Adekunle Adekoya said I love my country Nigeria, and I have no doubt, despite prevailing circumstances, that I remain in very good company. Certainly, these times too shall pass. We have developed the unusual and uncanny capacity to entertain ourselves with very serious issues
From what has happened and is happening to our values system, developments in the political realm will continue to affect the way we live. This is simply because politics drives the economy. If we have good politicians and good politicking, it is inescapable that in the fullness of time, we’d have a good economy.
While we were all aghast at developments in the National Assembly regarding the Electoral Act amendments, especially the clause dealing with electronic transmission of results, happenings at the burial of a family matriarch in Anambra State literally overwhelmed the social media, in the manner floods took over Lagos last Friday. Events at that burial threw up a lot of questions about our values as a nation of diverse peoples.
The garish display of wads of currency notes during the social event is heart-wrenching when compared with the hordes of villagers that nearly killed themselves as they struggled over left-overs of cows and rams meant for barbecue. The videos are all over the social media, and I’m sure our leaders must have seen them.
Is anybody in the corridors of power moved by the two opposites? What can be done about narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor? Will moving people out of poverty remain ordinary rhetoric? What concrete actions are in place to check the erosive power of poverty? Do we even know that with rising prices of food items, the ability of the rich to remain above the poverty level is being progressively threatened?
Regarding the Electoral Act amendments, internet trolls are in overdrive, jesting our distinguished senators over the undistinguished manner they are taking the country back to the stone age. In the informatics age, the age of computers, hardware and software, Nigeria and Nigerians have achieved a quantum leap through the enabler called information and communication technology, ICT.
