To promote economic independence and raise standard of living, there is a lifelong need to be constantly informed and up to date with current information. Since man cannot live forever, it is essential to persistently invest in the younger generation to value information as a perpetual growth strategy in order to ensure that the youths of today, will indeed be good leaders tomorrow.
Looking into Nigeria today, our educational system has been deprived of what it is supposed to breed – excellence! Someone once defined Education as knowing something about everything, and I quite agree with him. The end result of education should be excellence, which to me, is knowing everything about something. Education and excellence goes hand in hand. We have not seen excellence in our polity and economy so far because we have not put priority on education.
This is the time to look beyond the present leadership system because, in my own opinion, it has very little to offer for the future of Nigeria. This is the time for all Nigerians to come together and begin to concentrate on building leaders and that task is the responsibility of every patriotic Nigerians who still have their nation’s development at heart.
The saying goes that readers are leaders, the main reason I believe we lack leaders is because we lack readers – information literate people. People who value information and know what to with it. If we develop a habit of reading, we will become more confident and self assured in abilities to comprehend and understand all types of information. This goes a long way in influencing our polity and decision making prowess. Reading has many benefits that continue to enhance our lives and subsequently the life of our nation.
One of the other main benefits of reading, that I have experienced, is that it exercises our mind. When we continue to read, we have the ability to expand our minds tremendously. We review the pages of knowledge left by those who came before us and who had made good living and contributed to the society at large. We then begin to add to the knowledge as the cycle of humanity continues. The truth is that, if you are a reader, you'll know better. Everyone acts according to his knowledge on a particular issue per time. When you know better, you act better and when you act better, you see better results! When the mind is trained and channeled through insightful reading and quest for right information, it begins to pay attention more thoroughly. When we develop a practice of reading, we are building solid foundation on which to build the future.
Our society today does not have a reading culture. We’ve got to start cultivating reading habit in ourselves, our children and youths of today to raise an army of real leaders tomorrow. We need to encourage fellow citizens to be information literate, not just reading any junk, but reading to gather information that helps become better behaved citizen and eventually create a better nation. There is need for a paradigm shift from ignorance stricken society to an information literate people with right 'heartitude' to living.
The perils of bad leadership that we see today will hurt and hunt us the more if you and I will not decide to make a change to being more knowledge and information conscious. Poverty is a plague that is eating deep into the country today, and the solution is in our individual selves searching for the right knowledge to help us live better. When you acquire relevant information and you apply them knowledgeably, solution is borne. You won’t have to depend on Government too much when you constantly have access to information that makes you shift levels on a consistent basis. Information literate citizens are able to detect, spot and expose fraud, disinformation and lies.
How long shall we continue to rely on our rotten leadership to make a better Nigeria? What is in it for us? If after over 49 years, all we have experienced is as bad as it is now, wouldn’t we rather think of a change. I heard someone say recently that the citizens of Nigeria deserve the leadership they get, and I kind of agree with that person based the premise that we the citizens have the choice to change the kind of leadership we get. Zig Ziglar said “to do something the way you have always done it and expect a different result is the definition of insanity.” If Nigeria must change from what it is today, we must begin to do something differently!
We can create another system that will push this old system away with time. One way I think this can be achieved is by being information literate, by encouraging the young and old to be readers. Being information literate is the ability to know where to gather relevant information that will bring result producing solutions to our problems and that of others around us.
Let us start a revolution today with ourselves, for our children, our neighbor and eventually for our nation. Let’s support, encourage, and sponsor an information literacy crusade. Let’s lunch a reading campaign in the home, school and everywhere. Our future depends on it! God Bless Nigeria!
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