Our burden, our concern...
By Great_Bello
I wholly and strongly believe in a quiet, strong and grounded leadership. Some of the best leaders are those whose work is widely known and respected but who themselves are relatively unknown.
The concept of political representation is misleadly simple, everyone seems to know what it is, yet we can agree on any particular definition. Political representation is the activity of making the citizen's voice, opinion and perspective "present" in public policy making processes. Political representation occurs only when political actors speak, advocate, symbolize and act on behalf of others in the political arena. As there is common saying that goes thus ; the strong people stand up for themselves, while the stronger people stand up for others.
As a young Nigerian, my greatest headache is getting a path through which I can contribute towards dragging our Society out of dungeon of bad governance. I believe many (like me) are racking their heads day-in-day out, philosophizing, idealizing, campaigning or physical fighting for a better Nigeria. Which ever path you will take to get a solution, one basic essential thing is needed; critical thinking and critical intelligence, which is today lacking in our nation. We really need to set things right, by moving closer to the people of the grassroot.
As a leader you need to stay close in touch as possible with those close to the action .
In Nigeria , bad representation has proved to be the most consistence feature of our polity . in search for the cause of the Nigeria problem, Chinua Achebe lamented in his book "The trouble with Nigeria" that the problem of Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. According to him there is nothing basically wrong with Nigeria's character,land, climate or air or anything else. The Nigeria problem is unwillingness and inability of it's leaders to rise to their responsibility.
Bad representation has caused many inherent problem in Nigeria, Nigeria is poor today not because we don't have the necessary resources but because alot of its resources are stolen or mismanaged.
The unemployment rate in Nigeria today is very alarming and nothing to write home about, and the cause is not because we don't have the required resources to provide enough vacancies for our citizen but because we are not well represented.
That the Nigerian masses have grown to swallow all political rubbish presented to them is a real problem of today, leadership can only exist because there is a follow ship. where there is no fellowship there will be no leadership. Until the fellowship follows right, the leadership of Nigeria will always do wrong. It is the mass silence to issue like bribery and corruption that made it find happy home on our land.
It was the mass silence that aided Chief Obafemi Awolowo to seize the leadership of western Nigeria from Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe in broad day light(on the floor of western house of assembly) in 1951 and it was the mass silence that aided Dr Azikiwe to pack home to eastern Nigeria and push Eyo Ita and his team out of office and occupied the government house with his own men.our silence allowed ethic politics to take hold because we have resorted from voting our leaders based on merit rather we vote on tribal bases. For things to be right, we must all follow right and by so doing we will directly or indirectly oust bad representation in Nigeria.
To form a good follow ship, the masses must learn to listen and understand our leaders language. We have to be proactive and coactive towards following only the right steps, with full certainty and without fear. We need to criticise and accuse what wrong without phobia and without doubt. We have to take risk towards cementing our good image before our children by fighting for justice to prevail at all time. In all our dealings in our country, loyalty and honesty should always be placed first.
Most importantly we must vote leader based on their merit, not ethnicity and leave aside our personal interest but rather focus on national outcome. Until we do all these things, bad representation will continue in Nigeria. So let the silence be broken and your voice be heard.
Bello Ibrahim O
Computer Engineering Student OAU, ile ife, Osun State.
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