Dennis Othuechere Ogu
On different occasions, some Nigerian leaders have used a number of expressions to describe the masses as impatient. This could be due to rowdy scenes at such places as fuel stations, movement of cars on the roads, queues at banks’ ATMs or banking halls, and more recently the disgraceful and embarrassing stampedes at venues for the distribution of palliatives that have caused preventable deaths. The above scenes tend to give credence to the fact that Nigerians are truly impatient people.
But like popular saying, there’s no smoke without fire. Somebody cannot just be impatient for no reason! Again, impatience cannot be an attribute to be used in identifying a people forever. Impatience has never been an inherent Nigerian factor; at least, judging from the time of independence when most citizens demonstrated discipline. They were not known for impatience during the good old days.
However, the evidence of impatience became very glaring more recently.
But if impatience is not a product of urgency or greed, it will then surely result from despair, lack of trust, or it may come as the effect of many failed promises and insincerity on the part of our public office holders.
Urgency is what almost everybody must have experienced at one point or another. Seeing your loved one at the point of death, or being in dire need of solution to an important problem that needs immediate attention will always call for urgency; and one can lose one’s patience at such situations. There are many other instances that can bring about this in our daily lives.
On the other hand is greed. This is a personal trait that some persons possess which is found in every part of the world, not only in Nigeria. Greed can make people by pass law and order, bribe law enforcement agents and even suppress others just to get what others have been waiting patiently to get in their own turn. Greed can equally make someone take what belongs to others.
But now, the impatience that is affecting almost every Nigerian citizen is the one caused by lack of trust, despair, insincerity and cases of failed promises. And these negative traits are associated with bad leadership. Every Nigerian who has reached the age of reasoning is a witness to the insincerity of our leaders, long list of promises that are still unfulfilled till today for reasons unknown to the citizens . A situation where somebody lacks trust in a system or in the leadership of an organization or where he sees those at the helm of affairs as insincere, or where he believes that if he does not make some noise or fight his way through, nobody would attend to him or give him his due, why then would he be patient waiting endlessly and aimlessly? He has to break protocols and get what he wants if he has the power.
The corruption in the Nigerian system has made many law abiding citizens to lose their patience and faith in the system and become lawbreakers overnight.
In different companies, both private and public, if people do not fight for their promotion and other entitlements, nobody would allow them have it. In fuel stations, if you decide to wait on the queue, you may stay there forever without getting the fuel because some other people may have gone behind to take your turn.
The same thing happens in most banks where some of the staff attend to only the customers that they are familiar with or those that grease their palms, while still insisting that everybody must be on the queue. Also, getting a job in some government institutions and agencies particularly those considered money-spinning must be through ‘connection’ or whom you know, yet thousands of applicants are asked to submit their applications and wait for when they would be called for.
If you decide to follow instructions given by those at the helm of affairs hoping to be attended to and be treated with respect and dignity, in the end you may find out that nobody would care about you and your law-abiding disposition will end up with insults. So, why will people be patient in the face of all these? Is it even justified if they should be patient? One popular writer once said, “it is unlawful to be law abiding in a lawless society.”
This impatience and its causes have made Nigerian society appear like a system that lacks sanity especially where there are queues and large gatherings. And it is a dent in the country’s image in the eyes of the world. Is it not the same impatience that has caused the recent stampedes in Ibadan, Abuja and Okija? The over 67 deaths recorded at the gathering wouldn’t have occurred if people who came there never doubted the assurances given to them by the organizers that they would get the food palliatives.
The bottom line therefore is: if our leaders at various levels want a sane society; if they want to deal with this impatience resulting from lack of trust decisively, they should be responsible and honest in their dealings with the citizens.
For a better society
_______________________________
Follow us across our platforms:
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/championnewsonline/
Facebook – https://web.facebook.com/championnewsonline
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/champion-newspapers-limited/
https://x.com/championnewsng/
You can also like and comment on our YouTube videos.
https://youtu.be/QIBfD1tT80w?si=R4Qf3so2LxYu3GC2
