My Role in National Development – a submission by Emeka Emmanuel Anyaeogu

We all have dreams, and one characteristic of dreams is that it carries what our heart desires. One dream everybody has is for an environment that will be favorable. But if wishes were horses, there won’t be enough to go round.
The wish for a better life is achievable with application of positive changes. These changes can be regarded as development. As it is known, development is a process that rides on the tide of transition which is driven by efforts.
Effort being put in place has over the years seen some tremendous change for the better. This brings to fore the need for all hands to be on deck as little effort from everyone, just like little drops of water, makes the mighty ocean of development.
Development has different agents that can spur it, of which I am one. The issues of a better life cannot be left to those in authority alone. We, you and I, all have one role or the other to play in seeing to it that we have a better society.
Now, understanding my kind of person makes the work of knowing my role in contributing to development easy.
I have found out that, along life’s journey, I can influence people’s lifestyle. I have this tendency to leave people better, by a means of mental and/or material empowerment, than I met them. This has become a means I contribute my little quota to being an agent of development.
When I speak of myself being an agent of development, I speak of passing down knowledge, skills, teaching values, inspiring people. All these are due to the lifestyle I have adopted which shows what I have to offer.
Let me explain with a life experience. A chemistry teacher once entered a class to teach. While teaching, one of the students made a joke of a classmate who was into a mini business. This led to the topic being altered to a topic on the real word and business. By the end of the class, most of the student had to meet the teacher to mentor them in their chosen endeavors, which he agreed to. Now the teacher has used an opportunity of a class and an awkward situation among the students to impact knowledge and to guide those students.
From the story, we can see that beyond the impacting of knowledge, is the empowering of the people to use what have been learnt for the benefit of self and society. Yes, beyond teaching, I can become a catalyst for the outworking of what have been taught.
Imagine a skill acquisition program that just ends with a certificate. The probability of most participants not making use of what they have learned is higher than the probability of making use of it. Now what if a means is provided to empower them? Most likely we will have a reversal of the previous case.
Let me drive my point a bit further. If I gather a number of persons to teach a soft-skill, say data analysis, which I know requires a laptop or PC to run and I only made provision of those just for the class. Imagine how frustrating it would be, knowing you have a skill set that you are restricted to use because of lack of the required gadget. In such a case, we can say that what is needed is both the impacting of knowledge and the provision of resources to make use of the impacted knowledge. This hence defines my role in bringing about development.
I have found out that while people invest in assets like land, businesses and organizations, the most important of them all is to invest in humans. Though we might not get a direct profit, but we stand a chance of living in our dream world.
Empowering a wrongly motivated person is tantamount to anarchy waiting to happen. In my point of view, development starts in the mind then it is being worked out to the visible world and this is where I can be part of bringing development to the society. It does not go without saying that a well developed mind leads to a productive person.