For a better Nigeria
The generation of today has so much gotten used to copying other peoples ways and methods of doing things that it has it has left nothing out. And this in turn is eroding our own values and methods because it seems we prefer other people’s ways than ours. We have belittled our own culture and […]
The generation of today has so much gotten used to copying other peoples ways and methods of doing things that it has it has left nothing out. And this in turn is eroding our own values and methods because it seems we prefer other people’s ways than ours. We have belittled our own culture and undermined our own capabilities. It’s either foreign or none. Why should it be that we are the ones to emulate their ways, why don’t they do the same with ours? Or is it because we as Nigerians or Africans have been made to think that our ways are backward and uncivilized and I think we do not oppose or argue on such statements. To them, a black or African does not know the way out, he needs to be made choices for, simply meaning that we cannot make the right choices for ourselves. We are neither leaders of a cause or oppose we are just followers who blindly follow the way with little or no consideration about harm or consequences.
Why does it have to be that others must lead the way for us? Are we not capable and wise to make our own choices? Must foreign media determine what we should or should not do? And this act of ours is what is making us to think too lowly of ourselves and our ability as a nation. How people gauge you can only be determined by your own self, you are the one who can carve out the type of person people address you as. We have shown ourselves as backward and with no choice, as people without a sense of direction, we cannot make the right decision nor can we uphold and stand firm on our decision. And this is not how it’s supposed to be.
More so, this act of ours has made even the foreigners think they are superior to us. Don’t we have this feeling of love and pride for the country? We are making them feel superior that is why we want to be like them.
Furthermore, I will like to include this issue of our denial to patronize and our declination of our local and country made goods and also services.
We have shunned our countrymen abilities and talents, foolishly patronizing foreign products thereby generating revenue for them and further developing their own countries while our own country is struggling to get out of recession. Someone whose aim is just to make profit and gain, how can that person put the consideration of your health and satisfaction in mind? If we do not want to help ourselves, someone somewhere will treat us the way they deem fit. We have been turned into a dumping ground because they know we will welcome anything foreign unmindful and oblivious of what it can do to our health and wellbeing. But can we blame them? We cannot because we are the ones that set the standard on how we should be treated and gauged.
And now to be frank, we think its only corruption and bad leadership that led us into the situation we are in now, it is not entirely the fault of these two. We have contributed to the state in which we are in now. We refused to give chances to those with the ability and talent to create or invent useful technology, all some people needed was just one chance to bring forth something fruitful but blindly, we denied them that chance and some have stopped trying completely.
This is why there are a lot of wasted and uncultivated talents. Please give the people the chance. There are so many young people who have had their dreams aborted because they didn’t get the chance. This change really needs to begin with YOU AND ME.
Fatima Zahra Muhammad, IBBU, Lapai, Niger State.