Nigeria on my mind
Written by Ekpeme O. Monday
Several thoughts were racing through my mind one morning when my thoughts finally rested on my country, NIGERIA.
I thought of how immensely endowed we are as a country, both with human and mineral resources, and also blessed with brilliant minds and great talents. I thought as against the negative attitude we display most times, perhaps we could take more pride in our country and also do better in the level of patriotism we have for her.
Unfortunately, in recent times there has been too much of cynicism. A total loss of confidence in the government of the day translating into pessimism reflected in most of the comments we make about our country.
Yes, realistically speaking, Nigeria as she is today is not really at par with the expected level of development that should affect the lives of her citizens in a significant way. In fact, am not oblivious of the fact that many Nigerians go hungry to bed daily even in the midst of the abundant resources Nigeria is blessed with. Yes- there is insincerity on the part of our leaders in delivering good governance to the people, there is high rate of unemployment and many other mind bugging issues, but the truth is, Nigeria still remains our HOME.
With due respect and without sounding insensitive, in spite of our many problems and challenges, we can not afford to give up on Nigeria. There’s no other place we can call our home except NIGERIA. Do we give up on her and continue to blame our leaders for the plight of the nation or collectively join hands to pull us out of the quagmire? Truth is, if we don’t do it ourselves, outsiders won’t leave their countries to clean up our mess for us without strings attached.
Whether we like it or not, we are collectively stuck with the situation and we need to collectively find solutions to our problems rather than haul insults at our leaders or continue to show apathy towards national issues which apparently does not solve our the problems but compound them.
BE PROUD OF NIGERIA.