By Nneka Okumazie
Omoyele Sowore is always the smartest guy, whose stance on issues was always the best, whatever he hated was bad for everyone, and his public opinions seemed to be facts.
He did some great investigative journalism, but often took into nonsense. Some of his reports had no goal of a better society just clatter for prominence and to be the man.
He helped corrupt activism. He focused on activism – selling it like a solution. He loves to bark, and he sometimes became the story, rather than the conduit.
He and the Sahara Reporters team successfully disgraced some politicians. He also was able to get certain access and spotlighted certain matters, but his overall impact on development of Nigeria is negligible.
Though, in part, because Nigeria is numb to investigative journalism – and news of corruption. But mostly because he thought more news of corruption would make any difference.
There is no electricity in Nigeria because there is no direct focus on solutions for distribution and generation – from the private sector, investors or the public sector.
There is no need to always think that telling us all the time how much corruption is in the power sector would mean smart work or make some difference.
Some neighbourhoods have power outages for weeks, some for months, some recurrently have damaged transformers, some are often at risk of fallen poles and some always just have eight hours of electricity per week. This problem before our eyes are real and needs solutions, no one cares – why – all the time.
How many people or groups are completely focused on how to solve problems in the power sector? Not some sham or some distant announcements we all already used to, but real focus to do nothing else but to solve the problem, and continue to get better at the solution?
Everyone in Nigeria often loves to say everyone else is dumb, or not smart, or gullible or brainwashed or colonized. But no matter what anyone’s actual intellectual capability is, Nigeria is pathetically underdeveloped.
There are stuff and problems that were the same way from half a century ago that are still the same. There are rarely projects focused on true development only.
Nothing pointedly transcendent is exactly happening at any education in Nigeria – expensive or cheap. But there are collective myths in Nigeria to mean something is really good if it has some stuff.
There is – maybe – no school in Nigeria completely focused on producing a great percentage of geniuses, or say those who graduate and their sole passion will be to do nothing else but find solutions until major problems are solved and advancement is made.
Same way we should have agriculture solutions against hunger, job creation against unemployment, earnings against poverty, monetary policies against poverty, traffic strategy against traffic, public health solutions against grim healthcare, etc.
But NO, we have complainers, most of all, or everybody at some point. There is generally no focus on solving problems. Meanwhile some of these could be successfully pioneered from private sector, irrespective of whom, or what team, or location.
Yet, Sowore would blame government, call them useless and still make recommendations for them, seeing them as the starting point for all solutions – which is not so. This activism style deluded Nigeria and made those who claim to be smart remain stuck on criticisms year on year.
Sowore also likes to attack the church, attack RCCG, Winners, Pastor Adeboye and Bishop Oyedepo. In his own understanding, he felt they are a public problem, and it was in the interest of the public to criticize them.
But he’s wrong. RCCG or Winners are not a hindrance to Nigeria’s development in any way, shape or form. They are for places for faith, hope and worship.
They are not for national development. And they can be likened to a personal habit, or social activity and the spending there is – discretional social spending – with faith.
Electricity cuts, the biggest underdevelopment problem in Nigeria has nothing to do with the church. Yet, he thought somehow the church is some problem or hindrance and wanted to disgrace the church.
Usually, people are often passionate and motivated based on what they know or can think, and for him, thinking the church is a problem revealed him early on as a shallow zero, masquerading as important but with no value to actual development.
In his presidential campaign, he had some good ideas and sounded like a reformist, but undid himself with his statement on marijuana export. He’s now known as the weed candidate.
He has gone from reasonable to unreasonable, just like one of his losers who thought that attacking tithes – a voluntary giving of faith, was a way to crush the church, but that campaign of Daddy Freeze has become a dud and he’s going for government activism.
Sowore may have thought that he can create some foundation, or actually become president but whatever made him recommend exportation of marijuana – publicly – as a revenue model for Nigeria, exposed his hollowness that had been misty – to others – for years.
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