Every country, culture and people have their unique traits and characteristics, all these things responsible for the state of their environment, their economy, their responses to life, challenges and what-have-you. In the next few weeks I'd like to do a kind of check on what makes a Nigerian tick. How does he think? What are his responses to issues like money, safety, etc.
Before we go into the operating theater I need to clarify something. One of the major traits of the average Nigerian is the ease with which he criticizes. He seems to know how the Super Eagles should play, who should be on the squad and who should not, how Chukuwuma Soludo should run the Central Bank, how the Niger-Delta situation should be resolved, etc You get the gist right? I am not going to sit behind this window of mine to the world and criticize us and our ways. Olohun ma je! The purpose of this series is to challenge us to critically examine ourselves, change our ways and teach those we have influence over to live by the values that will build the nation of our dreams.
Nigerians seem to just know the best approach to doing something but its interesting how we refuse to "soil our hands" in the actual work. We have this siddon-look approach to life. We would rather keep sitting in our cars than do something about the traffic situation ahead of us. We would rather just keep watching refuse pile up in our street than do something about it. Even as children of God we seem not to be left out of the whole fray. One of the greatest injustices the Body of Christ has done this nation is our siddon-look approach to issues that affect our life.
We have left Politics to others but ourselves. "It's a dirty game" we say, very piously. So those we have labelled immoral mess the socio-political landscape up and guess where we live? You guessed right, in the rot these men have created. Before you blame them, let's consider the irresponsibility of our inaction.
Ever walked on a street where a church is just two buildings away from a brothel? I have. And guess what the outreach church has planned for these people, needing self-esteem and the knowledge of who they are in God? NOTHING! How can they even dare to think of having anything to do with such immorality?
One of the things that characterizes the average Nigerian is this siddon-look approach to life. What makes it even worse is that we don't just siddon-look. We siddon-talk. We know how to criticize the guy there and tell him how he doesn't know anything about what he's doing. We live on it just check out the number of talk shows we have on television, addressing one issue or the other.
I was at a conference where the performing governor of Lagos State, Raji Fashola, delivered a paper on Leadership. A paper most of our spiritual leaders (pastors, bishops, etc) will find very educative and enlighthening. He spoke of a professor of architecture, who approached him upon his (Fashola) assuming office. The professor had come up with an observation of the many traffic hotpspots and deadlocks in Lagos. I see you raise your eyebrows and ask "So what's so unique about that?"
Well this man went a step ahead and came up many different drawings of ways to loosen the traffic deadlocks in these different places. The governor immediately put these ideas into use and pronto all these deadlock began to ease off. This professor had gone ahead to spend his sundays doing traffic counts and watching traffic in all these places where there were deadlocks. He would then go to his computer and try to come up with constructive ideas to ease the tension. Now that is what I call taking responsibility.
What intrigued me when the governor spoke was the fact that this man had been doing this long before the governor came into office. He had been preparing these ideas of his and then one day the door of opportunity opened up. The governor said something that hit me square in the face. When we call on the government to solve some of our problems, can we come up with creative solutions? Instead of just calling in to say, "There's a flooding problem in our area we would like the government to come deal with", can we profer possible solutions to that problem and then present it to them? Can we begin to, not just see the problems and talk about them on the rooftops, but to see the solutions to the problems?
Its about time that we believers take on responsibility for our communities and not just siddon-look or siddon-talk.
Before we go into the operating theater I need to clarify something. One of the major traits of the average Nigerian is the ease with which he criticizes. He seems to know how the Super Eagles should play, who should be on the squad and who should not, how Chukuwuma Soludo should run the Central Bank, how the Niger-Delta situation should be resolved, etc You get the gist right? I am not going to sit behind this window of mine to the world and criticize us and our ways. Olohun ma je! The purpose of this series is to challenge us to critically examine ourselves, change our ways and teach those we have influence over to live by the values that will build the nation of our dreams.
Nigerians seem to just know the best approach to doing something but its interesting how we refuse to "soil our hands" in the actual work. We have this siddon-look approach to life. We would rather keep sitting in our cars than do something about the traffic situation ahead of us. We would rather just keep watching refuse pile up in our street than do something about it. Even as children of God we seem not to be left out of the whole fray. One of the greatest injustices the Body of Christ has done this nation is our siddon-look approach to issues that affect our life.
We have left Politics to others but ourselves. "It's a dirty game" we say, very piously. So those we have labelled immoral mess the socio-political landscape up and guess where we live? You guessed right, in the rot these men have created. Before you blame them, let's consider the irresponsibility of our inaction.
Ever walked on a street where a church is just two buildings away from a brothel? I have. And guess what the outreach church has planned for these people, needing self-esteem and the knowledge of who they are in God? NOTHING! How can they even dare to think of having anything to do with such immorality?
One of the things that characterizes the average Nigerian is this siddon-look approach to life. What makes it even worse is that we don't just siddon-look. We siddon-talk. We know how to criticize the guy there and tell him how he doesn't know anything about what he's doing. We live on it just check out the number of talk shows we have on television, addressing one issue or the other.
I was at a conference where the performing governor of Lagos State, Raji Fashola, delivered a paper on Leadership. A paper most of our spiritual leaders (pastors, bishops, etc) will find very educative and enlighthening. He spoke of a professor of architecture, who approached him upon his (Fashola) assuming office. The professor had come up with an observation of the many traffic hotpspots and deadlocks in Lagos. I see you raise your eyebrows and ask "So what's so unique about that?"
Well this man went a step ahead and came up many different drawings of ways to loosen the traffic deadlocks in these different places. The governor immediately put these ideas into use and pronto all these deadlock began to ease off. This professor had gone ahead to spend his sundays doing traffic counts and watching traffic in all these places where there were deadlocks. He would then go to his computer and try to come up with constructive ideas to ease the tension. Now that is what I call taking responsibility.
What intrigued me when the governor spoke was the fact that this man had been doing this long before the governor came into office. He had been preparing these ideas of his and then one day the door of opportunity opened up. The governor said something that hit me square in the face. When we call on the government to solve some of our problems, can we come up with creative solutions? Instead of just calling in to say, "There's a flooding problem in our area we would like the government to come deal with", can we profer possible solutions to that problem and then present it to them? Can we begin to, not just see the problems and talk about them on the rooftops, but to see the solutions to the problems?
Its about time that we believers take on responsibility for our communities and not just siddon-look or siddon-talk.
