Photo credit: The Punch
Someone posted an indictment on the begging culture which has now enveloped us.
When I say, us, I really do mean it!
In the past, the standard way of writing a letter for employment was to begin with, ‘I beg to apply…’
These days we’re not begging for employment but for favours when we shouldn’t if we had done the right thing at the right time.
Llhe fault is ours as a people. Instead of going to vote our conscience for people who would do what we want, we allow ourselves to be hoodwinked by the cunningness of godfathers.
Once they empower us, they pick candidates for us. It’s not a matter of whether the candidates do well or not. It’s a matter of what we know how to eat killing us gradually.
And so, we would have signed off another four years through our greed.
While the godfathers pick choice political posts for their surrogates who dare not complain unless they want the heavens to fall upon them, the Godless godsons too are on a looting spree.
Why is it that in spite of the fact that the eighteen thousand naira minimum wage, if paid at all, is not enough to last the average honest worker till month end, workers still pretend everything is ok?
When I consider the fact that the Nigerian worker would always ask for a ‘salary increase’, I can’t help bursting into laughter. The Nigerian worker usually thinks once his salary is increased, everything will be alright and he will live happily ever after.
They have chosen to forget that an increase in government minimum wages also brings increase in the salaries of workers in the organised private sector.
The one that is especially interesting is that of the informal private sector which consists of the landlords, food sellers and so on.
So, an average worker will enjoy an increment in their financial power for a limited time. However, once the traders wisen up to the salary increment, the case will return to, ‘normal’.
Instead of demanding for salary increments, workers should demand for improvement in basic amenities like roads, housing, electric power supply and accountability in government. Are all these even available?
One other thing is the reward system in terms of salaries and gratuities. The fact that someone has been elected as a councillor does not make the demand of his immediate family more pressing than that of his classmate who has decided to serve as a technocrat.
Why is it that a person who retires from office, as say, the governor of Lagos gets a house each in Abuja and Lagos while a person who has spent his lifetime in the civil service has not found enough resources to complete his two bedroom apartment in the rural area.
We may go on and on, but I feel that until all these inadequate inequalities are resolved, the situation might still be the same.
The Yoruba used to be a proud people who would rather die than beg. Where is that pride now?
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