Today, I am sitting down in the famous LT bus of Lagos, famous but hardly comfortable endowed with its usual ill-mannered bus conductors...will the transport system ever become better, will customers ever become king in the transportation industry? Will anything ever change in this country?
Every Nigeria is looking forward to that Greenland TY Bello sang about and more especially with the emergence of the Buhari 's administration, how much of that change have we got? TY Bello 's new song "Land of Promise" shows that the Land is not yet green.
One reason in my opinion why the land is not green is because we refuse to tend to the pasture, we are simply a people dependent on miracles, so our plaxe of worships are full. We claim to believe, but we have no faith because there is no work to our believe. Our predicaments are not a product of bad leadership, but predicated by the corrupt society that produces them. We are people of different tongues but that should not be a problem you know, if there is unity in our diversity. The disunity extend beyond the inter tribal phenomenon, even tribes within themselves display unimaginable hatred. I could conclude that Nigerians suffers from lack of love and a complete lack of commitment to a common goal. There is lack of justice amongst the populace and emotions are no longer considered spontaneous , they are premeditated.
The Lagos State government is doing a great work by constructing a fly over bridge at the abule egba axis, laudable project not without its flaws though, but this post is not about the government. The transporters took advantage of this project and started charging ridiculous fare, and people had to pay because they had no choice. It is not enough that they inhale dust, have to trek a while to get to where the buses are, probably haven't made much at the close of business, nut now have to pay twice the normal amount to get to their abode for no other reason than the transport operators wickedness and insensitivity. Everytime it rains, fare jumps up. Whenever there is a crowd at the bus stop, fare jumps up, this has to change. We need to change.
Private sector employers sit in their offices and blame the government for not paying it's staff salary while the President and Governors live large, yet they do the same because they believe if the employee gets angry and leave they will surely get another, there are too much job seekers! Almost everyone spontaneously takes advantage of situation and circumstances to exploit others, and yet still blames the government for their own failure to do the right thing. We know what is right to do, but we have made doing the wrong thing laudable, eventually one of us will get to power and what else would you expect from his rule?
Artisans complain about low patronage, people say Nigerians live on foreign goods and refuse to buy made in Nigeria products, and I just shake my head everytime I think about my experiences. Nigerian artisans have the worse customer service, the moment your money passes into their pocket, you will beg,fight and cry before you get the good or service and sometimes you might never get it. Oh and not to mentiom that when you get it the quality will be so terrible! So why wouldn't I just go buy a foreign good off the shelve? I'll share one of my experience with a cobbler. I love cobblers making my shoes, you know for taste and perfect fit. So someone recommend one to me after I complained about the services of the cobbler making my shoes. I paid the new cobbler 80% upfront (which by the way is an error, you shouldn't pay Nigerian artisans that much upfront). He promised to finish the work in a week. It's been 5 weeks plus and I still haven't gotten it,after several visits to his shop! Now, if I call him on phone he says "oga, go and relax now,light no dey for this area,abi make I kill myself?". I regret ever stepping into his shop, now I would rather buy a foreign shoe off the shelf or on aliexpress. I am so done with Nigerian cobblers. It's not just the cobblers, same goes for the meat seller, recharge card seller, and many others, after one encounter with them you never return to engage them, and they blame the government for the lack of cash in their pocket.
Things can change, I would refrain from saying things will change, because change begins with me and you, the change we are looking for will not be achieved if I and you remain the same person we are. Artisans won't get anywhere Carlos Slim Helu when customers don't return to patropism them.
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