The easiest response to give for failure is an excuse. Sometimes it is sugarcoated with sweet words to increase the market worth. Some give excuse with pride to showcase their ego and veil their shame, others give excuse laden with pity to appeal to the conscience of the would be buyer but it is almost impossible to solve a problem that you don’t admit.
The other day I watched the recorded video of a mother where she blamed everyone but herself for the ignoble act of her daughter in a viral video of young students of a private school on a school trip that got tongues wagging. She blamed her daughter’s school for exposing her child to sexual violence and asked for justice for her ‘innocent’ daughter. What better way to describe successful failure in parenting?
The school responded in the typical Nigerian style where everyone works from answer to question. A system where money takes precedence over due diligence, where private schools flaunt social status over substance. A system where vulnerable children are left to their fate in a foreign land with no regard to child protection. Where the accompanying staff do their things in an opportunistic manner in apparent disregard to their primary responsibilities. What better way to describe successful failure in diligence to duty?
The larger society was true to type. I carefully read through all reactions to the viral video where everybody was asking for the video in their private boxes in apparent assault to the promotion of child pornography. It is a clear indication of what speaks to our ideals in a modern society. What better way to describe successful failure in a society that seeks redemption from itself?
Now we are facing a fierce competition with a plethora of expression of interest to the seat of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. A system where members of the ruling party itself admit the failure of the ruling party on many indices of performance measurement.
How do we describe the competitive jostle for power in a party that failed the test of redemption of a nation on its knees if the price for aspiration is a whopping N100m in the face of abject poverty and total breakdown of security?
Few questions are asked how the aspirants are able to cough out the heavy sum of N100m in a country where the greater majority struggle to eke a living. Suddenly, the focus has shifted to who is the better aspirant among those who promised change but delivered a dimmed hope.
If the price determines the worth, how do we describe the price placed on the failure of leadership in our current situation? If failure costs this much, what then will be the price for success? What better way to say that we are collectively failing successfully?
May my beloved country find redemption. God bless Nigeria and her people. My country needs help.
©️Akin Oluwadare Jnr.
09 May 2022
