WHY ARE WE WHERE WE ARE?

The problem is not the quantity of what is available or not available but what can be done with what is available. There's usually a problem with a people who are plunged into abundance who can't manage what they have. With such, what is meant to be a blessing becomes a curse just like the case with Nigeria and Africa.

Africa is blessed with so many natural and human resources but can't manage what she has, yet Belgium which has no mineral resources but only humans far less the population of Africa has a gross domestic product which competes with that of the entire continent of Africa.

Great Britain which has the most awful weather condition in the world and can fit into Nigeria several times has no oil, no gold, no diamonds etc yet was able to conquer almost the whole world simply because they learnt how well to manage just one thing. Today, I can write this piece and you can read it because of a people known as great Britain. How big is great Britain? It's a small Island with nothing but only people who learn time management.

The resource we need to become a developed people is not beneath the earth but on the earth and right in our heads: the mind; for as a people think, so they are.

However, there is hope nation. After juxtaposing the problems of Africa with that of other developed worlds, I asked my self several questions such as "why are we where we are?" And the answer I got is that we are not where we are because of who we are or what we do not have or have but simply because of the choices we make as a people, thus I decided to be among the generation of Africans that will turn the tides around and change the statistics. Together we can have a PARADIGM SHIFT in Africa starting from our immediate constituencies.

Maidoh Collins writes from Abuja.

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