Nigeria at the precipice – To crash or to fly

Segun Odegbami

By the time you are reading this, I shall be in Oye Ekiti at the Seventh Convocation of the Federal University, receiving an award that will occupy an enviable place amongst my chest of awards collected over the past half a Century. This one is special, and I thank the university for this recognition coming at a time in my country’s history that I believe will be a positive turning point in Nigeria’s history.

The past few days, in particular, have not been the best for all Nigerians. They have become victims of their own devices, presenting prospecting leadership that does not represent their best versions.

Directly or indirectly, passively or actively, we all have been complicit in birthing these dangerous days in our country’s story, a tale of decay and decadence.     Nigerians no longer have a choice but to make a U-turn and find their way back ‘Home’ to a land gifted them by the Creator of the Universe to be their own Garden of Eden, the best place on earth to live and prosper, but which, through jaundiced and narrow choices, they have turned into their ‘hell’ here on earth.  

I am a sportsman, an athlete that now understands the inevitability of ‘failure’ as the essential fuel of success. To ‘fail’ many times is a basic ingredient in the life of athletes. It drives us to become winners and champions, motivation tools for surpassing normal goals.   

In sport, to succeed is not easy. It always requires passing ‘raw talent’ through a crucible of fire. This means a daily grinding regimen of long hard and difficult days in the sun and rain, in heat and cold, making sacrifices, giving up pleasures, remaining single-minded and focused till the finish-line that lies ahead in the realm of uncertainty, with