By Amara Ezediniru

Since August 1st 2024, Nigerians in Nigeria have shown utter disgust with the leadership. It’s been nine days and the disgruntled people are unrelenting. I am watching actions and listening to comments in a reflective mood.

I am grateful that the damage was curtailed especially in the capital city and the commercial city of Lagos. My heart broke over and again as I watched the video clips of damages in Kano.

Last night, I was with my senior friends, men who saw and experienced when Nigerians did not need a visa to travel to the United Kingdom. Those that exchanged a thousand naira for nine hundred pounds and bought return tickets at less than two hundred naira. One told of how he was employed while in his final year at the university and another relieved the beautiful scene of Julius Berger car waiting to convey him to his three-bedroom apartment in Ajaokuta as a corps member.

“Nigeria was good,” each of them said.

I listened with mixed feelings, anger and sadness.

“It’s bad leadership that spoilt our country,” one insisted.

The muscles of my face contracted even as I spoke nothing. From the beautiful imagination I was having of the Nigeria I never met to the reality I am living; the difference was too wide. How did a return ticket to London move from less than two hundred naira to over two million naira? How did university graduates move from many options to choose from to no job at all?

“Tufiakwa!” I screamed the only word that found its way out of my mouth. What a shame!

“How did bad leaders get into our system? What produced the bad leaders? Who allowed them in? A lizard does not get into the wall except if there is a crack.

During the protest, I read that our youths invaded a library in Kano and carted away everything else but books. I saw the videos, too. It dawned on me what we should actually be agitating against. What produced bad governance will continue to produce unless it is changed. The leaders are not necessarily our problems, they are basic humans, selfish on all fronts because their minds are totally dark. They put themselves first in the name of self-preservation, unaware that the self they preserve will not be preserved because what truly preserves a man is illumination.

We should seek education not of science and sales but of philosophy. If philosophy is the study of the basic ideas about knowledge, truth, right and wrong, religion, and the nature and meaning of life, then we should drop everything else momentarily and take it on. Everyone who is alive and sane in Nigeria should get studying. By day eight, I can tell that protest of any kind is not the solution to the disease that is ravaging us, bad governance is a terminal disease.

May we get illuminated and wise as we frolic with philosophy.

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A distinguished teacher, an author of award-winning books, a neuro-linguistic programming coach, human resource generalist, business administrator, management consultant and an articulate public speaker, Amara’s background in marketing, education and management makes her outstanding in the delivery of overall business services for optimal productivity. When she is not in the boardroom, she’s in the classroom or in her writing room.