BLESSED BEYOND MEASURE: THE NIGERIA STORY
By Adejoro T.S
An event happened this week, the event signaled the end of the FIFA U-20 world cup, England emerged winner of the competition. The most interesting point that prompted this article is that Nigerian players are the ones that constitute part of the team that won the competition. Most of the times as history would have it, our athletes constitute larger part of the teams winning laurels in various sports outside our borders and beyond our shores e.g Boxing: Anthony Joshua, Football: Gabriel Agbonlahor and many more we can't mention.
Moving from sport to the finance sector President Donald Trump had just appointed our own Tolu Ogunlesi to the economic team he was building in order to achieve the aim of "Making America Great Again". We heard of the brilliant Nigeria young girl who got admissions into the 5 ivy league schools in the US simultaneously, Isn't that magnificent? a feat that has never occurred, the other time CNN published a story of a lady who was the first to become the president of the Harvard Law Review Committee and guess what she is a Nigerian, just recently in the last concluded UK June 8 elections, we saw how 7 Nigerians got elected into the House of Commons, getting elected into the House of Commons is not a mere feat in the UK, it means they must have been tested and trusted in terms of leadership qualities and exemplary qualities, another recent example is Anthony Joshua who had just won a WBA title in the heavyweight division, instead of covering and bowing their heads in shame, the governor of his state deem it fit to send delegates to congratulate him, What a country!!!
Go outside and see Nigerians in diaspora excelling in various field, many milestone have been attained by Nigerians, many records have been broken by our people, but they can't come home just because their home is no more "home" for them. Somebody had told me sometimes around last year that if only I could go to the embassy I would see massive influx of Nigerians hoping to run out of the country, the country is not encouraging, our leaders have turned the country into a place that is not okay to live in.
We breed excellence, we emit incandescent luminous rays of unimaginable altitudes.In every areas of excellence we can't be shelved aside. Those people pledged their allegiance to foreign country because they know their home country has nothing to offer. Nigeria is not worth dying for, that I indeed believe in
Nigeria blessed with men and means, God has blessed this country with so many things, we are blessed beyond measures, but why are we still underdeveloped?
Everybody wants a level playing field in everything he or she partakes in but when the level playing field they desire is not given, they go out of the country and they excel and what we do next is issue out an appreciation message congratulating them, why haven't we given them a level playing field to exercise their prowess and prove their God given mettle in their father's land? the economy is not encouraging, the atmosphere is not conducive, we are blessed with people of tremendous and outstanding qualities, we have been endowed with what is enough for us to have 24 hours uninterruptible power supply, low unemployment rate, low poverty rate and a very encouraging GDP but reverse is the case.
Nigeria's problem are not caused by these sets of people excelling outside her borders, Nigerians problem is caused by our leaders, let our leaders create a level playing field devoid of ethnic and religious bigotry and diligently rewards those who have made her proud in every areas, let the health sector be revived so that Ben Carson's can be developed and raised in our nations, we can be anything we want to be but government has a role to play in making this dreams come true, I believe no nation is better than OURS, we are at this state because the environment is not enabling for self development and goal attainment.
When you take your time to explore our grassroots areas, you will marvel at how young and creative guys are making waves but because of no support,those young dreams extinguish like flame into thin air, there is a place I take my time to watch local boxing every Sunday around my area, you wonder whether these are Nigerians or not, but my brother they are all Nigerians. They make waves but no sponsorship even when they want to represent their countries outside the world they are asked to bring exorbitant fees to process, what are they processing?
Corruption will kill us if we don't kill it. If government can just create an enabling field for all to participate in, our country will not only stand among mere nations but it will rub shoulders with countries who supposedly call themselves "world powers".
Samson Adejoro is a writer and he tweets from @Samsss_A.
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