Apparently, there are so many issues associated with the perceived level of poverty in our country with the major ones I have identified being laziness and over expectations. Such has made people to always exhibit dissatisfactory attitude towards practically every endeavor and happenings and such is most unfortunate and deserves to be talked about with the hope that it could change some minds and have some multiplier effect.
One of the major areas where I have analyzed the youths on this trend of attitude is how much crazy an average Nigerian youth can be about a vehicle even when they can’t comfortably afford and manage one. The ownership of such vehicle in most cases is borne out of envy or an effort to be like or better than someone else. Such efforts are not necessarily a crime by way of having a role model or something of sort but what makes these awkward is the fact that such aspirations are devoid of a research or an understanding of the efforts the other person had put in to be what they are.
There are very less long term initiatives in our society. Everyone wants to have it now and now and such is becoming more prevalent with a society that encourages such by hailing you to be a ‘chairman’ to the heavens and despising you for not been at a certain level even when there’s no reason supporting one’s meriting of such level.
Our society has been negatively affected by such situations to the extent of the non appreciation of excellence and celebration of mediocrity for the sole purpose of producing more ‘chairmen’ that would come to intimidate the society into wanting to be ‘chairmen’ also. People don’t get inspired by anyone else to embrace hard-work as a means of succeeding or acquisition of wealth.
Even those who have chosen business or entrepreneurship are forced to fail in it by such tendencies. Pressure to oppress or engage in activities bigger than the income of the business make the business to fail. You shouldn’t be surprised to notice that Nigerians have been identified as bad managers of business because of crave for undue opulence. Most critical businesses have had to resolve to employing expatriates at some point of the lifespan of their businesses, Dangote industries is one of such businesses.
We are forced to export jobs that our professionals should ordinarily have but the bigger question remains whether such professionals have acquired skills enough to come off as meriting such jobs. The other leg is whether the leaders and business owners have provided mentorship enough to produce such needed leaders and mangers or whether they are ready to pay commensurate wages for excellence.
The basic causes of all these issues are the lack of mentorship and appreciation of excellence in our societies which resulted in people who don’t merit positions and wealth to of-course use the non deserved wealth and position to intimidate others into wanting to be like them at all cost.
We are in dire need of mentors in our society so these disturbing trends can be tamed and it’s prevalence mitigated against. I do understand that the youth of nowadays are computer generation who don’t fancy much or hard work but that’s why the times have also come with digital innovations which can fetch you as much as any other endeavor can.
Such makes some of us to appreciate so much the work that the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy is doing through its rejuvenation by Dr Isa Ali Pantami in the area of Digital mentorship through provision of tools and digitalization of major sectors like Agriculture, Education, Health and Transportation. Startups are encouraged to provide solutions to the problems of the society, an endeavor that can quickly transform them into the ‘chairmen’ they so much desire to be.
For every sustained success you see, some work must have been put in.
Hashim Suleiman witees from oneheartnaija@yahoo.com