A Wake-up Call On Our Leaders

I am very much delighted at the fact that I’m a Nigerian. This is not because I’m at peace with all the problems my country is being challenged with but because I see a better future ahead and that future is near. This may be an abysmal idea to some as they may want to get far away from my country. Their stand may be because of the nation’s many problems but we also need to be reminded that we can’t run away from our problems. The truth is, no matter how much we try to run away from the challenges, they’ll still come back to us and could turn out worse than how they originally were.

They’re “our” problems not “Nigeria’s” problems, because Nigeria isn’t a human being, we are Nigeria and we must work together to tackle whatever problem there is to be tackled.

Moving on straight to the reason for this essay, our expectations for the nation isn’t in line with activities which are being performed in our country today.

These are the expectations we have. We want a productive nation and not a consuming nation. We want a nation that is free from debt to other countries; a country where free education is for all not just a selected few. We anticipate a country where the growth of our health, educational and agricultural sectors, etc are placed as the priorities of our leaders. We seek a country where bribery, corruption, insecurity, poverty, unemployment and many others are gone into exile. We want a nation where non-citizens would love to visit and send their children to study. A country where our unity and passion for her attracts the attention of others is possible. We want a country where we would commend and love our leaders; a country where we would be acknowledged and identified as a peculiar people. We expect to have a nation where education, electricity, water supply and provision of good roads won’t be considered as luxury. And most of all, we a country where we will experience peace and blessing from the One who gave us the country.

Now, what are those problems/activities that are depriving our expectations to be turned into manifestations?

It is quite interesting to note that these problems we often complain about aren’t really problems; they’re just vacuums that we need to get solutions to fill up. Some of these vacuums include

unemployment, poverty, insecurity, among others.Under ‘unemployment’ as vacuum is where several of the problems of my country are noticed such as tribalism, favouritism, connection to people in higher positions to get jobs. This has left the poor educated masses in devastating positions that often leads to the engagement in dubious activities like gambling, robbery, internet fraud also known as “yahoo-yahoo” amongst young adults in our country.

Also, poverty is the most common ‘vacuum’ that is the foundation of all my country’s problem. Due to poverty, children, young adults and even adults lack proper education as a result of insufficient fund to even feed themselves, let alone enrolling into academic programmes. Most graduates who face this plague of unemployment are likely to face this vacuum of poverty which triggers their engagement in the ignoble but commonly-prevalent yahoo-yahoo business.

Having expatiated on this vacuum, it is also interesting to note that the major problem my country Nigeria is facing today named “insecurity” is as a result of poverty. How? Bandits, killers and jihadists recruit these uneducated and ill-enlightened people to cause havoc in the country. These are people who suffer from poverty, who can’t even go to school to be trained. Hence, they are readily available to be recruited to fight the armies of my country and making the country insecure.

It was very disheartening to hear that my school was closed before its due date as a result of insecurity in my country which made us rush all our examinations. How is insecurity taking the position of what COVID-19 did to us before and we’re just sitting and looking like nothing is happening. This is our country and we can’t keep scurrying around and let these problems take a hold of us, instead, we need to take a stand and ignite that fire through unity and passion for our country to burn all our problems and make us experience a better Nigeria.

It would be very heart-breaking to keep on listing out all the problems of my country which will destroy the peace that this essay is trying to bring to us all. So, I’ll rather move on straight on how to proffer solutions through some of our actions in order for our expectation to be turned into manifestations.

We should endeavour to choose/elect leaders with good character quality in order to move our nation forward.

Our government should have federal character, they should demonstrate interests in human capital as well as putting the affairs of the citizens into consideration.

There should be true federalism and resource control of those in charge of the geographical areas.

We should be able to reduce consumption and increase productivity which will in turn bring about employment in my country and bring about population control.

We should most of all pray for our country regardless our religion.

This is not to fill up our heads with words but trigger that passion for our country in order to eradicate all our problems and make us experience a new beginning for our great country Nigeria.

This essay from my ‘heart of hearts’ should leave considerable reason in all of our hearts on why we shouldn’t let the destiny of our country be decided by others and why we shouldn’t give up on our country so that our expectations would be brought into manifestation. Let the citizens, the nation and her leadership rise up to their responsibilities. This is my humble plea to the nation and a wake-up call on our leaders. God bless Nigeria.

Name: Jamie Ohunene David

Age: 14 years

School: SS 1, GSS Wuse Zone 3, Abuja.