“Do not Let a Crisis go to waste”, wrote former Mayor of Chicago and ex-President Barak Obama’s campaign strategist, Rahm Emmanuel in 2008. That cry is still as relevant now as it was then. Nigerians from all walks of life must come out to join the ongoing ENDSARS demonstration. This is a crisis we must never allow to go to waste. The current crisis holds a monumental opportunity for the redefinition of what Nigeria stands for. For years, Nigerians have cried for much needed desperate help from leaders that have not the slightest concern about their wellbeing as citizens. The situation is so bad that extra judicial killings take place regularly and no one dares to speak.
What is important about a crisis? According to Rahm Emmanuel, “in every crisis, there is an opportunity to do things you never thought were possible before”. A crisis can be used to clarify what really matters in new and meaningful ways. A crisis affords people the opportunity to look at things with fresh perspectives. Many difficult and persistent challenges have been overcome in times of crises. Great Organizations use moments of crises to orchestrate and implement persistent and seemingly impossible changes that would otherwise be impossible without a crisis. The list of managerial actions during a crisis are endless – from layoffs, plant closures, restructuring and resizing to outright business closure.
Over 80% of the Nigerian population believe that the “Nigeria Project” is a FAILED Project. The calls for restructuring of the country echoes in every nook and corner of Nigeria, but a ruling minority of less than 1% of the Nigerian population have continued to sell the idea that the implementation of the changes that Nigeria needs to realize her potentials will be very painful and the sacrifices huge. Scared and afraid of the pains of undertaking this change, the larger percentage of Nigerians have been left to wallow in absolute poverty.
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In a country of nearly 200 million citizens, the constitution and the governance structure has been designed to work for merely 1% or 2m citizens, living the greater percentage of Nigerians in ABSOLUTE poverty. There is no justice in Nigeria. The courts are the most corrupt in the world and the courts are designed for the same 1% of privileged citizens. With over 10m out of school children, it is not uncommon for an individual Nigerian politician to boast about corrupt enrichment from public purse enough to transform the livelihood of over 50 million children.
Court judgements are easily given to the highest bidders. Corrupt military men boast of diverting entire budgets meant for the protection of military personnel to foreign accounts. Inspectors Generals of police have bank accounts that are comparable to the police forces they lead while majority of the police servicemen live in absolute poverty.
With one of the best armies in Africa, Nigeria has been unable to defeat a renegade rebellion in just one local government out of 774 local governments in the country. Ask any army officer in Nigeria and the story is the same – they are sent to fight to Boko Haram without arms and the corrupt army bosses have embezzled monies voted for arms purchase. Thousands die daily from unmotorable roads, armed robberies, kidnappers, Cattle rustlers, Armed insurgency to SARS killings, but there is none to administer justice.
Daily revelations of huge embezzlements by corrupt government officials are just mere news as the privileged 1% continue to believe that the 99% majority lack the economic resources to challenge them. Recent revelations of corruption running into billions of dollars from a supposed interventionist agency called NDDC did not even merit the attention of the Nigerian President. That is how bad things have become.
Never has there been an opportunity for the country like the type the present ENDSARS movement has provided – the brainwork of young Nigerians who are determined to rewrite the history of this country. Dear Nigerians, at home and abroad, we must not allow this crisis to go to waste. This is the time to ACT. All trade unions, civil organizations must now come out to join this struggle to make Nigeria Great and together we will make Nigeria Great again. End Power outages. End looting of public funds. End Corruption. End Poor healthcare infrastructure. End Poor Roads and fiscal Infrastructure. End Poor Salaries for Workers. The list goes on and on. ENDSARS MOVEMENT MUST NOT GO TO WASTE.
Tunde Ekpekurede
Chief Executive Officer
Learning4Living
Unit 4, Block C9, Paradise 2 Estate, Lekki
[email protected]
