regrets are as is normal blanketed by gratitude that life was retained, the cross-over was celebrated and new resolutions made.
Yes, for most of the first few days of January, there will continue, memorable glances at the year 2013. It has for the world, a long summary, alas a short one for Nigeria. Global economic challenges and terrorism provide for this long summary in the extent to which they affected the political thought process and society’s response to policies. By and large, the fundamental foundation has remained constant and unshakable, that the world awash with resource and opportunity is not being managed in a way that is fair and just for ordinary citizens. Thus industrial advancements notwithstanding, hunger poverty and disease prevail in unacceptable proportion. The threat to peace in most nation states remain caused largely by the alienation and deprivation of common folk from the national wealth, by unbearable oppression and suppression, real or imagined. This is global - the Middle East, where the war in Syria dominated the news, upheavals in Lebanon, and the collapse of nations namely Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. On the African continent, Congo, Somalia, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, Kenya, all suffered pangs of political crisis that registered in armed conflict. And of course sadly now, the young South Sudan whose post natal calm was shattered by political wrangling and armed rebellion. Thus the global challenge for the year 2013 has remained that of leadership meeting the yearnings of the people.
I am optimistic that 2014 will be different and better than 2013. This column will reflect change.
But I need to write today opening with a note of apology to readers of this column who will have noticed my irregularity. Somehow, happenstances in the polity knocked down my zeal for many things, writing this column was one of them. It was frustrating to see how much opportunity to change the world was being wasted in spite of caution to better ways. It was exasperating that our leaders could openly undermine the constitution, and bastardise all tenets of democracy and the rule of law, and it all looks normal, while elsewhere on the globe, one can see how even very little attempt at best practice was yielding life changing benefits for the people.
The greatest blow to my zeal was the Presidential conduct of President Goodluck Jonathan, as the country wobbled from one challenge to the other, and the awesome preparedness to waste good men using state apparatus of power for coercion and intimidation. I had begun the year as an avid encourager of the Jonathan project but retracted because of fundamental distortions that, to my mind, undermine the Nigerian project. I must confess I have considered quitting. It certainly seemed pointless to harp on our abuses and profligacy repetitively on deaf ears, the maladies go on unabated. Here we are, with a chance to make the all fundamental turn to democratic good report, and we are sadly engaging in the discredited archaic methods of the past, as if there had never been 1960-64, as if there had never been 1979-83, and as if there had never been all the years from 1999 to date. Democracy appeared to have retrogressed through those republic years in Nigeria. Nigeria should be considered advanced beyond the crudity and viciousness employed by the Presidency in the effort to wrest the control the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, and to secure an unchallenged ticket for the 2015 Presidential run.
For Nigeria, politics dominated 2013 and specifically notable was the crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party, occasioned by the ambition and desire of President Goodluck Jonathan to present himself as an automatic candidate for the a presidential elections in 2015. It is to the point that over this, the ruling party is currently faced with dismemberment. It is evident that PDP’s losses imply gains for the opposition APC, but toxic gains at that, because the migration has in turn sparked off leadership crisis in the opposition.
I stopped writing on the Boko Haram insurrection the moment President Jonathan declared a State of Emergency over Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, States, deploying armies to wage the war. Without looking at the cost, one can hazard a compliment that success has been recorded, but we are yet to get out of the woods. If anything at all, the war on terror has redefined National Security, to mean the security and safety of citizens and institutions, as opposed to the convention concept of external aggression as the definition.
It is now revealed that our armed forces must be retrained and reoriented to cope with the guerrilla type of war, entailing the use of intelligence and advanced technology. Our terror perception - indeed Boko Haram itself must by now be redefined for what it has metamorphosed into. To think that Boko Haram is a religious or a terrorist organisation the way America conceives of it is to be out of touch with the dynamics of the Nigerian terror. It is not enough to fight the insurrection with immigration failing to check alien influx, customs failing to stop arms importation, and police letting camels through needle eyes for a toll. The war must be holistic and bottoms - up to the level of truly waging an onslaught on corruption and broad daylight pillage of the economy.
The year 2014 is well in flight. For me and probably a great many, the past year 2013, is still visible in some distance, billowing smoke, some of it, of dashed and burnt hopes and expectations, and yet some, of kindled and re-fired dreams. The blaring you hear is the wail of the losers overshadowing the chuckles of the ones with garlands of accomplishments round their necks. I am caught in between. I chuckle, and then wail. All regrets are as is normal blanketed by gratitude that life was retained, the cross-over was celebrated and new resolutions made.
Yes, for most of the first few days of January, there will continue, memorable glances at the year 2013. It has for the world, a long summary, alas a short one for Nigeria. Global economic challenges and terrorism provide for this long summary in the extent to which they affected the political thought process and society’s response to policies. By and large, the fundamental foundation has remained constant and unshakable, that the world awash with resource and opportunity is not being managed in a way that is fair and just for ordinary citizens. Thus industrial advancements notwithstanding, hunger poverty and disease prevail in unacceptable proportion. The threat to peace in most nation states remain caused largely by the alienation and deprivation of common folk from the national wealth, by unbearable oppression and suppression, real or imagined. This is global - the Middle East, where the war in Syria dominated the news, upheavals in Lebanon, and the collapse of nations namely Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. On the African continent, Congo, Somalia, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, Kenya, all suffered pangs of political crisis that registered in armed conflict. And of course sadly now, the young South Sudan whose post natal calm was shattered by political wrangling and armed rebellion. Thus the global challenge for the year 2013 has remained that of leadership meeting the yearnings of the people.
I am optimistic that 2014 will be different and better than 2013. This column will reflect change.
Timawus Mathias
No comments:
Post a Comment