When Change Begins with Nobody

20^th September, 2016

By: Amir Abdulazeez

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here are so many things that signify a doomed society. One of such is when nobody wants to sacrifice and take responsibility of moving it forward. The history of the world is dotted with the stories of leaders and followers who made sacrifices to either pull their society out of backwardness or to move it further than it is on the prosperity ladder. That the Nigerian journey is still searching of how to progress and not actually progressing is most unfortunate as this means we are not even on the right road, not to talk of travelling it, no matter for how long.

The President Buhari administration’s launching of the ‘Change Begins with Me’ campaign was greeted with mixed reactions. While some agree even if theoretically that change begins with them, others feel that the change should begin with the president and his team. While this debate is needless to say the least, two things are clear; the new campaign is now over-politicized and already dead on arrival and we are once again on a habitual wild goose chase on how actually we should go about fixing Nigeria morally, socially, economically and politically.

First, one begins to wonder whether APC has any blueprint in the first place or it is now that it is coming up with one. During the campaigns, the party and its candidates strongly emphasized that it was the head that was wrong with the fish and once the head is not rotten, the body remains fresh. Some 16 months after clinching power, the party is now launching a campaign that suggests that it is the body of the fish and not the head that matters most. Granted that every society cannot move forward without its members actively playing a role, but APC should have properly coordinated this clearly and vigorously right during the campaigns or at least from the very beginning of its administration. That this is coming 16 months after been in power suggests that the party is embarking on a gradual and unfortunate journey to cluelessness on how to handle some critical issues.

It is evident that the APC did not utilize its early days in power when goodwill was more than abundant adequately. The apparent indecision of its government and its failure to hit the ground running in the guise of trading carefully and clearing of the PDP mess, are all coming back to haunt it. Many things that the ruling party ought to have initiated or executed during its first few weeks in power are now being introduced only recently. It took the presidency many months to appoint an INEC chairman for instance and well more than a year to appoint commissioners for the electoral body. Whether this also requires trading carefully and clearing some PDP mess is what many don’t understand. The commission is now dropping some hints of its potential inability to conduct a conclusive and credible 2019 elections.

The APC and the presidency have also failed largely to rise above the shackles of partisanship to run a truly unifying government. The way it is running its affairs largely reflects the results of the 2015 elections. The style and politics of the party is yet to be significantly different to that of the PDP. It gives the impressions of ‘everyone-is-a-wrongdoer-except-us’ and ‘we-came-to-rescue-Nigeria-alone’. The President appears to have critically left out important stakeholders from the onset of his government, the result of which we have seen clearly. The successes recorded by the APC government could be far more than this and some of the problems we are facing shouldn’t be as much especially the likes of the Niger Delta militancy.

Those who argue that change should begin from the president, his cabinet and the ruling party are only right if that doesn’t mean that they are pretending not to have any role to play in effecting that change themselves. Others that are arguing along the same line are doing it for political reasons, thanks to our culture of politicising almost everything. The word ‘Change’ consciously or subconsciously reinforcing the political dimension of the campaign itself is not helping matters. It would be better if the government can rebrand the campaign if possible to cleanse it of what largely looks like an APC affair.

It is true that the Presidency and the ruling party which also controls the National Assembly have not shown enough change yet. While the cost of governance is still seen as exorbitantly high, impunity in government dealings is still apparent. From so many alleged secret and unmerited recruitments in key government parastatals which used to be a regular practice of the past to the presidency allegedly turning a blind eye to allegations of corruption against some of its kitchen cabinet members, many citizens now feel change should begin from where these things are being done or perceived to be done.

Some Nigerians believe they have tolerated enough of the economic hardship currently in the land; they see themselves patient enough to have tolerated the chronic fuel scarcity at first and then price hike later. It is because the people were on the side of the government that the NLC strike against fuel price hike failed woefully. All these are in addition to the peoples’ perseverance and resilience in making sure that the APC government came to power. Because of these and many other obvious reasons, many citizens feels change or progress if we are to coin it apolitically, should not begin with them or at least, they shouldn’t be its focal point.

Those who argue that change should begin with citizens are only right if they are not doing such only for the purpose of partisanship and blindly defending the government or the party which they are sympathisers. One should genuinely believe progress begins with him for sacrificial and patriotic reasons. While some have patriotically accepted that they need to change their own attitude, if at all Nigeria stands any chance of progressing, others are only out to sycophantically defend every action of government. These kinds of people are everywhere and they have stubbornly refused to allow people who constructively criticize the government and genuinely want it to succeed to be listened to.

That the ordinary Nigerian has not done enough to move the nation forward is well documented. He sees the solutions to his country’s problems coming from all other quarters except himself and he always forget that alongside his other country men, he is the most critical stakeholder in nation-building. Many of the socio-political catastrophes inflicted on Nigeria by the PDP over the last 16 years were partly possible due to the fact that we lack active citizenship. Our ‘I-don’t-care’ attitude is legendary; beside our ethnic and religious problems, our greed, selfishness and carelessness have refused to allow us do simple things that would collectively place Nigeria on the prosperity map. We always think that other countries developed exclusively because of good leadership, we don’t seem to care to find out what roles citizens played in ensuring that such leadership existed and succeeded.

Since the debate is not about whether change or progress should begin or not, the debate is rather on where it should begin from, can we simply recommend that it should begin from everybody? No need for anyone to wait for the other; it should begin in earnest from both leaders and followers. It should begin from Buhari, Jonathan, APGA, APC, PDP, Modu Sheriff, Makarfi, Oyegun, Tinubu, Lai Mohammed, Femi Adesina, akara seller, university lecturer, student, shoe shiner and from everyone else.

Personally, I may have my reservations on APC and President Buhari, but my being Nigerian or wanting her to progress didn’t started with Buhari and APC and it is not going to end with them. My hope and efforts of being a good person and Nigerian will solidly remain irrespective of whether APC does its job or not. While I may pressurise President Buhari and his team as well as every other Nigerian to do the needful in their respective capacities, I would accept that #ProgressBeginsWithMe as an individual and I won’t compromise that.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez