It takes the cardinal number three plus one to understand Nigeria’s four current state of imbroglio: ourselves, our problems, what government has done and what needs to be done. It is by the number four we may step over a likely key that will open the myth of the afflictions a God-loved country has seen so much.
But, first, do we really know ourselves? Do we know the four things about Nigerians? They are issues for self assessment actually. The four issues about us, of the above challenges we face are ignorance, sentiment, selfishness and lack of will to do. It takes four.
Take it as the laqani – that divine mystic key that marabous use or give to solve problems, in this case, of addressing national questions, if you like. It is the key. It may be. This is because, to yours faithfully, the entire challenges we face right now have direct or indirect causes and results that have to do with the quartet enclose of self-re-examination above. It takes four.
There is a quadruple of main challenges that are the problems with Nigeria but we may not agree because it involves you: public servants; business persons; farmers and volunteers. It is expected that in all we do, whatever each one does, the sum must accrue to the national interest. It takes four
And governments must consider all four aspects of our collective life: social, cultural, economic and political, which must be based on the quartet dues of the citizen: needs, expectations, opinion and wants. It takes four.
Nigeria is a state of quartets. It is made of the number four. It sits on four legs: land, water, mountains/rocks ands sahara/sahel. It came out of a product of four main stages in history: pre colonial, colonial, military rule and democracy. it takes four.
It is four stages fulfilled according to Walter W. Rostow’s recommended stages of economic growth every country must go through. But just an inch way in, the system was disrupted by constitution indirections. It takes four.
Nigeria had experience four types of government in history: direct rule, indirect rule, parliamentary and now presidential system of government. It has experienced four sad tragedies earlier – slavery, resource transfer, civil war and corruption – all formed to steel the fabrics of the nation, its form and prepared it for national growth. It takes four.
Along the way, the military disrupted democratisation and development due to, largely, four main factors: constitutional crises, young ambitious army officers, frustrations of the populace, corruption only to turn the country upside down and stripped it of its roots. It takes four.
In the place of unity, a divide and rule agenda on the sentiments of four determinants for access to national resources was introduced: tribe/ethnicity, regionalism/zone, and religion and class gap. It takes four.
Under military regimes, Nigeria had the worst experience of four main problems to preoccupy the minds and hearts of the majority to enhance the divide and rule style as well as the explore and personalisation of national resources into the pockets of members of the upper class. It takes four.
The national economy has remained for long on four main sectors: agric, oil, mining and human resources. But four reasons made oil the only base for longer time: easy oil money, leadership/upper class dominance and mismanagement, imports and domestic underproduction. It takes four.
Meanwhile, members of the lower and middle classes were set against each other by the systematic use of four social ills sentiments, negative bias, fighting and killing themselves while the plunging of resources goes on without questioning. They are ethnic/tribal fights, religious fights, resource control and the middle Belt bias/sentiments. It is four.
In democracy, four arms of governments are there to balance power and excesses of power, for the fear of abuse and wrong applications of the law in the process of adjudications. It takes four.
Four other institutions work in addition to check and balance the actions and inactions of governments and at the federal, state and LGA levels: the executive, the legislature, the judiciary and the ‘fourth estate of the realm – the mass media. It takes four.
The mass media are of four types: print, broadcast, online and social/new. All of the four also are of four modes of ownership: federal, state, and private and community. Media have not performed to expectations to meet goals and objectives because of four main factors: underfunding, understaffing, lack of professionalism and ignorance of journalists.
But media workers argue that their problems are four other factors, one of them is shared across the aisle: Underfunding, underequiping, censorship and insecurity of journalists. It is always four.
There are four other groups that work on non-governmental terms to help improve work in and relations and interrelations of governments’ four groups of organs: ministries, MDAs, parastatals and agencies. It takes four.
Four important officials lead in the responsibility of dispensing good leadership for Nigerian and who must work for all sides and interests: the President, the Vice President, the Senate President and Speaker of the FHR. It takes four.
In the face of the current national insecurity and development challenges, a theory of four notions remains as the only option for the national, state, LGA and traditional/NGO tetrad. They are the strategic priorities of the four Ps: policies, plans, programmes and prosecution. It takes four.
So far all the four Ps ever conceived and implemented failed to curb the four menaces that bedevil the national society: child abuse, unemployment, corruption and insecurity. It takes four.
Every problem – let us be as broad as we can in our concept of the socioeconomic and political challenges needs four ways of approaching it: the past, the present, the future and the implications. Those are the four keys to assessing, understanding, addressing and tackling them. It takes four.
In most cases, it is either one, two, three all of the quartet: it is either we don’t plan; we don’t budget for planning; we misdirect planning budgets; or we don’t respect/use plans in implementing. But who agrees? It takes four.
Every national problem has both net and gross effects on the largest number, the most active and the potentials of the population as a priority and youth represent the bulk of our national custody. It takes four.
Our wrongs at the level of planning have serious consequences on the target or beneficiaries of solving problems of, say, youth. How many other groups can agree to allow for that first? It takes four.
The very idea behind the abuse of the group is still trailing the dos and don’ts of addressing problems from the top. The four Ps above must be made in ways that must involve them at every stage if they are for them and meant to deliver for them. But how many of us can understand or agree? It takes four.
So far, the PMB government – thank God – has demonstrated a good measure of that understanding and has taken steps in the last four years to do something in the exact manner of our broad understanding of the cloud over the future of a nation. The man held four offices in the past. He knows it takes four.
The FGN did that by showcasing that governments in Nigeria can work and make the difference, through four ways: hiring the best, ignoring the godfathers, protecting national resources and delivering deliverables. But how many agree that is true? It takes four.
Truth is, many of us refused to review their orientations towards themselves, toward others and toward governments and the nation, states and the LGAs in the last four years in four ways: deny the truth, ignore reality, condemn the right and applaud the wrong.
And the added problem from that is the terrible fact that many of us still see new, worst problems with old, meagre spectacles. It Isaac Newton who said, “we cannot solve problems through the same way we created them.” Yes. But how many agree? It takes four.
I mean we are just recycling the four issues and do nothing else, thereby adding to the challenges instead of helping face them. The four models for our national attitudes remain: watch, laugh, condemn and invoke God to our shame. Think. It takes four.
The noise and the concerns of the few of us in new fake disposition is just pretense of the highest order for myopic interest, in the stead of genuine interest and resolve with new specs and with all of us stand up to make things possible. Think. It takes four.
We need to go back to consult the God we serve to confirm if another life is true. Truth is we have four fundamental problem that are personal: we have problems with our family upbringing; we have problem with our believe system; we have problems with our education; we have problems with our adult orientations. Think. It takes four.
We have problems with ourselves but we deny that we are liabilities to the system. We choose to be silent about some issues but keep mute on those that matter the most. We have inflicted our own failures and problems on every subsystem. Think. It takes four.
Now from the shade of our mirage enclave of the bad four personals: laziness, self-centredness, greed and self-indiscipline, we are busy blowing the wind of the depth of the issues, singing the song of the challenges and dancing to the dynamics of the problems. Think. It takes four.
Do we have answers to these four questions at the moment? Do we realise what we are doing? What do we want really? From who, where do we get this craze, cruelty to country? Who is the profounder, the patron of this theory of myopia, theory of life? There must be four exact answers to the questions. No silence. No denial. It takes four.
Truth is there is no answer to all those questions because there is no explanation. There is only selective silence as answer. And denials/selective silence are the single unlikely debacle that is responsible at some point, for the tragedy of life that inflicted us with those bastard ideas that pushed us all into the dangerous den of self-destruct, from where our failing eyes could not make see the ensuing fact that what we caused this country is now paying us all in our same currency.
Sometimes, many times, it is not the problem or even its magnitude. It is how we see, how we approach and how we react to the problem that matters most, and can be the key to surmounting the problems. It is not only the leadership always. It can be anyone. Our mouthing about Nigeria can do or mar. Think. It takes four.
Now, only four persons we know are ready to act and try to be fast to engage and address the problems. But three persons are too negligible for a problem that was instituted by all of us – all the 180 million or 200 million – individually, personally and collectively as a public. Is that not a cheat? How many times must we shortchange the nation before we stop it? It takes four.
But who are the four persons involved with the Nigerian national problems at the spur of needs and the moments? They are President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo who is the President’s economic mind and chief economic adviser. It takes four.
The third person is all the possible PMB likeminds among incoming ministers and heads of MDAs. The fourth person is all PMB advocates who travelled all the four years of hope, from 2015 to date in need, patience, wants and selfdiscipline because they believed, they hope and they are determined. It takes four.
We are all in it. Four by four; in fours. We are all involved. We are the problem we created, lament. We are all in the problems and must face the four consequences as it is not the problems of the youth.
It is not the problem of the almajiri. It is not the problem of street kids. It is the problem of all. It is a national problem. It is our problem. It takes four.
The most dangerous of all the problems that may eventually consume us all is the quadruple of denial, silence, passivity and negligence (for selfish reasons).
These are the damaging factors we are putting on the way of the four persons working to bring the rest of us out of trouble. Think. It takes four.
Hassan Alhaji Hassan can be contacted on 08032829772/08050551220 (text only with full names and address)a[email protected]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect WikkiTimes’ editorial stance.
