Rome they say was not built in a day, but the building started one day, and in fact the conceiving of the idea to build a city started in an instant in the mind of someone somewhere… And today, there is Rome… So in fact, Rome was built in a day…

It is often said that the journey of a thousand years starts with one step!

In the words of the Nigerian national anthem, Arise O compatriots and let’s start now… We have dwelled on our failures past long enough, we have cried about the dearth and gulf between us and the developed world long enough… But when has talking ever solved the problem? No documentation of any such in recent or ancient history… Change only comes about when action is taken!

Looking at our dear nation in comparison to the nations that we envy in terms of advancement an development in every aspect of human existence, one would agree with me that we have a long way to go. Talk of the economy, health care, businesses, technology, to but name a few… It’s just apt to say of Nigeria that there’s much room for improvement. But the purpose of this write up is not to outline the areas where we lag, but rather to charge us all to take the bull by the horn and take action now!!!

You know, personally I’ve always wondered if Nigeria can ever build underground train tunnels or so like we have in most of Europe, the US and even South Africa I guess… There have always been mention of one light rail system or the other, but nothing concrete yet… However, we must not fail to acknowledge the ongoing works in that regard in Lagos and also the ECOWAS project… But the truth is of course we can! All we need do is start! It seems almost impossible, uneasy and so on and so forth… But we can never get there except we start…

Record keeping has been a menace in Nigeria… We say the government has no record of who is who. You can’t even trace anyone to anywhere, unlike you have in say the US where there is a detailed record of almost every individual, their family ties, there address, academic and work history, criminal records, health records, and all the likes… Everyone is more like registered with the government… And yes, we envy this kind of organization and we keep crying why our country can not do same… But what’s wrong with starting now?! What’s wrong with going digital? What happened to the national census as the national ID card scheme that was done a few years ago? Why can’t we just start from those and translate the data collected to a digital database and take it on from there? Why can’t we just start now???
Why can’t we start the process of building a national database that caters for all aspect of the citizen’s life now?!?

And also on the smaller scale, our hospitals for instance especially the government owned hospitals, why can’t we just start keeping an electronic record of our clientele? If we do not start now, when will we ever start? At this age and time, we should be able to access the medical history of any patient by just the click of a mouse and not by searching through some dusty God-forsaken trash of tattered hospital files…

We can go on and on and apply same to every aspect of our national living… But the message is simple, let’s start now!

They say the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago, but the next best time is NOW…

Arise O Compatriots, Nigerians let’s start NOW…

This piece was written as part of my reflections in celebrating Nigeria’s 52nd independence anniversary!!!
Happy independence Nigeria… Your best days are yet ahead…