The title of this piece is deliberately but positively mischievous. It has nothing at all to do with Buhari or anything of late he has done to deserve censure. It has something only tangential to do with him as a former leader of our country. The thing that has to do with him is our national tendency to blame all our problems, including failures in our personal character, on our leaders, especially our national ones. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is only a few months old in power and so we have not started hearing of Tinubu being our problem. That is why I have chosen to use Buhari, our immediate past President who has been in our national consciousness until only recently, to draw attention to the issue which I want to raise here today. And the issue has to do with our total lack of individual spending wisdom which we then blame on our leaders and make it look like a national problem which it is not at all.
In the course of my retirement and partial relocation to my village to pursue my farming passion, I have spent a large chunk of my time associating with many professionals, artisans, farmers and the ordinary people who make Nigeria what she is. And what I have discovered is that Nigerianleaders are essentially not the problem of Nigeria as it is popularly held by many Nigerians, including the elite of our society who ought to know better but don’t.
There is no doubt about it that many, or rather all of them, have failed in providing good leadership in many areas but in the personal life decisions that no government dare interfere with individual’s life choices, many Nigerians have spectacularly failed themselves. And that is essentially why Nigeria is a failed country. To my mind, the much trumpeted economic difficulties which many Nigerians face today can not be blamed solely on government. A lot of our people big and small ought to be blamed also for the choices many make.
Today, in both urban and rural centres, the daily paid fee which an artisan earns is about four to five thousand Naira. On a lucky day, many do indeed earn much more than this. Granted that he will not earn this all the 365 or 366 days of the year. But if he is competent, honest and hard-working,he is likely to get these several days of the year. So an average worker who earns an average of N5000 a day a good number of the days of the year cannot honestly be described as a poor man, that is, if he is a good manager of his resources or earnings.
The trouble, however, is that the average Nigerian man is not a prudent or wise manager of his fortune. His situation and that of his household should not be as miserable as we get to hear of their stories. I have also seen that in both urban and rural area, but more so in the rural than in the urban, one thousand Naira can buy any average household a measure 0f garri, rice or beans to make a decent and full meal for the household. Add another one thousand for the essential and non-flamboyant ingredients necessary for cooking the main meal. Please note that I am talking here of a reasonable and disciplined home leader. I am not talking here of beer-guzzling, skirts-chasing, Bet Naija-betting home-leader who will not immediately get to his house after earning such amounts in these hard times. Those ones are going to rain abuses on me for making this truthful observation. But their abuses won’t have any effect on the essential truth I have told here. Millions of Nigerians are the architects of their own misfortunes. And they are usually the ones who lead in the sing-song about our leaders being the sources of our problems. Do Jonathan, Buhari or Tinubu tell you, a man faced with running a household in these hard times, to spend your hard-earned money on beer, women/men, pools betting and excessive consumption of suya, isi-ewu or other unnecessary things?
I think what we direly need in our country right now is an urgent, well articulated crash programme on how to prudently manage our resources and to stop blaming government, relatives, organizations, for some of the difficulties we encounter in the course of our lives. Nigerians need training on how to manage the monies that come into their lives.
In my view, the money some of them earn from their businesses is reasonable enough for them to live a decent life free from want and destitution, if only they can manage such monies well. The problem is that far too many of them have expenditures that they have no business getting into.And when you dare to tell them or advise them they will not listen.
They will instead blame Jonathan, blame Buhari and they will soon start blaming Tinubu and their problems will never get solved. Rather, they will increase and our people will never learn or get any wiser.
