Will Nigerians ever get over last-minute-rush syndrome?

By PAUL ARHEWE 03/02/2011 00:38:00

One glaring idiosyncrasy associated of many Nigerians is this problem of procrastinating and waiting till the eleventh hour, even when an activity is vital and of national interest. This syndrome was in display last Monday being the last day in January which the Central Bank had earlier set as deadline for bank account updating. The disorderliness and confused state of things at the entrances and inside of most commercial banks makes one to ponder whether notices were actually passed to their customers or maybe, those customers are from another planet? Before Monday’s deadline all banking halls were free for people to walk in and easily do their updating, one wonders; why wait to rush? Maybe, a research should be extensively conducted whether Nigerians derive happiness doing things during rush hours?
Though, before the previous December 31, 2010 deadline, awareness was not well publicised, with the extension one could say many people were adequately informed. It is baffling that the rush to update accounts before December 31, 2010 disappeared only to reappear January 31,2011 with massive crowds. From all indications, if CBN should extend this exercise by a year, many people will still show a blasé wait till the very last two days to its expiration before embarking on a mad rush to partake in the exercise.
Procrastination they say is a thief of time, but in another way it can be viewed as a lazy-man-thing that portrays a not well organised and coordinated person. It wouldn’t be a surprise that many people would still be waiting for the deadline before registering in the ongoing INEC exercise despite the many hitches and difficulties that has marred it. This syndrome is not only attributable to individual Nigerians; our government and its agencies have shown they are culpable of the act when conducting important national events and functions. We can still remember vividly how in 2009 Nigeria nearly lost hosting of the U-17 FIFA’s world cup due to last minute preparations. Jack Warner, the head of the FIFA’s team that inspected facilities in the six stadiums billed for the competition only saved us the shame by giving a month grace after several visits. Furthermore, we witnessed one of our worst outings in FIFA world cup tournaments at the senior level last year in South Africa. What was the cause? Again, it is traceable to last-minute preparation. Lars Lagerback was appointed just three months to the tournament to lead Super Eagles to South Africa; a team he has never in his life had anything to do with.
Has anyone asked why there are too many hiccups in the on-going INEC voters’ registration? We remember how Professor Attahiru Jega last year complained of insufficient time to successfully conduct programmes leading to voters’ registration and the actual conduct of the April polls. With the manner and time voters registration machines were ordered and shipped to the country; how do we expect we could get the best from thousands of computers that were packaged in a rush? We had four years to plan for the 2011 polls after the last one in 2007, but as a result of the known eccentricity our government, it chose to wait till few months to 2011 before appointing Jega and embarking on electoral reforms. As it has been pointed out, these delays sometimes seem like deliberate intentions to provide lesser time for proper public accountability and give account for how those billions of Naira to conduct the exercises were spent. Another school of thought posits that politicians especially the ruling party, may not sincerely want a decent and credible elections; hence the strategy is to delay funds till the last minute to frustrate the exercise. Whether this is true or not, we have witnessed issues of nonchalance and lacklustre approach our government put in issues concerning our social life and security in the country. For instance, why leaving pot-holes in our roads unattended to during dry seasons, only to put serious efforts to salvage them in their deteriorating states during the rainy season? One fact we should be abreast with regarding to time is that it is never enough. It is only the prudent that judiciously make wise use of the little they have.