olufunkeadio

Just recently, I came across a video which apparently had made it to social media some two years ago. In it, a news house in #Abuja #Nigeria had covered an event where the minister of the FCT Abuja had put on suspension the then Director Fire Services. The decision was an aftermath of a series of unsavory experiences of the minister when he had gone to commission a fleet of supposed refurbished ambulances, fire trucks and other vehicles for the effective running of the Fire Service in the city. Just before making his speech at the event which of course had all the trappings of a typical Nigerian public event with crowds and all, the minister decided to do something unexpected.  He chose to inspect the vehicles by actually opening and checking the interiors.  A move that evidently caught the Director of Fire Service by surprise. Caught off-guard, the Director appeared unsettled and nervous. Pray how would an hallowed and honorable minister bother to inspect vehicles that were m...

  1st of Nov. 2021, a 21 story building at Gerard road, Ikoyi, Lagos came tumbling down. Investigation is still ongoing to ascertain the actual cause of the mishap in which several lives were lost. In the absence of a definite cause of the mishap, many have continued to express their opinions as to what the actual cause of this sad event might be. If most of the assertions going around is anything to go by, we’re simply compelled to see how this is a very familiar story: It is the story of Nigeria. A country where proactivity is a rarity, bad behaviors and horrible omen festers until a full blown disaster occurs. The Nigerian story is one of disaster after disaster. Fact is Nigerians are fast becoming numb to the recurring nature of pain, frustrations, poverty and death! Do I imply that other countries around the world are immune from national challenges? By no means. Rather what we see here in Nigeria is an endemic failure of systems and establishments. So yes, problems in Nigeria...

Now many Nigerians appear to be so impoverished mentally and otherwise to the point that they imagine that they are perhaps responsible for the current failure the nation is experiencing. While there is some truth in this, it is by no means the absolute truth. This is where I want to submit that Nigerians are choosing to let off their leaders so easily as far as their core responsibilities are concerned.   Great leaders make great followers – not the other way round. By perpetuating therefore, the ongoing notion that  ‘Nigerians are not good followers’  Nigerians are subtly indulging the failures of the Nigerian leadership; indirectly absolving them of the awesome responsibility of leadership. Make no mistake about it, leadership is a huge responsibility and the sooner Nigerians and those who seek political office understand that the better. Also the sooner Nigerians realize that the kind of leadership that can truly shift the needle and make a distinctive mark on the cou...

Let me quickly mention here that the non-homogenous nature of the Nigerian nation and the associated impact is not lost on me. Nepotism, ethnicity, favoritism, sensationalism and the like are weapons we have sadly consistently used to short change ourselves. The Nigerian leader of the future would be that person who would be able to galvanize hearts and compel a more nationalistic approach to living and functioning as a Nigerian. As it is, consecutive Nigerian governments have maintained a posture as though their sole purpose with governance is in pushing incremental, outrageous allocations to the military in the name of securing the country. While that is critical, one can only wonder if this all important mission could be actualized side by side with say an authentic job creation drive amongst other things. Did I mention that most of these security allocations are largely unaccounted for? No surprises there.  Early on in the year, the Nigerian Defense Headquarters, made a stunnin...

Most Nigerians will agree that things have never been as bad in the country than it is today-indeed, for the past couple of years actually. Without a doubt and with successive governments, living in Nigeria today for many, comes with a great deal of difficulty and hardship. The country has hinged its existence largely on hope that things would someday become better and that the standard of living would somehow eventually improve for the majority…. While the issues are largely hydra headed, the causative factor remain the same – Human factor. Yes, the problems being experienced by the majority of Nigerians today are predominantly man made. It remains a huge irony how so much of the hardship in focus are perpetuated mostly by the  same crop of people elected to attend to the barrage of problems. Going by the unprecedented inflation the country has been thrust into in the past year or so, one would imagine that the government in power would be desperate to find creative ways to pull i...

To my mind, one of the vivid representations of the deeply affected psyche of the average Nigerian would be the carnage that followed the alleged shootings at the #EndSars protest . I believe strongly, that the wanton destruction of  over 100 BRT buses across the Lagos metropolis, the looting and killing of police officers that ensued, was not all about some spontaneous response to the alleged killings of protesters. It was rather a series of events which effectively captured and projected a deep seated frustration and hopelessness for the aggressive decline in the standard of living of the average Nigerian.   It was a clear display of rage against the relentless pattern of failure of governance at all levels.  For any political office holder not to see this for what it really is, is for us to have a collective tragedy on our hands. One thing seems certain: except the trajectory of the direction of governance both at the state and federal levels change, then there really ...