WHY NOTHING WORKS

According to a story by Mr. Sina Agboluaje, NEPZA managing director, about an imaginary rowing competition between a Nigerian team and its Malaysian counterpart, each team featured eight members who had to compete against each other after months of training.

The first competition was held, and the Malaysian rowing team defeated the Nigerian rowing team by a margin of 10 kilometres. Following the dismal performance, managers of the Nigerian rowing team contracted some experts to analyze the problem and recommend appropriate solutions.  

The analysis revealed that whereas the Malaysian rowing team had one captain and seven rowers, the Nigerian rowing team had one rower and seven captains. Ordinarily, the solution should have been obvious, but the managers of the Nigerian rowing team hired a consulting firm to restructure the team.

 Their recommendation was just as bizarre as the outcome of their finding: the eight-man Nigerian team should comprise four captains, two supervisors, one manager and one rower. Of course, the result at the next competition was predictable: the Malaysian rowing team defeated the Nigerian rowing team, this time by a margin of 20 kilometers!   - culled from Segun Adeniyi's book titled Power,Politics and Death.  

The above illustration is a depiction of why things hardly work in Nigeria, a colleague describing the situation said Nigeria is like a company which has a Board of Directors, Shareholders and the President as the Managing Director with the President not knowing who to listen to. Take for example the recent fuel subsidy probe which has indicted several of the President's friends whom i would refer to as members of the board of directors that seem untouchable while we the masses who are shareholders keep raving and ranting over social media platforms, we are yet to see whose tune our managing director would dance to,however your guess is as good as mine.  

Nothing would ever work in this country,if our leaders don't recognise that ultimate power resides in the people, that of course is if we show them how much power we have.

Adedunmade Onibokun Esq.