MAN, FIX YOURSELF – TO FIX NIGERIA

“Our nation needs men, real men; men like Daniel, Meshach, Shedrach and Abednego; men like Joseph and David, men who fill their minds with, meditate on and stand for “things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious--the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse” (Philippians 4:8; Message).  I wish to be among them. What about you?

It’s 3am. I am reminiscing about that day 40 years ago, when I walked into the Kakawa Street offices of The Daily Times of Nigeria Limited (DTN) to begin, in earnest, a career in journalism.

It was only my second visit to the “hallowed” grounds of what was then an institution many would give an arm and a leg to belong to. Yet, I gave far less – in fact I gave next to nothing. All I did to get a job as Feature Writer in the magazine division of that conglomerate was respond to a newspaper advertisement and go all the way from Ibadan to Lagos for a test and interview. I promptly returned home to Ibadan, my fare to Lagos fully refunded and the return fare paid to boot. I didn’t know anybody in there; nobody remotely hinted at anything untoward that I had to do to pave the way for me to get the job.

I was blissfully going about my business, working at the Radiology Department of the University College Hospital (UCH), being a lineage correspondent of the Daily Sketch newspaper and trying my hands at fiction writing, when a letter of appointment was delivered to my house by a staff of the Ibadan office of the media house. As the cliché goes, the rest is history.

Suddenly, I am jarred to the present. In a few hours, I have to board a flight to Ilorin, Kwara state to pick up a document in one of my children’s school. It is a document that my dear sister-in-law had unsuccessfully tried to collect, in spite of being armed with a letter of authority. My son, who is abroad and who needs the document, had also made telephone calls to authenticate the letter of authority. I weighed in too. But, the official concerned would not budge, citing previous unpleasant experiences in related circumstances.

The implication is that several man hours will be lost and expensed incurred on a trip that will add little value to the national economy this Friday, the first day of June, because “HONOUR IS IN SHORT SUPPLY” in our land! And I am wondering, how did we come to this sorry pass? Whatever happened to the Nigeria, I grew up in? Where has the Nigeria of my young adult life disappeared to?

Now, those questions have been asked and answered in many ways. It has led our only Nobel laureate yet, Wole Soyinka to describe his generation as a “wasted generation.”. It has led somebody I cannot remember now to declare that we might go into history as the “generation that lived better than their parents and better than their children.”  Think about that!

I answer those questions, however, by pointing in the direction of us men. As the men go, so goes the world. That may offend the liberal sensibilities of many of us steeped in western thoughts, but, as I have tried to show on these pages before, it is the biblical truth. As one of my mentors would have put it, Nigeria, indeed the world, has a MEN PROBLEM.

As I wrote here not too long ago: “Events in our nation, of course, never cease to leave one wondering, what manner of men are leading us. We are a nation always dancing near the precipice and the music and dance is invariably orchestrated and choreographed by a band of men; hardly ever women. And I assure you, I have engaged with this conundrum long enough to know that it has little to do with statistics!  It’s just that we do not seem to have raised enough men of character, of courage, of virtue; men who know that the destiny of our nation depends, not on their chauvinistic monopolisation of power and authority, but on the sense of responsibility that power demands.”

I am fully persuaded that the problem began with the assumption that somehow men will be men; that beyond the general assistance that children need to transit to adulthood, no special help is required. Yet we spend time to groom the girl child; to help them transit from girls to women, to wives, to mothers etc. Although this is gradually changing, the effect of previous neglect in this area is so pervasive that we have a lot of work to do.

That is why we the men must seize every opportunity to catch up. That is why wherever the men problem is tackled, every man must make the effort to be there and everybody else must encourage as many men they know as possible to be there.

One such forum is MEN’S SUMMIT 2012. Organised by Christian Men’s Network Nigeria of Christ Chapel International Churches (CCIC), the conference opens in Lagos on Thursday, June 14 and runs till Sunday June 17.

The theme, Rediscovering Manhood will be addressed by men of God who have been selected by the Holy Spirit to speak as the Lord’s oracle on this all-important subject. Dr Christopher Kolade, who needs next-to-no introduction, is one of them. This is one of the not so many men about whom most of us are agreed has the moral high ground to speak about the issues that touch us men. Pastor Taiwo Odukoya, Senior Pastor of Fountain of Life Church and President, Discovery for Men is another. His heart for men led him to found Discovery for Men about 15 years ago and he has consistently gathered men for rallies every quarter since then.

MEN’S SUMMIT 2012 will hold at the fully air-conditioned auditorium of CCIC, Surulere Centre at Okanlawon Ajayi Street, Een of Masha Foot Bridge.

As I wrote on another occasion, “Our nation needs men, real men; men like Daniel, Meshach, Shedrach and Abednego; men like Joseph and David, men who fill their minds with, meditate on and stand for “things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious--the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse” (Philippians 4:8; Message).  I wish to be among them. What about you?  See you at the summit.