Remarks By Mr. Oseloka H. Obaze, MD/CEO Selonnes ConsultWhile Accepting Meritorious Leadership Award, By The Rotary Club Awka GRA
At
the East End Hotel ,Awka, Saturday 30 July, 2016
[Protocols]
I am extremely honoured
to join you this afternoon. Thank you so much for the gracious invitation and
more especially for finding me worthy of recognition by the Rotary Club of
Nigeria for my humble services to our humanity. This, indeed, is the second
time within three years that I am being honoured by a Rotary Club. I am truly
humbled and accept this award with deep gratitude.
I salute the Rotarian
Arc. Danielson NdubuisiOsitadinma, President, 2016-17 of the Rotary Club of
Awka GRA, District 9140 Nigeria. I also salute your entire members, especially
my dear friend, Hon. Fidel Okafor and those who collectively weighed in on the
decision to honour me.
I salute the Rotarian
spirit, your collective commitment to public morality, equity and altruism and
your collective aspiration to make our humanity better by restoring our fast
diminishing hope in the value of doing good and rendering public service.
As always, I remain
steadfast in applauding and supporting the Rotarian principles, especially the
four-way test, which should guide those in leadership positions and
politics. Because it retains unchanging
validity, let me repeat what I said two years ago to the Rotary Club Onitsha
East. “Your four-way test remains valid
today, as it were in the good old days, when the public service had integrity,
and was not bedeviled by greed, impunity, and corruption. Regardless of the
form or structure of governance in place, the questions of the four-way test
remain unequivocal.” These challenges
are more so in present day Nigeria.
Today, I will speak
briefly on “Surviving These Changing Times”. Incidentally, as I was finalizing
these remarks, I came across, rather fortuitously, a piece written by Kenneth
Gyado, titled, “How Times Have Changed.”
It was indeed a remarkable coincidence; serendipity of sorts.
The line that caught my
attention in the piece was this: “In Nigeria, there is no objective yardstick
of measuring right and wrong. The phenomenon of RIGHT and WRONG is defined by
how the situation affects the individual. It is purely a matter of personal
perspective.” End Quote.Then another
line declared poignantly, “In Nigeria the elite prosper while the country
collapses”.
Well, we -- most of us
in this room -- belong to the cadre of Nigeria elite, even if we are inclined
to dodge that sobriquet now.
Nonetheless, we must assume part, if not full responsibility for what is
happening to our country. The reality is
that we have made bad choices: bad choices in choosing our leaders, bad choices
in our governance methods; bad choices in setting our national priorities and
indeed, bad choices, in our shifting national lifestyles. We must accept the collective responsibility
as we seek desirable change.
I personally pride
myself as a problem solver. Perhaps, that is why I admire the Rotarians. I believe that there are no challenges --
political, governance or natural -- that confront our humanity that are
insurmountable. But just as we make
hard, good or bad choices, we must also take hard-headed decisions. We must,
like we were taught in college “never be content with a half-truth when the
whole can be won.” We must make hard
choices about the type of leaders we need; not convenient choices of choosing
those who best suit our psyche of easy lifestyle and inclination to squandering
public wealth by using it as political largess. This explains why our nation is
broke today, and twenty-eight states cannot pay salaries.
As Rotarians, you must
speak up and stand up for your ideals, setting aside the convenience of
partisanship, sectionalism, ethnicity, clannishness and the lure to belong or
get along.
I know that surviving
in this difficult era of a tanking economy is very difficult; but it will get
worse, if we do not reclaim our political space, our moral space and our
historical space. Since we no longer
teach history in our schools, we are already marching toward being
non-existent.
It is no longer a
matter of the strong surviving; it is a matter of society surviving trough that
efforts of those who stand up for the truth; for what is right and for what is
fair to all. That is the calling and
mandate of Rotarians. I urge you not to relent in your efforts.
In closing, applaud the
charity work you do in support of the destitute, delivery of healthcare and
other humanitarian concerns. I know such humanitarian services have financial
cost implications. As such, I will support
your collective mission by offering my token contribution to your noble efforts.
Surviving These Changing Times By Mr. Oseloka H. Obaze
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Monday, August 01, 2016
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