#JusticeForPelumi

Nigeria can be great again and Nigeria will be greater than it has ever been, but when? This is the question on every well-meaning Nigerian’s mind and it is a very daunting one.

The month of October will go down in history as the month that Nigerians woke up. It was two weeks of labor pains, a generation crying out in agony but never relenting because they saw beyond the present; they saw a future so beautiful they would rather die than back down.

All over the Nation, we saw the most organic leadership the Nation had ever seen; patriotism at its best and the birth of a new “Nigerian Dream”. For the first time since the 1980s, Nigerians were proud to be called Nigerians, the National Anthem had a renewed meaning and our flags were raised in solidarity for what could become a truly democratic Nation where the Government was indeed of the people, for the people and by the people. The human capital deficit we suffer as a people was buried under layers of true humanity, people showing kindness to total strangers, accountability, integrity, respect for everyone regardless of social status, religion or ethnicity; the very things that were used as weapons against us became our shield because we had one focus; Justice for all.

Unfortunately, we underestimated the level of deficiency of human capital in our Nation. We knew that we had a deficit, but we never knew just how bad it was until they began to plot and execute plans that involved the use of bullets against banners, papers and flags. What the events in October showed us is that as a people, we are capable of great things, we are capable of love, kindness, law and order but it also showed us that there are no systems set up to effectively develop our human capital in such a way that places value on human lives regardless of their social status, political or religious views. Our singular interest as a Nation should be to train our young ones to embrace diversity as a gift rather than a threat.

We need to question the kind of training/Orientation that public Servants receive because if they knew better, we will not be where we are today. The story of young journalist Pelumi Onifade is one of many such stories. Pelumi is every Nigerian; young or old, male or female. Let us put things in their right perspective so that we can move forward.

The story as seen on Twitter goes thus;

Pelumi, a young journalist, who was out on this faithful day, just like any other day doing his job, was the only one who caught the unfortunate event of innocent and defenseless protesters being shot at by an alleged public Servant, on Camera. Pelumi, who is first a human, and a citizen of Nigeria before anything else, was only doing his job but that sparked off a series of tragic events that ultimately led to the young man’s death. Nobody knew Pelumi’s whereabouts for a few days until his body was discovered in Police Custody (follow #justiceforPelumi on Twitter to learn more).

Pelumi was as human as any of us; he had a future and although we would never know now, he could have been the Solution to some of our Socio-Economic problems as a Nation. The future is HUMAN, and so we need everyone to get through each day in one piece. Every Nigerian life is a solution to a problem; we only need the right mindset and orientation to develop our Human Capital.

What do you think is truly behind these human capital deficits? Why does it appear like some humans within the same society are treated better than others or do some lives not matter at all?