Recently, I read two articles with exactly the same story and no different expressions written by an anonymous author from two different WhatsApp groups platforms titled NIGERIANS ARE THE PROBLEMS OF NIGERIA and WHY WE WHERE WE ARE.
I guess the difference in titles was the making of the readers who felt they had liberty to give the article any suitable titled that appealed to them since nobody claimed the authorship.
The two articles with one story discredited Nigerians and painted them as bad employees. The writer narrated the story of a manufacturer who made a huge loss when he hired Nigerians to manage his business, but recorded a huge gain when he changed his personnel at the management level to Indians.
While the unknown author did his best to discredit Nigerians as bad employees, he painted Indians as good employees and I saw this as an unfortunate picture that needs a response that should go viral just as the original article has gone viral.
As my title clearly indicates, I like to submit now and I will do it again and again that PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE EVERYWHERE whether whites, black and reds. It is the same as God who created the white as white that created the black as black, the red as red and the brown as brown. And, He didn’t create one race to be better in intelligence than the other. The difference in output that we have seen among the different races has a lot to do with the environment they find themselves per time.
And, it is good to state that man, every man from any race, is a product of nature and nurture.
First, before I address the subject of nature and nurture, I like to say that the concept of ‘man’ as I have used it here in this article does not differentiate between the two human sexes. Man, in this context is talking about one entity because a woman is a man in the real sense of the word. While God, who is not gender-biased, created the male-man, He also created the female-man for different assignments to achieve the same purpose.
Having said that, now, let me explain the concept of ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ as it relates to humanity vis-a-vis the difference in productivity from one person to another.
As I mentioned earlier, everyone of us is a product of ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’. ‘Nature’ has to do with the original wiring of each of us. It has to do with the DNA and RNA. It has to do with the original make-up that God built into each of us.
Each one of us original, unique, peculiar, special, wonderful and irreplaceable. Even identical twins are not totally the same, they are different in certain peculiarities and idiosycracies. Science has proven that no two individuals are the same. The fingertips, black-spots in the eyes, voices are not the same in two individuals.
That been said, let me now talk about ‘nurture’. By ‘nurture’, we mean the environment which could be social, political, economical, cultural, psychological, emotional and so on an so forth.
The indubitable fact is that environment has a lot to do with what an individual will grow to become in life. If two identical twins are separated from birth and are brought up in different environments, their behaviours will be different. A child raised in America will be different from a child raised in Nigeria.
America operates democracy that has respect for rule of law amd human rights. So, there is every tendency that a child raised under such condition will uphold righteous behabiours. He will be honest, truthful, sincere and demonstrate integrity. Even though he might not be religious, he is spiritual.
On the other hand, Nigeria operates democracy, but there is no respect for rule of law and human rights. Corruption has become a way of life in Nigeria; so, any child raised under this condition is not expected to uphold righteous living. What we should expect is a corrupt individual who will easily break the laws of the land with impunity and there won’t be any respect for human rights.
Now, nothing has influenced one child to be a good child when the other is a bad one other than the difference in environment. And, if we swap the two children and change their environment, it won’t be too long before we will notice that each of them begins to take after his new environment.
Now, let me quickly add that leadership of every country has a major role to play in creating the environment the people will live in at every go time. Leadership must make laws, live by the laws they make and enforce the laws on the people. Any other approach won’t work.
When I read the article written by an anonymous person, the questions I asked were who made the Indians, who are not even praying the way we do, to be honest and righteous, honest and truthful? Who made them to uphold values of integrity, probity and accountability than Nigerians?
Why are the Asians different from Africans? And, the only answer I was an to give was LEADERSHIP.
I want to believe leadership has a serious role to play to provide leadership that will embrace and reflect the rule of law to the people as well as enforce the laws of the land at all costs no matter the cost.
When a government who claims to be fighting corruption is only fighting the shadow of corruption, the people will know. And, truth must be told, when a government begins to fight corruption the way she should, the people will also know. In the past, the Military government introduced stiffer penalties to punish offenders, the people of Nigeria responded accordingly. The slogan then was “War Against Indiscipline” (WAI) and Nigerians upheld the laws tonthe extent that, up till today, people are still queuing up in public places. Who said Nigerians are lawless and cannot obey laws?
So, if the Indians are better employees than Nigerians, I want to believe that the kind of education the Indian and other Asians leaders are given to their people has a lot to do with thier perspectives and mentalities. And, the same believe should go for Nigerians that it is the kind of education that we are giving to our youths is what is producing liabilities and impacting dependency lifestyle on the people. And, if we can change the content ams context of our educations, Nigerians will become better employees like, if not no than, the indians because, as I said, people are people everywhere.
We cannot reap what we don’t invest, you know! We cannot be sowing corruption and expect to reap righteousness. And, it is righteousness that will always exalt any nation, but sin will always be a reproach to any people.
So, in a nutshell, it is still leadership problem we have as many people have been pointing out to us. Let leadership begin to provide good leadership from now we are going to see how the people will change and follow suit.
In other words, I don’t think there has ever been problem with followership like it has been with leadership in Nigeria and, also, in other African countries. What Paul Kagame is doing in Rwanda should prove to any of us that people are the same everywhere – black, white, red or brown. As I have said, the difference in results has a lot to do with the environment and the difference in environment has to do with the leaders.
Today, if Nigeria has a leader who will remove all the toxics that have been polluting our environment, we are going to have a better Nigeria sooner that we expect.
Finally, remember ‘leadership is influence’ according to John Maxwell and, don’t forget, ‘so goes the leaders, so goes the followers according to Dr. Myles Monroe. In the word of Jesus, he said ‘when the blind leads the blind, they will both find themselves in the ditch. I don’t think there is any description apter than this.
Thank you.
