By Nneka Okumazie
It is not often about what some people have or don’t, it is often about what is not there. The places around the world where local progress seems static is not a problem of what resources they don’t have or what capital, or what foreign powers hinder them, but what qualities they don’t have as a people to drive change.
The higher challenge in many countries of the world is not that problems may arise, but that they don’t have the courage, intellect or will to solve problems. Many in those places often say they are looking for people to help their condition, but they may really need people to aid their cognition.
The story of development sometimes is the comparison of love and care. There are unions where people come into, where they deeply care about each other, doing all it means to care. There is the setup of care in a way it has rules, to follow and prove, but for them, love – or the true kind of love is not there.
Love in a natural way that is not about rules or imitation, but something between both in a way that changes what it means to be total about the other is different from the best of care, which may often look like love, as the main. If it is not there, it just isn’t.
This is the case of how some nations that should have what it takes to build their society, lack the natural engine to drive progress across sectors, in their own way against challenges. They often face the wrong problems, find something else to complain about and are unable to find adjustments away from the rules of development suggested elsewhere.
They are not collective people or building people, they are often self-people and material people. They are sometimes the kind of people that when some object or possession is in popular use, some would do whatever it takes to get it, just to let others see they’re acceptable. They are not a people to find what role they can play with the little or more power they have to make a difference for the future the society may have.
Though worth the effort, some possessions are not the best achievement after a life has gone away. It may be argued that offspring would benefit, but there is no guarantee that it may decisively change the course of their outcomes with respect to excellence. But what to give to the world, a community or others, in what will drive change and continue to multiply, carries more value, post-life.
There are countries where the same way people think many years ago is still the way they think about situations. There is hardly any adjustment in the default way they believe they would have to address problems. They may have newer buildings or roads, but their ways of thinking hold them back, making them have nothing.
The problem with what is not there is that many don’t even know it isn’t, but continue to go along with what they lead themselves to think. Maybe some people and some nations may never be ready for development.
[Job 22:11, Or darkness, that thou canst not see; and abundance of waters cover thee.]