By  AKIN OYEBODE

Introduction: Humankind has been experiencing unprecedented change at a frenetic pace in recent times. Whether we are contemplating societal structure or organization, management, science and technology, the arts or even sports, everything seems to point to the fact that we are living in an era of unprecedented transition where old ideas, assumptions and perspectives are yielding to change which we all have to grapple with if we are not to be left behind or become disoriented and diffident in the face of new, unfamiliar scenarios.

From analogue broadcasting and old-fashioned communications systems, the world has since moved to the age of information communication technology revolution just as mechanical engineering and aircraft technology had attained incredible heights such that traditional modes of transportation suddenly seem so old-fashioned with the development of fast electric planes and supersonic airplanes which have further shrunken distances within an already globalized village. Improved agricultural methods and genetically modified seedlings and other scientific breakthroughs hold incredible promise for the world’s population, whether rich or down-trodden, weak and famished.

Human advancement

Although human advancement remains very much a work in progress, as there are quite a number of ailments still ravaging the sick and poor for which medical science is yet to furnish cures, it has to be admitted that tremendous gains have been recorded as a result of considerable investment by governments and the industry of innovators, researchers and other elements of the contemporary knowledge economy who herald the brave new world that humanity now inhabits.

It is against this most interesting leitmotif that we wish to approach the theme of this presentation. Accordingly, it is intended to situate the state of affairs in the country within the rubric of change, be it political, social or economic before zeroing-in on the role of good governance in relation to the much-trumpeted transformation agenda of the present administration. Finally, we shall interrogate the scope of law as a framework for bringing about the much-desired change in our fortunes.

The Imperative of Change in Nigeria and Its Spin-Off in Africa and the Black World

It is axiomatic that change is immanent in nature, man and society. It is, therefore, quite understandable that the ancient Greeks had to conceive of an entire branch of philosophy—dialektika—in a bid to get to grips with the phenomenon of change. Indeed when Frederick de Klerk admonished his white supremacist compatriots in apartheid South Africa to either adapt or die, he was merely echoing the eternal and universal truth concerning the inevitability of change.

Any society bereft of the awareness of the inexorability of change and the necessity to harness change to its benefit is doomed to become a victim of forces it can neither understand nor control. It is largely on account of this that societies send their off-springs to school in order to arm and equip them with the facts of life and prepare them to survive in an inevitably uncertain future. For, knowledge is truly power, as Francis Bacon once observed so much so that ignorance could be very expensive indeed as knowledge would surely rule over ignorance.

If our forefathers had better awareness of the world they would most probably have been less trusting of their enslavers and escaped their fate of becoming casualties of the machinations of their conquerors. This explains why we just cannot afford to fall into self-indulgence and smug self-satisfaction like our forefathers did. We need to apprehend the nature of the times we are living in and make adequate preparations and adjustments for the future.

It seems to me that we should proceed from an awareness of Nigeria’s manifest destiny to show the light to our neighbours, the rest of the continent and indeed, the entire black race. It was not for nothing that Providence had endowed us with humongous resources in terms of the bounties of nature as well as human capital. Indeed it would be a great disservice to the Creator if Nigeria fails to harness these resources to the benefit and for the service of the black race.

Accordingly, our people have to jettison all superstition, diffidence and self-defeat and embrace requisite self-confidence, tenacity of purpose and keen focus in order to lift the country up from the morass of incompetence, self-doubt and ineffectual mismanagement into which it had sunken.