Necessity For Change

Change is the law of life, to turn from the old order to a new one for grater development. Stagnation is death as Carlyle said. Today is different from yesterday. Human beings themselves change. How then can our works and thoughts  remain same?
Change indeed is painful, yet needful. The history of the unchangeable is a figment of the fancy, an abstraction of the intellect unsupported by fact. That is the great lesson we learn that man dislikes change and likes to cling to the old order.
Man is always afraid of making fresh adjustments or moving out of the beaten track. With change, he is nervous; he finds his security gone and the stability of his life endangered. In truth, change, though inevitable, does not come easily.
Change always comes with opposition to existing order. This is simply the result of blind fear, a nervous dread of the unknown.
According to a poet, Tennyson, “the old order changeth yielding place to new”. But he quickly adds that even a good custom may corrupt the world.
The paradox is significant. A custom, however good, loses its inner justification, the sole reason of its existence by becoming unsuited to changed surroundings and circumstances. Just as the flowing water is wholesome, and stagnant water is poisonous, so is it with custom. Only when it flows through and alters with changes, it is able to refresh and recreate.
Relating these philosophies to Nigerian economy and the world, the reason for this is obvious. Unless citizens in our country and the world change, the condition of the material world will remain stagnant. Unless we flow with change, there is bound to be conflicts and maladjustments.
Hence, a man must prepare himself for change in order to be in harmony with a continuously changing material world. If this change be resisted, it leads to social disintegration and decay. This is because social disintegration is the direct result of refusal to change in conformity with time.
Unfortunately, Nigerian leaders are not changing for the betterment of transforming the society. The strange things that happen in Nigeria show that there is no meaningful change taking place. Our leaders must, therefore, embrace change to transform our society.
The wrong must be righted; the conditions responsible for the wrong must be altered in a suitable manner. This gives rise to optimism as philosophy of hope and the cause of all progress, as against pessimism which is anchored on things changing from bad to worse.
It is the law of evolution which Keats poetically expressed in his Hyperion, “On our heels a fresh perfection treads, a power more strong in beauty, born of us and fated to excel us”.
Nigerians, with their leaders, must cultivate the spirit of optimism, a feeling of hope in the future. We must give up the attitude of conservatism as it denies us progress.
Therefore, Nigerians and Africans in general, must cling to change which must commence from the youth to the adults. We should emulate the Ghanaian youth who inspired the transformation of their economy from recession to greater productivity.
It is high time Nigerian youth rose up from lethargy and set a standard worthy of emulation for other African countries, just like their Ghanaian counterparts did few decades ago.
Anor writes from Port Harcourt.

Christian L. Anor