Nothing Is Enough

Myopia is one of the biggest problems in our country today. The distractions here and there have rendered the citizens of this country, especially the youth blind to what the bigger picture is; The World. Nigeria and her problems take up so much of our time and we forget that it's not just about us as a nation, we think too little and act even less, we forget that aside from being citizens of Nigeria, we are global citizens and we have the responsibility of making impact globally and not just in our country of origin.

The problem goes a long way back, we've been cursed with a rigid mentality and it is being passed down through generations and it will continue until there is a revolution in our mentality. It is common practice in this country to blame everything and I mean every little thing on the government and the "society". We refuse to take responsibility of our lives and as such we make little progress. Our sense of rigidity doesn't allow for exploration, everyone wants to be spoon fed, no one wants to take a risk or be the first to try anything. Greatness is not achieved by sitting in one place and leading a rigid life, Alexander the Great is revered and almost worshiped in the world today because of his conquests. He could have sat in Rome like all other emperors before him but he knew that there was more to the world than the great Roman Empire so he set out on the most expansive campaign the world has ever known till date, he conquered the world, discovering and developing the places he went to including Egypt. Exploration is the beginning of discovery and the human mind is so powerful that we can never really discover all our true potentials but we must try to harness as much as we can before our time here is done. The youth of this country are too lazy and are impressed by very little. The tittle of this piece says it all, Nothing is enough. We can never really finish discovering therefore we should never relent or relax. if the great innovators of our generation had relaxed after their first achievements, we wouldn't have progress. If Steve jobs had been impressed by the first generation mac computers, we wouldn't have the imac, if he had been impressed by the first generation of the ipod, we wouldn't have the itouch and so on. Steve Jobs has battled cancer for years now, he has been given several deadlines for his death yet he continues to develop even more. The reason is because he gets it, he understands that it's not just about him, he understands that his company, Apple is bigger than him and that his innovation is now part of the world and he has a responsibility to continue improving and that my fellow Nigerians is greatness. Aliko Dangote made a significant leap in the Forbes listings coming from an earlier 342 to 51 with 13 billion dollars. Being the only supplier of sugar, cement and salt in Nigeria, he could have relaxed but he knew that controlling a monopoly in Nigeria wasn't enough, he knew that he needed to make a global impact hence he expanded to other parts of the world and today he is the only Black man in the list of the world's richest men. My point is that in order to make an impact in the world and in your country, you must think globally and act locally, you must understand that there is more to the world than Nigeria and not limit yourself to the opportunities here. Consider this... if you have a million Naira, in Nigeria you are a Millionaire but that's just $7000 to a US citizen. The country may have let us down but we can't keep dwelling on the "Nigerian Factor". We must save this generation by rising up and assuming our positions as Global citizens. We must start now to think of ways to make this country better for our children and theirs. Nigeria has a lot of potentials and resources which can be harnessed to make global impacts. In order to avoid further failure, we have to take it upon ourselves to champion the development of our beloved nation but we must first develop ourselves. We have to start looking beyond ethnicity, religious inclination, and other differences which make us "Third World". we need to start thinking positively and progressively and realize that it is never enough. development is a lifelong project and the well being of this world transcends everything else including Nigeria and her problems.

The myth of poverty eradication

Since the beginning of the Obasanjo tenure in 1999, up to this day of Yar'Adua and or Goodluck, poverty eradication has been one of the cardinal objectives of the Nigerian government. To that effect, the government has embarked upon numerous poverty eradication programmes all with the same objective but with different names. The amount of money budgeted for each of them per annum is enough to to reduce poverty through the appropriate ministries.
The problem I think is that the Nigerian system is just filled with power hungry men and women who will come up with absolutely anything in order to be relevant in the sphere of things. To be very honest, I think it is very silly to spend millions of naira on a project which has yielded absolutely no sustainable results. The poverty rate in the country is at a steady increase yet there are millions being budgeted every year to "eradicate" poverty. The concept itself is senseless and is just a show of how dubious and ignorant our so called leaders are. Thomas Malthus said that poverty was part of a natural cycle so if you ask me, thinking of eradicationg poverty will be just as good as trying to eradicate disease which is practically impossible. nobody has gotten rid of diseases in any part of the world yet but the developed countries have good health care systems for their citizens and proper facilities to deal with the problems when they come. The same is applicable to poverty "reduction". Our government should e more concerned about how to put some structures in place to improve the rate of poverty in the state and not establish non functional parastatals to syphone public funds in the name of poverty eradication.

BOTTOM LINE: government should review some of it's programmes because povert eradcation is only a myth which by the way was disregarded decades ago.....shows just how backward we are
Emmanuel Osuji