Dear All,
I assume you already know that this is picking up from where we stopped the last time - so if you did not read the last post, scroll down a bit and go through before reading this one; otherwise, we may not be speaking the same language.
It was in the news this morning that one of our own senators - daughter of the immediate past President who is the "apostle of 20-2020" and a paramount traditional chief- alluded to the fact that she took part, and indeed facilitated the stashing of 10 million naira of OUR money.
I read in the Guardian newspaper on Tuesday, April 8 (page 79) an interesting article by George Ehusani. The title of the article was "Once again, the triumph of mediocrity." It told the story of how a paramount traditional ruler ruled in favour of "extortionist" traders because he felt a "modest" man was "spoiling" trade for them. The real issue was that this man that I call "modest" sold his bags of cement with a modest profit margin, much below what the people whom I call "extortionists" sold theirs. This latter group went to the Kabiyesi and reported our "modest" friend as "spoiling" business for them. After a "fair" hearing, the king ruled that our friend sell at the cartel price or leave the business entirely. Of course, the "extortionists" jubilated!
The two cases above present a certain kind of commentary on the ambience in our dear fatherland, as we move on towards being one of the 20 leading world economies by the year 2020. What's the commentary? Quite obvious to the perceptive mind - THE TRIUMPH OF MEDIOCRITY IN LEADERSHIP.
Did you realise that both cases happened in a land where we used to say to wrongdoers "Ni ilu t'o l'oba, t'o n'ijoye" (meaning, in a land where there's a king and chiefs). The import of the saying is that kings and chiefs would not permit evil to go unpunished. What an irony! To say that corruption now emerge from the abodes of these kings and chiefs!
As we move towards 2020, we need to remeber that as long as mediocrity remains in leadership as much as we have it now, the journey WILL BE ROUGH. So if you're on this journey, you'd better TIGHTEN YOUR SEAT BELT or ROUGHEN YOUR KNEES A BIT MORE (if you know what I mean).
To be continued.
