Rethinking Progress: Examining the Impact of Everyday Practices on Nigeria’s Development

As I ruminated over how we can all jointly make Nigeria work, I realized that a new way of reasoning by policymakers and us, the people, must replace the ways of the old if we would indeed become a more fabulous country. I also found that the little things we think do not matter really count.

They say, “little drops of water make the mighty ocean” Unbeknown to us, some of the practices we have adopted as a way of life over the years have a way of hurting the economy, and the reasons behind our down-the-hill slides in productivity.

Many states shut down economic activities for environmental sanitation once a month. During elections, we shut down inter and intra-state movements in the country for days. Take a cursory look at some of the outcomes. One will find out that people turn those days to rest days, and children turn major highways into football-playing pitches.

When people dig out sand and dirt from gutters, and nobody removes sand and dirt from the sides of the roads, they gradually get washed back into the gutters. Some markets shut down for four hours once a week for environmental sanitation and another few hours for prayers on another day. Have all these made us a more progressive nation?

On weekdays, many people spend more time praying in the offices than the number of hours dedicated to doing the actual jobs for which they were employed. In many public organizations, people spend one to two hours praying, another one to two hours on online activities unrelated to why they were employed, etc. In most climes, one cannot use personal phones outside the break period. Yet, those climes progress more than us, that pray all day long. Why?

Environmental sanitation and cleanliness of the cities are majorly a function of the Local Government. Using unorthodox ways of cleaning our environment is a failure of leadership and a lack of accounting principles. Shutting down our economy for election is a tremendous drain on the resources of this nation.

In other climes, election holds side-by-side socio-economic activities. We must invent new ways of helping our systems develop into world-class workable systems. One of my charges to the incoming administration is that we must return to the drawing board as a nation. We must fully go the way of others by eliminating manual operations in our election processes. The multi-collation jigsaws are too many.

The teaching of ethics, civic responsibilities, and cleanliness is an attribute of the godly and should start from the home. One cannot live in filth and goes out to preach to people about godliness. We all have a moral duty to keep our homes, ourselves, and the environment clean, and it shouldn’t be a forced duty. We must also find a way to reinvent what works for progressive nations.

Grace and peace!!!