Nigeria at the threshold of greatness

THERE is a new and refreshing wind blowing across our great nation Nigeria. Wind we know is a directed and forceful movement of air and, every living thing one way or the other is directly and indirectly dependent on air for survival.

Nigeria on May 29 ushered in a new lease of wind, this time a wind of change. Nigeria was long overdue for change in all realms and ramifications. It became a national outcry from the citizenry, the economy, educational institutions, the infrastructural assets, our health care facilities took a state of decay at all levels, stimulating high rate of death and agitation amongst the general workforce across board. When a living thing is deprived of air, death elements set in.

In this article, we are paying more attention to the transformational wind of change blowing across our great nation today. During the last general election, we saw the people of Nigeria come out in mass to take their destiny into their hands, this reflected on the body language of their voting pattern.

When we talk about change, we are talking of progressive transformation. Change is progressive, constant and dynamic in nature. Nigeria as a nation is at a critical moment of her history. At every turning point of a nation’s history, God blesses her with a Godly and visionary leader, who will midwife the necessary processes of necessary change required for her transformation and the prosperity of her citizens. We can boldly say Nigeria on May 29 this year was blessed with a great leader and an engineer of change in the person of our President Muhammadu Buhari.

The present leadership of the new administration is a crop of men and women with deep-seated cleric and know-how for transformational change. We are in the season of national metamorphosis. Speak of metamorphosis; I remember my secondary school days, when my biology teacher took our class on the subject of metamorphosis – the transformational change and development of certain insects, such as butterfly.

I like butterfly, and I’m highly fascinated with the processes of change it undergoes to transform into such a beauty to behold. There are four key stages covering the life circle of a butterfly, the egg, the laver (caterpillar) pupa (crystal), and then adult. Each stage of this metamorphosis is a necessary process towards full development. The first three stages do not paint the real picture of the butterfly, yet they are the foundational and fundamental stages necessary for the making of the butterfly. The egg state is the seed stage of the process; it embodies the genetic composition of the parent butterfly, and the detail design of the would-be and future butterfly.

In the history of the making of great nation, there is always the egg-state, which is the vision stage. To those that do not understand the law of seed and the law of process, time, and gestation, the egg or vision stage does not make much meaning. But to those that understand the principle and process of metamorphosis, eggs (vision) bring hope for future. We need to understand as a nation that the core strength of any nation derives primarily from the quality of its vision.

This present administration was powered with electoral vision by the power of a vision called change. When the leaders of the then opposition party (APC) conceived the vision of change, and laid it into the fertile womb of the masses, vision and purpose became the driving force, which became an unstoppable might that manifested during the last general election, resulting to seeping victory across the length and breadth of the nation. We can deduce from the outcome of the immediate past general election, that when visionary leader can deposit into the hearts and mind of the people the right egg of vision and purpose, a great desire for irresistible change will be born.

We know that strong desire is like force of raging flood, capable of knocking off any form of resistance of opposition. One could say with confidence, that the victory of change we enjoy in Nigeria today is a direct product of the vision that was deposited into the hearts and minds of the people.

In the metamorphosis of butterfly, egg (vision) is the beginning of the process, not the end. As the butterfly egg gives rise to the next stage (laver), so does a nation’s vision gives rise to the next stage? While observing the development of the life-cycle of the butterfly I notice that most people hold no value for the second and third stages of the process. The laver and pupa stages have no beauty to behold. As a result, these transformational stages are the most vulnerable, and endangered state of development. There are developmental stages in the making of a great nation. It starts with vision, but does not end there. Between visions (eggs) to the full-blown magnificent butterfly, are ugly looking stages (laver and pupa).

These are the determining moments in the process of transformational changes leading to the desired beautiful great nation. Butterflies understand certain laws, such as: law of seed (egg), therefore they lay eggs so as to procreate and to preserve posterity. They also understand the law of process, hence could endure the required developmental changes that the creator programmed in them. Thirdly, they know the law of time and seasons and so they patiently go through them. This is now what we Nigerians require to possess in order to finally experience the change which we voted for. We must learn from the butterflies how to go through a transformational change process.