Safety management teaches us that when you come across an unsafe condition or situation, you must speak up. As we all know, every big fire starts as a small fire, and the earlier it is noticed, confronted and quenched, the safer for all. This cautionary tale is very instructive as it is applicable in our personal lives, collectively in the wider society, as well as in governance. If we must be honest enough to tell ourselves the adamantine truth, Nigeria is today a country cascading down a slippery slope which must seek divine intervention to achieve a halt to safety. But we all must begin to speak up.
As the nation woke up yesterday to embrace an official increase in PMS pump price, in addition to the strangulating harsh economic situation and hunger, tongues have been wagging all day. But what did we expect from a sole private refinery established to make profit and coupled with government subsidy on imported PMS gone? This is where the cautionary tale described earlier holds all of us culpable. The four government refineries established in PH; Warri and Kaduna were abandoned for decades and we all failed to speak up to condemn obvious government ineptitude. We must not shed crocodile tears now because we failed to put off this big fire when we saw it as a small fire.
Yesterday also in the Senate chambers, a contentious issue in connection with Local Government [LG] autonomy, which we all thought the Supreme Court had put to rest, was again being tinkered with. Why? Some state governors and political party chieftains have remained uncomfortable with that LG financial autonomy proclamation. We all come from LG areas and we know that over the years there has been glaring neglect of infrastructural development of these areas as well as any impact on the grassroots masses. The state governors over the years had emasculated the LGs by appropriating their funds with the collaboration of their handpicked LG chairmen or emergency caretaker committees, as they operated a nebulous joint account.
This was what the Supreme Court had to rule against and that is exactly what these emperor governors are fighting to circumvent. Again as we fail to collectively speak up to put off this small fire now, we will surely turn around to rue the impact of the consequential big fire.
The Judiciary must look inwards and carry out a major soulsearching to redeem its image that had been battered by conflicting and controversial court judgments. Unfortunately those favoured by such skewed declarations would always proclaim such as a proof of the “final hope of the common man.” But in reality injustice is being elevated to a culture. We hope that the new CJN (Chief Justice of Nigeria) will tackle these unbecoming observations in the Judiciary as she has vowed to do. Let us all speak up as injustice to one is injustice to all.
Governance is predicated on the springboard of people and development, focusing on protection of life and property. We all know that insecurity has attained unprecedented heights in recent years. There must be a collective effort to support the security agencies to carry out their functions and responsibilities more effectively. We must speak up to beef up their efforts in intelligence gathering and other associated mechanisms. Insecurity has led to food shortage as access to farms has been impeded, and we know that hunger is a time bomb.
We must speak up to ensure that our institutions remain strong; otherwise the powerful minority will subsume them and render them comatose. Rule of law must never be compromised as contravention leads to anarchy. All these areas that have been highlighted are some of the enablers to rescue our country from its current cliffhanger status. We all have the duty of care to save our country by speaking up early. Seeing and keeping quiet is no option. Nigeria must be saved. Nigeria must survive.
