LISTENING to different speakers on Poju Oyemade inspired ‘Platform’ programme of 1st October, 2015,on television, one is happy to note that there is still hope for the country.

The ailments were thoroughly diagnosed, all that is left is the willingness of the leadership and most fundamentally, the followership to see it through.

The entire process boils down to building our structures around strong institutions and not necessarily having a good man at the helm of affairs.

It is not about the amnesia and hysteria of the largely partisan and poorly informed populace, it is about understanding the peculiar circumstances of Nigeria as a country still struggling to attain nationhood, with religion and ethnicity as key issues. As it is today, our cultures and institutions encourage corruption, no section is left out.

How do we put in place structures that will guarantee functional health care, productive educational systems, encourage entrepreneurial endeavours under a peaceful atmosphere and a united focus people?

For those who have taken Bishop Mathew Kukah to the slaughter slab because of his perceived advise to President Muhammadu Buhari on corruption, I hope we all now have a different opinion after listening to his presentation.

The truth is – and I agree with him – there is too much hypocrisy pervading the whole land; people who do not practice what they preach are the most vocal in the land – the minister who is a party leader, with a son/daughter that is a legislator, with an inlaw commissioner and a government contractor wife and so on, with nothing for the common folks.  Unfortunately, the poor masses have been so brain washed to stupor.

For me, there are no saints in Nigerian politics, we have only witnessed recycling of the same people. If we are to kill this corruption culture and move the country forward, we must all resolve to remove all of these sentiments. Bishop Kukah took us through the long road from 1966 to present day, of how at different times in our history, people have used the corruption fight to deceive the people, when they assume leadership positions, they set up different agendas from the ones that brought them in. Hypocrisy is our bane.

It is four months and some weeks into the new dispensation and people who are closed to the corridors of power claim the delay in appointing ministers is for the purpose of finding out ‘clean’ men, those that have not been tarnished by any form of corruption scandal, people who will be the epitome of real change.

As I write, the first batch of ministerial nominees have been released and the much awaited super clean faces are yet to be seen. In the Holy Book, the great master Jesus admonished that anyone who is  blemish free should cast the first stone but the male accusers refused to do so. They simply walked away. Incidentally, the roles are now reversed, those who have been throwing stones are now under spotlight but they do not want the same treatment to be meted out to them – that is life, so much hypocrisy.

Whether through ethnicity, religion, leadership or any other factor, it is clear that the missing gap in Nigeria’s road to progress is the lack of a common will and purpose. When there is no collective purpose, there will be no collective will and where there is no collective will, achieving success for the common good will not be possible. What does it mean to be without a collective purpose?

This is the situation where you have the parts(different regions and states) not in tandem with the whole(federal) as manifested by the splinters of opposition all over the country. We can therefore say that the Nigerian problem is the challenge of bringing all these diverse groups towards a common cause and course, towards a common purpose. This was the challenge in 1960, it is still so now.

It is a herculean task but it is achievable. We had a semblance of it under Jack Yakubu Gowon as head of state, also under Murtala Mohammed for the brief period that he was in office and in the first year of Olusegun Obasanjo’s tenure, there was a uniformity of purpose, everyone gave their support to the regime, irrespective of the ethnic and religious inclinations. The goodwill got lost when the leadership started pursuing selfish agendas to the detriment of the national purpose.

The same goodwill we have now given to President Mohammadu Buhari, the support for him is from all parts of the country and it is an opportunity that he must not treat with levity because if we miss it this time around, it will take a long while before we will recover from the implications – imagine the wasted years since 1960.

To achieve the collective will and purpose is to restore confidence to the citizenry through an open and transparent government, through an accountable government, through equitable government, through a purely secular government, productive, an imaginative and creative government, through a truly representative government.

When people see sincerity, they will support the government and when government has the people’s  support , there is no height it cannot attain. President Buhari has the support of the nation in his fight against corruption. He must translate this goodwill into a collective purpose for the nation.

Mr. Sunny Ikhioya, a commentator on national issues, wrote from Lagos.