Rules without regulations

Someone was said that the Barcelona football club is so good that they will still deliver, even without a coach. I suspect a hyperbole there, since they lose matches with their manager on the bench. The truth is that their results and performance over time is a confirmation of the fact that system and structure work at the club, and indeed anywhere. Same can also be said of the United States of America. The systems and effectiveness of structure are timed to perfection and totally delineated from individual(s) influence. Here, you do not have to know anybody to get what you want as long as you can submit to regulations and respect the rule of laws. It is that simple. 

Quite contrary to popular but wrong perceptions; Nigerians are fairly easy to get along with and our needs are moderate, even if our wants are sometimes extraneous. That is to be expected, when you consider our abject living conditions alongside the malicious opulence our leaders wallow in. Between where we are and our aspiration, are police check points that succeeding inspectors generals of police have out- lawed, but still functioning. The IG sees them daily and receives reports of their intransigencies, yet, they remain conspicuously above the law. It is almost a custom for custom officer to accost you in town or on the highway to check import papers of your vehicles, leaving one to wonder where they were when the vehicle entered the country. The Federal Road Safety boss keeps reiterating the fact that no one should pay above N6500 for driver licence in the country, giving one the impression that the gentleman knows that he is not by any stretch of imagination in charge of his boys or the command.

We must build and reinforce our system and structure beyond individual control. Human beings are prone to excessiveness when there are no checks and balances. Our political landscape is shaped not by values or principles but by people who have had unhindered access into the nation’s treasury and have rendered our collective purse into a personal wallet from which they spend from. It is understandable that the federating states in the country are not likely to grow at the same pace, but the fact that 80% of the states are their governors’ colonies premised the cause of their backwardness. Our inordinate financial demands on our leaders once they get into power is also one of the reason most of them cheat on us. Rather than hail leaders who are handing us donations, giving our kids scholarships, buying artisans equipment all in the name of empowerment, we must begin to question their sources and motives. If there are no constituted body or organs to handle such responsibilities, an enabling law must be made to create them. The idea of giving funds to an individual to develop his constituency must also stop.

If we elect to work on ourselves by allowing our system to thrive, our laws to be sacrosanct and our leaders accountable, we will find out later that the efforts and funds that go into the USA election process of picking from two of identical ideologies; differentiated and personified by differing and dithering personalities is not worth it, especially in the light of a strengthened system that works. There will still be election of course, but it will come at minimal expense to the country and at less stress to the people.