EmogInspiration

This article was copied from deoluakinyemi.com. The message contained
in this article is contagious and could start a transformation in the minds of
Nigerian’s and change the status quo.  Read and enjoy.

What I want to write today is an article I will love you to pirate. I’ll like you
to dub it, and put it on your blog post. Modify it if you like, give me credit if
you want, or give me none at all. They say we’ll achieve a lot more if we
don’t care who gets the credit.

I have refrained deliberately for a long time to make any comments about our
National Re branding exercise. I hope I will be able to say what boils in my
throat and wrists tonight, without making too much reference to it. For all it’s
worth though, I think the fundamental error I can see, is that Nigerian’s have
not been made to own it, and hence rather than having people championing it,
and helping others buy in, what we have is criticism and condemnation by the
same people who would have been it’s champions.

Having said that however, I have a proposition of an exercise that we can own
as Nigerian’s. It’s a simple idea and it came as a fallout of a discussion that
ensued in my office yesterday.  It’s an answer of what we can do to focus our
leaders on the problems that we have as citizens and to assist them in giving it
the attention it deserves. We no longer need any assistance from any source to
know that our most crucial problem in Nigeria is Leadership! If we are all on
the same page in this realization, then our efforts towards a better Nigeria must
be channeled to support, focus and direct our leaders.

I remember shortly before the elections last year I wrote an article I titled, “Power
is all we need!”  I pleaded with our would be leaders not to promise us roads or
education, but to promise us just one thing – Power!  That if in any leaders 4yrs we
can celebrate 1yr of uninterrupted power supply, then we should immortalize that president.
Haven been to Egypt now to watch tombs, I say we must do the same, but before they
die however.

First for the nation, then the states, then our local governments. Once we have a new
president for example, we should as a nation analyze our most significant problem that
we want solved in his or her tenure. After we have agreed on this problem, we should
then go ahead and give that problem the same name with our president. We should
substitute the name of our leader with this problem in our conversations, in our articles
in newspapers, in our slang’s, in our music and drama. We should do this per state and
per local government as well.

Let’s say for example that we have discovered that our biggest problem in Nigeria is
Electricity, and for example that our president’s name for the tenure was Yaradua. Then
every time light goes, every time we are in darkness, every time we have any issues, our
conversations should be like this.

When it is bad as it is – “Chai, Yaradua has gone again”, “Ah, we have not had Yaradua
for the last 2 days”, “This Yaradua is so unstable”, “Ah what did we do today oh, we have
half Yaradua today”,” What’s wrong with you, you are complaining that you haven’t seen
Yaradua for 3 days, what about people that haven’t seen Yaradua for one year! or ever!”,
“I wasn’t able to do it overnight, because Yaradua kept fainting”, “We have been using
Yaradua as backup to our Generator”, “Iron your shirts, Yaradua may soon go oh”, ”

When this start becoming good – ” Up Yaradua!”, “Yaradua is really trying oh, we are not
where we want to be, but we are far from where we were”, “Yaradua has been consistent
for the past 24hrs”, “Ah, we need to celebrate 1yr of uninterrupted Yaradua”, “Yaradua is
so much better these days”, “With Yaradua so constant, Nigeria is really becoming the most
desirable nation to live in on earth”. “Yaradua is constant in all the states of Nigeria and the
structures are in place to get Yaradua into all the local governments.”

If we keep speaking this way, our leaders will know that we mean business with our desire
for solutions. The next president will also know that one critical unsolved problem will bear
his name until it’s solved. I recommend, that whichever president fixes electric power be
given the opportunity to forever bear the same name with electricity in Nigeria and be forever
immortalized in the lips and minds of  Nigerian’s.  The same for every future identified problem.

A similar approach should be taken to the state levels. Whatever problem we align and identify
must be instantly changed to the name of the Governor. If the issue in Lagos for example was
Transportation and assuming the Governor was Fashola, then by now, people should be saying
“Fashola is getting better in Lagos now”, or ” I entered one wrong Fashola and they collected
my phone and laptop.” or “Big Fashola (BRT) is actually making life easy for Lagosians”. We
can identify the states one by one and identify the problems that need to be solved and replaced
with their name.

My people say that whatever hurts one, must be primary in one’s conversation -
“Oun to ba duni lo n po loro eni”

If you use this on your blog, just put a little comment here saying you are using it so I can follow
on to your site and register my solidarity. I think this is something that we the people can own
and gradually take things to the way things should be. We deserve more than what we are getting,
and UNTIL we the people are clear about what we want and about our commitment to make
sure it happen, then nothing happens. Let’s make this happen!

Now I really need to sleep before Yarauda’ goes!