BROKEN SYSTEMS? BROKEN PEOPLE? OR BOTH?

B always says that ‘as a people we have failed to play our part in maintaining the little government provides and if we do, there will be some level of development’. I completely agree with her. Leadership failure has been on my mind.  I am not certain if leadership has failed only at the corporate level, individual level or a combination of both.  In my opinion, however, I think a combination of both is contributing to broken systems.  Why do I think both?

Walking down the double lane Moscow road in Port Harcourt just yesterday after work – a  stretch that houses the state house of assembly, the state court of appeal, the local government council offices and a host of others – something happened.  Traffic jam so long that you will think an accident must have happened in front. To my shock, however, just right in front of the state police headquarters on the same road, we discovered a man in a blue Toyota car with tinted glasses was the cause of the traffic jam. Several thoughts ran through my mind, did his car break down? Did something happen to him inside the car or what? After a while, as the man directly behind him kept hooting, a man in navy blue trouser and white shit came out of the car causing the jam. He walked right to the man behind raised his hands to slap him. At that moment, I felt pained and started walking towards them to talk to the man that caused the jam but my friend held me back. We stood there trying to understand what was happening and later found out that, the man causing the traffic is a top police officer. He felt he had the power to stop abruptly in the middle of the road and make others suffer for no just reason.    

See another example. A company was contracted to clear the sewage on a major road that has been causing flooding. B and I drive through that road at least once a week to fashion school and saw these guys digging up sand and dirt from the gutter and putting it by the roadside.  Week 2, all that they brought out was still by the gutter as they continued working. I do not know what they were thinking but week 3, heavy showers of rain, pushed what they brought out right back into the gutter, and tomorrow the government will contract the job again. Yes, there is the failure of leadership at the top but as a people; we have also failed to play our own part which has contributed to the broken systems.

Government has a role to play and there is still much work for them to do, however, it is time for us to truly ask not what the government can do for us but what can we as individuals do to maintain the little the government has provided just as B said.  We are not animals and there are laws that we should abide by.  Even God loves systems and created systems because He thinks in terms of order. If you as an individual can exercise personal leadership and not cause traffic, or pack the dirt coming out of the gutter as you dig it out (add your own personal conviction of personal leadership you need to take), we can then gradually begin to fix our broken systems. Because the degree of wealth or poverty in our lives and society has much to do with the effectiveness of the systems we choose to set up or ignore.