A COUNTRY that does not embrace merit in carrying out its affairs will never get out of the starting blocks. The examples are too numerous to mention. In Mao Tse-tung’s China, children were separated from their biological parents to avoid issues related to sentiments, where is China today? At the top.

You cannot sow corn and expect to harvest cassava, that is nature’s way – orderly and organised – you reap what you sow. You cannot enthrone a leadership of mediocrity and expect to see a boisterous and robust economic nation. That has been our lot since we attained independence in 1960 and it remains so, even till date. We have never had the best in terms  of leadership because, from the beginning the foundation was defective, both in the union and in the supplanting of leaders. We can trace this defect to our British colonial masters but, what have we done with ourselves since we attained self rule? What have the elite amongst us done with the opportunities given to them? Was it to fight for selfish and sectional interests or, to build a strong, virile and united nation? How do we get this country – Nigeria – out of this quagmire?

For once we must embrace the merit solution. There is no other way out. If you do not have it, you don’t have it, no matter the huffing and puffing. I  watched the Cowbell mathematics competition, the 2016 edition on Television and was amazed at the extra-ordinary brilliance displayed by the children. These are future scientists – indeed one of them professed his desire to build a flying car – doctors, engineers and so on, the question is; what do we do with them after this? It is only in this country that first class graduates pound the streets, looking for jobs. Our research centres are not properly managed and funded, therefore, they do not get the best students attracted to them. Great technologies are the result of painstaking researches, conducted over time. Have we invested in this area? “Professor Olayinka Olutoye is making headlines in the United States and round the world for his success after performing a rare surgical operation”, Channels TV news, Tuesday 31 October, 2016. Would this have been possible if this man had remained in Nigeria? It is good to note that Prof. Olutoye is an Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife graduate.

According to Channels TV, “Professor Olutoye, alongside his surgeon partner carried out the delicate surgery on a 23weeks old foetus who was removed from the mother’s womb, operated upon and returned to the womb to heal and continue to grow until the baby girl was born at 36weeks”. This is a Nigerian like you and I, setting the pace for the  world to follow. It is not an ethnic sting. With the right environment, such feat can be replicated all over the nation but, we all have to agree that, for this to work here, we must place merit at the front burner. That is what this country has refused to do, that is why we have been producing mainly half baked graduates from our universities all these years, in our quest for more paper qualifications to gain advantage. It is not the qualifications or certificates that make nations great, it is what is done with the knowledge  acquired, that  counts. How many of us use such knowledge to develop self and humanity?  I am for merit any day.

Let the best brains be put in positions to pilot the affairs of our country and when they have set the standards, the nation would be better for it because we all stand a chance to benefit.  It is easier for the strong to carry the weak, than  the weak to attempt to carry the strong, else, both of them will end up in a ditch. That is were we have found ourselves as a nation, the weak has been leading the strong, so the country has remained in the ditch. This is true in all aspects of our national life.

I do not know how we can get out of it but let us start with the idea of enthroning merit in managing our affairs. We cannot conduct a simple, fair and credible election at the party’s ward level, how do we expect to get it right at the council, zone, state or national levels? What has happened to our electoral process this past one year, is a failure of magnitudinal proportion. It should be a concern to all of us. Instead, we are trudging on as if nothing is amiss, until the entire process implodes on us. What is happening in Ondo state presently is the consequence of not enthroning merit from the beginning. Those in power have always used the opportunity to impose candidates of their choice, without the general consent of the people. Of course, there will be dissenting views, check out their history.

If everybody that is genuinely accredited is allowed to vote in a just and fair manner, will there be opposition to the common decision? Even if there is, it cannot over turn the decision of the majority. The whole country is now surfeit with leaders who do not share a common dream and vision with the people, because they were brought in through impositions. We do not have leaders who can confidently address the needs of the people and tackle the authorities head on because their conscience have been mortgaged. We do not have leaders who the people can associate with because, they have not been able to reach the grass roots, to understand their language and feelings.

Ideally, campaigns for political positions start from the grass roots to the top levels. But here, the reverse is the case as imposition is the order of the day. We cannot make progress this way. Our merit system has to start from our political process, when our politics is right, every other thing will follow smoothly. You cannot expect judges appointed by their political godfathers not to rule in favour of their friends, when the means of getting the appointment was faulty from the beginning.

When a lawyer has to bribe or secure connection to get a Judge appointment and when a Judge has to do same to get to the Appeal and/or Supreme court’s position, how do you expect to get a clean justice system. This is the dilemma we are faced with as a nation. The political system is very corrupt and until that is sorted out, our anti corruption crusade will remain a crusade without result. People are shamelessly circumventing the system because they are in position of power without realising  that others are looking at their examples. This country is multi ethnic, multi religious, multi cultural and multi in several directions.You cannot take a mono ethnic or mono religious view to solve the challenges of the whole, you will meet a roadblock. That is where we are today.

By Sunny Ikhioya

www. southsouthecho.com
Twitter: @SunnyIkhioya