The Book KEYS TO SUSTAINABLE EMPOWERMENT will be released soon
WATCH OUT!!!
Here is the Introduction
have travelled through the length and breadth of
the Niger Delta area of Nigeria and have observed that most of the citizenry
think alike. In 2012, I had the opportunity of interacting with a lot
of Rivers youths and women. During my interaction with them, I became
aware of the fact that many of them seem to use the word “empowerment”
too loosely. I felt the word was abused. I took out time to ask some
of them what they meant by empowerment. Their responses were the same.
Unfortunately, various successive governments in
Nigeria and Africa have for several years promised their citizens waves
of transformation packages that will ease their ever increasing pathetic
plights. From free education to freedom of information, from unrestricted
access to primary health care to economic empowerment, the promises
have always been the same. As the bulk of years keep rolling by, the
hope of achieving these goals keep fading and becoming bleak which makes
one ask questions as to whether another “messiah’ was coming
from the heavenlies to usher in these transformation packages.
From my interaction with people from the Niger Delta
area, I realized that true and sustainable empowerment seem to sound
ambiguous and political to a handful of them, and to others who really
know what it means, have refused to demand for it. As long as they get
their “cut”, the status quo can remain.
What does it really mean to be empowered? Governments
of African nations especially Nigeria as well as numerous Non-Government
Organizations [NGOs] have been straining their economic muscles in chains
of efforts aimed at empowering their people which the end result is
far less than the expected. Worse still, every election year, prospective
office holders gather those who care to listen, to rape their minds
of the same thing they heard in previous campaigns; some of the most
popular lines include “if you vote for us, we will empower you!”,
and then you will hear questions like, “do you want to be empowered?
Then join our team and vote for us”
Election promises hinged on sustainable empowerment
have failed. Taking a cursory look at how many women and youths have
been empowered in a state like Rivers for example, it reveals to those
who understand the real meaning of what it means to be empowered that
there has been only less than 10 percent fulfillment of such election
promises. Others with contrary view might mistake sustainable empowerment
to mean doling out tax payers money to few individuals whom they term
as loyalists.
This book expressly critiques the pattern with which
the government of our day empowers her people.
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