 ઈ આ ઉ ઇ ત ઈ ઈ �工作 ઈ ઄ ક જ ઄ છ મ જ ઙ ઋ ઁ ્ ઌ ઄ ્ ્ ્ ્ ્ ി ્ ્ ્ ઩ ઉ જ ્ ્ ઐ ઘ ્ ઐ ્ ્ ન ્ ્ ્ જ ્ ક ્ ્ ધ, ક બ, ્ � . . about the good old days. Are they not so good ones? Some will look back with nostalgia. Some will regret. But at the end of it all, we will move on till it is another October. The nation has been bereft of freedom, peace and unity. Many of us fear to move freely even within our comfort zone. Mine is Legos. We fear being kidnapped. We fear being mugged even on open roads. An avid recreational bicyclist, Afolabi Magmugnge. I will say his name. Afolabi Magmugnge died from stab wounds from robbers. Who only took his phone where he was waiting for his riding bodies? He could have been me. Riding is one of those joys I wish to indulge in till my body resists. Our collab did not make it a story for another day. Despite the fact that he rode several kilometers to seek medical help. We are quick to blame everyone but ourselves for the decay we have in Nigeria. We are quick to line up behind political figures who had no corporate value. But promote personal and sectional ideas. But we can have peace. We can have unity. We can have it or when a few of us inculcate the right spirit. Stella Adadevo put a life online for public health. Some of our colleagues barely escaped with theirs. So others can live. Many medical doctors in public hospitals are carrying the burden of the cost of medical expenses of indigent patients. Imagine if more of us have these kinds of dispositions. A Nigerian cab driver in the US identified as Adikule returned $700 that was forgotten by a passenger in his car. Ola Inka Adini, a cab operator under the Airport Carrier Association of Nigeria, also returned $2,400 and an international passport that was forgotten by a passenger. We should strive for the resilience of the flying eagles of the demand miracle fame. The match created a footballing record as Nigeria became the first team to come back from four goals down to equalize and then go on to win a FIFA World Cup match at any level. All the Atlanta 96 team that beat football superpowers to win Nigeria an Olympic gold. At these times, our drive should come from the positives we have and the people. More of us need to decide to take positive steps to rebuild Nigeria from the ground up since it has become difficult otherwise. Line up when you should. Respect others' time. Respect others' rights to their ideas within the confines of the law. Hold public officials accountable. Educate fellow voters. And perform your civic rights. Maybe one day, one nation will be bound in freedom, peace and unity. And it will mean more than the lyrics of a song. I really love your thoughts because it really got emotional for me at some point talking about freedom, peace and unity. And when you really look at it, it was even as if we knew when I was sharing my thoughts, I didn't know what you were sharing. But that national pledge has a lot that can change our country. Talk about freedom, you spoke about movement, you spoke about unity, you spoke about peace. When these three things are in place, but today we can't find them. We find out that most of the times Nigeria has recorded the best of results. We have periods when these three things were in sync. When we were free to do everything we can do as one nation. When we were very peaceful, we respected our diversity. We appreciated our diversity, our uniqueness and we embraced our differences. We were able to respect our differences. We have done remarkably well. But today when somebody approaches you, the first thing that happens subconsciously you start imagining where he's from. If you don't imagine where he's from, he's from the state of origin, you're already imagining what's his church. And so when you are asking this thing in your mind, even without saying it, you are already breaking that code of that aspect of unity. Because somewhere something is being broken. Okay, it's not from church A, it's from church B. You start questioning the differences, the ethics, the regulations, the dogmas. And you start disagreeing with even any other thing that he's doing because he's from this sect. So I didn't think that this is very, very powerful. We really need to go back to the basics, like I said. Freedom, we must have to start thinking about this. And peace, our unity must have to be at the crux of the matter. Well, for me I would say I quite agree with you Raymond. The concept of Nigeria, our corporate existence as Nigeria or as Nigerians is more important by thriber and ethnic affiliation. Now the peace and unity is not just an abstract ideology. It's something that is practicable. There are steps we have to take as a people on in our side. Because it's not a video we blame the government on. The government, yes, they have a part to play for policy and enactment of certain rules and maybe trying to put institutions and individuals accountable by enforcing laws. But as people, we should see ourselves that everybody is a leader in his sense. Do something to inspire other persons, do the right thing. Number one, there are things we need to do, strategies we need to imbibe as a people. I'm not even talking about government now. We should be more inclusive with whatever we do. Let me give you a very practical example. I know of, I had somebody that said, I would not mention the particular Trump. He said, is he landlady if she wants to rent a house or she doesn't like renting a house to this type of tribe. Why? Because she thinks that these people are troublemakers or she's not sure of how they will make their money or something. It's not supposed to be, you should not be having prejudices here. Do your things be inclusive. You should be more interested in somebody, what the person can offer you as an individual in terms of business and also as a collective coexistence as Nigerians than who the person is in terms of where he's coming from, his tribe affiliation or his religion. Don't care about that. But there was something remain that brought up earlier and which is about our perspective, our mindset. The person that does that, that says, I'm not going to give someone from Niger Delta or whatever. You also find that that person is also very likely to say, I'm not going to give a Christian a house. I'm also very likely to say, I'm not going to give a woman a house. Some of these things come from the kind of mindset that does not allow you to look beyond the box. I was just thinking of something. If you get into trouble in the UK, if someone gets into trouble in the UK, you're probably not going to tell the policemen that are, you know you're my brother. But in Nigeria, if you just think that the law enforcement officer. It's a fictional language. You will try to get favourites. It's because we find it easy to play the ethnic cards, both sides. And then also because even the law enforcer himself is not just. And what I mean by being just. I catch someone, that person has done something, is drunk. I'm saying, okay, go. It's your first time or it's the morning, go. I'm not looking at where you are from or anything. But that is what you don't find. You probably will not find in other clients where what people do is, based on what they're looking at, are you from this place? Are you not from this place? And in places where there are racial issues, you know that there are very clear racial issues, like what's opposed in the US. You know that there are very clear racial issues. But in our own case, it's killing because, we look like it's not obvious. You can't say, oh, this guy is invisible. We don't have to make them obvious. Just like what Fela Nikulapo said some years back. Fela, he said something that if in South Africa at that time at some point, we talk about apartheid, the whites hitting black. What will you say about you hitting your brother? You know there is something that Omoni said that I really want to emphasize. I've always been of the opinion that corruption is not the problem of Nigeria. I can say that anywhere. I think if you ask me what is the problem of Nigeria, I will simply say that there are no consequences for actions. There are no consequences for actions. Because corruption is very, very relative. I mean what is corruption? Are you pointing at the teacher in the classroom that is not standing up to teach the students with all her heart? Are you pointing at the employer that is not paying their worker's salary as at when do you? Are you pointing at the security man at the gate who can't allow you to pass because you don't look like you're going to give him money? Are you pointing at the staff that is hiding someone's file because they're not giving you? So I think that there are no consequences for actions in Nigeria. And when I mean consequences, I'm not just talking about even people doing bad things. I also mean people doing good things. Because here we don't celebrate people for the good things that they are doing. Most of the Nigerians that get to be celebrated find out is because a foreign eye is beginning to point on them. Or maybe a foreign eye has taken them out and celebrating them heavily for the little things that they are doing. Then our people start rushing, is our child, is our niece, is our dad. The same thing with the negative aspect. Can we get to a point where people are punished outrightly without looking at your face, without looking at who could be your father? You know, I had an experience in a particular country that I went to. And while at the airport I saw someone who from a country and the person made an offence that here could have just, slide and that was the person trying to boycott COVID protocols. And they cut the person at the airport outrightly, find the person $3,000. Just trying to boycott and there was no Jupiter that could reverse that. The person paid $3,000. The person was going to face five years in jail. So if you are going to pay $3,000 for doing that after paying it, I'm very sure even inside our room, she will never think of boycotting any process. And so we have to come to a point here in Nigeria where people are punished outrightly. But here we have laws, but how many of them have been enforced? How many of the politicians have been sent to jail? They just come out and they make caricature of us. And so back to what we are also saying, we must come to that point for us to achieve freedom. We must get to a point where people who are defaulting in the rules, in the laws that have been set, are being punished. Because it is only then that the rest of the society, the rest of the society will begin to align with an already existing rule. And so we can achieve freedom. You know that if you are going on the road and you assault somebody, you harass someone, there is a system that has seen what you have done. You know that if you jump the traffic, if you jump the traffic or you drink drive, nobody will beat you. But by the time you get to someone, somebody comes and gives you a ticket and you have to pay or you don't drive. If these things don't happen, we can't talk a bit about freedom because people are just going about doing anything because nobody is catching them. We can't talk about unity because right now we already just mentioned about the things that divide us more than connect us together. Even in an age where technology is connecting people, we still find this tiny, tiny, tiny divides around this whole area. When even knowledge is global right now, you still want to check if this person is your brother before you teach him. Is this person from this place before I can teach him? Is this person from my church before I can teach him? It's no longer about the result, but about who is involved. So I really think that we have to really achieve this. And the issue of peace, like Felix rightly pointed out, has to be a collective effort. Peace has to be a collective effort. Can we really start looking after our neighbors even right where we are? We need to start getting accountable and it starts with ensuring that our individual goals does not affect the peace and the progress of the next person. If that doesn't happen, then you're not accountable. And so everywhere we start having randomness everywhere and things will begin to get complex. What you said actually, your right ends where the other person's right begins. If you talk about peace, like we said, we have to be practised by inclusion. Then we should also embrace the fact that we as a people, we are diverse in our views, our ideas, our cultures, our religion. But we should embrace the collective corporate nature of an existence, Nigeria, where everybody can benefit and aspire to be anything. Now that brings me to this issue of what happened yesterday. There was a video circulating initially and people were saying the police shouldn't have attacked this set of individuals because of their religious belief and orders. So people should be respected. Everybody should have that ownership of Nigeria. No Nigerian is more Nigerian than any other Nigerian. But hopefully everybody can claim to exist together as Nigeria. Actions and consequences. We hope our conversations continue to resonate with you. Join us again next week on another edition of The Advocate. 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