My country.

“There’s nothing wrong with America that can’t be fixed with what’s right about America” is one of Barack’s quotes that has stayed with me over time.

While I know he was referring to America but the truth is the saying applies even more to my home country.

A lot of times, I’m driving down the alley, sitting on a couch or maybe just walking down to get groceries, I can’t help wondering how our problems have become so profound. I mean a country the colonial masters marked for greatness, to the great shining light in Africa, to be a justification for the good deeds they have done on the continent over the centuries has now so fallen from grace almost everyone unites in opinion the state is a failed one. Security, power, transport, economy basically all ramifications of the society is in a pitiful state.

A lot of people take the easy way out of pretending they have nothing to do with it – and who can blame them! I for one can simply not help wishing things were better – and boy, is that painful – and it’s even more painful when you actually have hope that it will!

Not sure I can propose a way out of the quagmire we find ourselves in, but whatever the solution that I don’t know is, I know who the players will be and that’s everyone. The problem of the country has gone beyond having a visionary to come in and clean up the rot that has taken decades to build. It will take the effort – possibly painstaking – of every single one of us. Like the Israelites building the ruins of Jerusalem, everyone will do the bit in front of them and then and only then will we genuinely start the process of marching towards a better tomorrow. In times of tragedy, people pull together. Americans during 9-11, Londoners 7-7, and even Lagosians during the cantonment blasts, believe me compatriots the state of the country now is a disaster! 

You do the bit next to you, I do the bit next to me, with a god-sent leader and the Almighty on our side, we put it together, and only at that point can we dream of having a society we can be proud of.

The good old days were not that good, the best of days lie ahead and the best of our songs are yet to be sung.