On my way to the office this morning, at a
particular junction, we watched a woman driving; continue to move instead of
waiting for some school children to cross the road.
This baffled my colleague and I because we
even horned to alert her (perhaps she did not see them) even with the glass on
her side whined down, yet she kept moving, nearly hitting two of the children
in the process.
I wondered about how uncaring we have
become to one another and thought of how much value the society places on the life
of fellow human beings.
As I stated in the first part of this
topic, man is the most valuable thing God created and mankind is said to have
been made in the image of God. This should presuppose that whatever God does
not deserve, should not be given to man and whatever we deem right for God
should also be made available to man.
In our country, this appears to be far from the reality. We see people who are going to church to worship God or returning from church service, where they would have sang praises to God and honoured God, treat fellow beings anyhow on the road. Some push one another at the Bus stop with the Bible in their hands. If that person seemingly blocking your way was to be God, will you push him down or quietly excuse him to be able to pass?
It is possible that those in authority do
not value the governed, because the governed do not value one another. People would
always treat you the way you present yourself. It is because our leaders
believe that people are not valued in our society that they do not value the
governed when they are in authority.
Another aspect of showing lack of value for the governed is in the area of carrying out projects in the society. A situation where government would not effectively monitor the implementation of projects and leave contractors to execute the way they deem fit, is deplorable.
Again the claim by some contractors that
they do not get enough money to execute projects which contract they bided and
won is insulting to the citizens, who pay their tax for these development
projects to be done.
Further still, another situation where
government officials are said to compel contractors to agree on a percentage
which the officials would eventually take out from the contract sum. Contractors
say that when this percentage is removed it affects the delivery of the project
because what remains of the contract sum is not enough to properly execute the
project.
In some cases they go ahead and execute the
project albeit, shoddily and at a very slow pace.
This ends up putting citizens through
stress as they endure the undue delay of the project execution. This happens
often in road rehabilitation projects. Sometimes project execution begins at the beginning of rainy season, which would eventually add to the delay, making life unbearable to the road users.
The questions are: Are these projects meant
to alleviate stress on the people or increase it? Is the motive of embarking on
such projects a show of government’s care for its people or the need for
government to execute projects in its tenure of office? Do government officials
realize that they are insulting the sensibility of taxpaying citizens when they
take bribe to line their pockets from funds meant for projects that should
benefit the people.
Our society must learn to value its people,
their life, their comfort and general welfare. It is true that the leaders in
authority were produced from the same society thereby making it difficult for
them to already have the capacity to do things differently. Yet the leaders should
realize that the opportunity they have to be in authority, also gives them the
responsibility to do all they legitimately can to be better and be role models
to the people they are leading.
Talks
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