The Real Problem with Nigeria – A Proposed Solution for the Sovereign Individual

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Requisites for the Sovereign Individual: the real problem of Nigeria, a proposed solution for the sovereign individual

I dare to say that only an ethical, able, and responsible individual can lay claim to his or her natural sovereignty. Like everything in life, natural sovereignty requires the bases of ethical, ability, and responsibility to rest secured, before anyone can assume that lofty natural character. An unethical, lawless, incompetent, and irresponsible individuals are already subjects, children, or worse properties, of the State.

Humanity's Saving Attribute

One major consideration that I pondered in arriving at the claims I have made and submitted so far are based, in part, on the native goodness of the human being, every human being. This is notwithstanding whatever the conditions of a person’s ethics, ability, or responsibility - the bases for natural sovereignty of the individual. By this, we can see that every individual human being is natively endowed with this natural sovereignty. We come a cropper and lose our natural sovereignty as we depart from the bases of ethics, ability, and responsibility.

A proof of the native goodness of the human being is that the inadequacy or even lack of ethics, ability, and responsibility, and whatever conditions such a person finds himself or herself, can answer to remedial injunctions and efforts. This native goodness is essential to addressing the real problem of Nigeria. Otherwise, there’s the harsh and dark barrel of the cannon of hopelessness staring at us and any efforts we might dream to address our personal, familial, social, and national difficulties. If the human being is not natively good, there would not be illnesses such as defy the best medical minds, knowledge, skill, and apparatuses.

Why would someone make himself or herself sick, ill, insane, stupid? That the individual does make himself or herself sick, ill, and or stupid can be seen from the failures of every extant solutions. And until a person is availed solutions that unearth his or her ethics, ability, and responsibility, failures as to deal with criminality, corruption, stupidity, psychosomatic illnesses and poverty will continue to rule.

The 'Good' Defined

And, who is a good individual? A good individual, therefore, is that person who desires survival for self and others, and will only do those ethical - or at least legal - things that will bring about this survival for self and others, acting in concert with or assisting or receiving assistance from others.

The real problem of Nigeria, a Proposed Solution for the Sovereign Individual - Solution Material - The Way To Happiness Book and Programs

The native goodness of the individual can be subdivided into, I discovered, 21 precepts. I discovered the book - The Way To Happiness - that contained these precepts some years back. It was written as a guide, based on common sense, that one, anyone, can use to take control of one’s life and living. The 21 Precepts are simple injunctions that anyone can understand, agree with, use, and recommend to those who are dear and close to them notwithstanding their religious or cultural inclination.

The 21 Precepts

Happiness

Happiness, is that commodity that every human being seeks in every of our activities. Happiness embraces flourishing and prosperous health, family, social concourse, national development, and progress of humanity. If we understand that happiness is not just a transient state of mind, but a catalyst for and result of the success of every human endeavor, we will appreciate why it predominates this book, and this offered solution. See Happiness PSA

Precept 1. Take Care of Yourself:

COVID-19 has, like Ebola, HIV/AIDS and other diseases, shown us the need for everyone to take those simple steps to care for themselves. If we think this injunction is too simple for sovereign individuals to imbibe, I ask, “who are those who suffer from COVID, HIV/AIDS, malaria, Lassa fever, etc.” A sick or ill or insane person cannot attain to his or her native sovereignty. See Precept 1 PSA

Precept 2. Be Temperate:

Temperament in everything we love and hate to do is crucial to survival, happiness, and the attainment and maintenance of our native sovereignty. An intemperate person soon finds self in a hospital, prison, or dead; either from alcohol, sex, food, drugs etc. abuse or addiction. Temperament in the expressions of one’s dissatisfaction with others, parents, or the government is vital for one’s effort can be recognized. Where recklessness rules, the purpose of one’s communication or struggle is be lost in the ensuring confusion. See Precept 2 PSA

Precept 3. Don't Be Promiscuous:

Who can lay a claim to be a sovereign individual when he or she switches sexual partners with reckless abandon? None! Because this act always leads to sexually transmitted diseases, broken homes, failed relationship, and so on; outcomes which have destroyed some of the best empires, nations, and civilization. Remember Troy? Remember Monica Lewinsky? The ensuing shame cannot be washed away. See Precept 3 PSA

Precept 4. Love and Help Children:

Those people we call ‘Children’ today, are the sovereign individuals of tomorrow. If anything is wrong today, it was seeded and nurtured by the hand of the adults of yesterday to the adults of today when they - the adults of today - were ‘children’, yesterday. If we teach our children that violence, abuses, intimidation, threats, etc. are the ways to nurture a child and resolve disputes, why do we pretend that the criminal insanity in insurrections, kidnapping, murders, armed bandits, terrorism, rapes, et al. that ravage the land is strange, ‘non-Nigerian’? Who were/are the parents, teachers, and community leaders of these insane adults who torment us so? How were these ‘criminals’, ‘bandits’, ‘terrorists’, et al long labels raise as children? Let’s think on that. See Precept 4 PSA

Precept 5. Honor and Help Your Parents:

Without our parents, we would not be living right now, or at best living as vagabonds and the Almajiri children who, generations after generations suffered through the harshest lives anyone could imagine, becoming terrors to us. Parents struggle, some suffer, to their children through pregnancy, birth, and upbringing, and all the chaos that growing children rendered to their parents. And, when we say Parents, we mean more than those who gave birth to you. We mean every adult that’s older than you - they deserve your help and honor. You would not say because the president or governor or the CEO of your company is not your relations, you can curse, abuse, and denigrate them. Well, look at Precept 4 again. There are ‘children’ behind, watching you. See Precept 5 PSA

Precept 6. Set A Good Example:

What type of examples are expected of to be set by a sovereign individual for the benefits of others? Ethical, moral, and lawful acts; good physical, mental, and social health; truthfulness, honesty, and integrity; kindness, compassion, and generosity; ability, competence, and goals attainments; seek and care for the survival of self and others, without prejudice. If you display these attributes in all your endeavors, many will learn from your example, and thus making the world a better place. The craze that is ravaging our country, especially at the social and governance levels, are the criminal examples set by the previous generations. Simple. To change this disgustingly ugly trend, it behooves those of us with some sense to set good examples. See Precept 6 PSA

Precept 7. Seek To Live With The Truth:

Liars are great subjects, children, and properties of the State. It is said that a liar will steal and rob. And, of course, a thief is a pathological liar. A good number of liars, thieves, including corrupt politicians are in prisons. A sovereign individual says, stands by, and values truth no matter how hard it is to tell. In addition, sovereign individual never tells ‘truth’ to destroy, malign, and or degrade others; truths that make others sick, ill, and lose their abilities are not truths, but destructive tools. See Precept 7 PSA

Precept 8. Do Not Murder:

It is not only the physically killing of another that is murder. There is a thing called ‘character assassination’ - it is as evil as taking a life you did not give. Even State committed murder, artfully called ‘execution’, is an evil, if we look at it from the point of view that it is that which one creates that one can destroy. And, remember, there is nothing like ‘mistake’ in the killing of another. Once you take a life you did not grant, you have condemned yourself to your own hell, even if the law did not catch up with you. See Precept 8 PSA 

Precept 9. Don't Do Anything Illegal:

This is one of the ultimate precepts we need to imbibe. Any illegal act renders one susceptible to abuse, fear, trial, and self-destruction. One may pretend he’s ‘smart’ if one gets away with those injunctions the majority in the society has condemn as unlawful. What about your conscience? Did you know that all psychosomatic illness - comprising more than 70% of all illnesses - are caused by the sufferer? How? Ask your conscience! We see many of our popular politicians, especially, once they are arrested and taken to court, they fall almost fatally ill. They have their medical cabinet of drugs attached to their person wherever they go to maintain their psychosomatic health of incurable illnesses. That’s their conscience at work. See Precept 9 PSA

Precept 10. Support A Government Designed and Run For All The People:

This particular injunction is what we need in Nigeria, and other nations, to secure our freedoms and create a prosperous society for ourselves and children. Destruction of the peace of others because you have a ‘right’ to protest; destruction of public assets because you have a grudge against the government; committing murders because you must be listened to at all cost – these only lead to make the government stronger, more powerful, and more despotic as the coercive powers of the State are further armed, trained, and equipped to tame the populace. If we follow the injunction of this precept, we can better tame our despotism-inclined governments. See Precept 10 PSA

Precept 11. Do Not Harm A Person Of Good Will:

People of good will are those who strive for the survival of their societies; teachers, doctors, the policeman, religious leaders, among others are, the honest and competent of these, the ‘souls’ of the society. When they are attacked, ridiculed, or murdered, the society loses its fragile social fabric, and wars often result. Ask what happen to the Nigeria of the early 1960s. We still suffer from the resounding effects today. See Precept 11 PSA

Precept 12. Safeguard And Improve Your Environment:

Our environment is our home, clothes, and ‘society’. A clean and safe environment, even if not super-beautiful like those of ‘advanced’ countries, ensures a conducive setting for living, working, playing, and the raising of the future generation. A poor environment breeds diseases, poverty, and death. A major cause of insurgency in Nigeria is the destruction of the environment of the Lake Chad basin and area. Millions have lost their means of livelihood, and “the devil is the idle man’s workshop”. See Precept 12 PSA

Precept 13. Do Not Steal:

There are different kinds of thieves; there are those who deprive others of their physical possessions, with violence, trickery, or pretentions. There are those who steal the time of others, you know? You engage someone for 8 hours a day, and he manages to deliver 4 hours’ work to you - that's stealing. Those staff members in organizations, companies, and governments who cart away properties belonging to their employers; that ‘small’ pen, ‘few’ A4 papers, illegal printing of personal materials with employers’ assets, to stealing of money, cars, and outright dispossession of the ownership of companies. The corrupt politicians and civil servants shine the brightest in this armor of reeking, disgraceful act. Such characters can never claim their right to native sovereignty. See Precept 13 PSA

Precept 14. Be Worthy of Trust:

Trust is the bedrock of everything in life; from getting a goal attained - having to trust yourself; to having a fruitful relationship - having to trust your partner and have your partner trusts you; to knowing that a society will be there for your when you wake up in the morning, trusting in the sanity of other sovereign individuals around you; else there is neither life nor living. We know that when we lose the trusts of others, we are no more than a degraded person, a nonentity. Sovereign individuals pride themselves on their trustworthiness. See Precept 14 PSA

Precept 15. Fulfill Your Obligations:

We all owe obligations to one another; to parents, children, other family members, employees, friends, business associates, the society, and one’s country. Some of these obligations are so close to hand that one feels intense pressures to fulfil them. Some people carelessly, to say the best of them, accumulate obligations even though they know they wouldn’t be able to fulfil them - this is the road to negating and losing one’s right to being a sovereign individual. See Precept 15 PSA

Precept 16. Be Industrious:

Hard work - the focused, consistent, persistent application of one’s physical, mental, time, and social resources to those vital action steps of a plan that will derive something important that one desires - is the basis to all success. It is only a lazy individual, not the unable or disable, who seeks for another - be it parents, ‘society’, ‘government’, NGOs, et al. to fend for their survival. The unable and disable sooner get themselves more able, and create and apply self to work. The lazy individual has been ‘trained’ into this malady of living without work. There is no one who is responsible for your life but you. Seeking for government that will ‘create jobs’ is akin to seeking for castles in the air. It is the people like you and I, and the Dangotes, the Adenugas, the Ibrus, the Elumelus who can and do create employments. Rather than seeking for someone to employ you, become an employer yourself. But whether you are an employee or employer, be industrious - do not be lazy. See Precept 16 PSA

Precept 17. Be Competent:

The hallmark of anyone in life, especially in their area of discipline or profession or business, is represented in how competent they are. The Olympic champion, the super striker of a football team, the super CEO, the versatile musician, the prolific author, the expert engineer, doctor, police crime investigator, the trader, et al. are admired and respected because they know how to achieve the best quality and quantity using the least amount of resources - in other words, competent. A sovereign individual is competent in his or her thinking, planning, and action. See Precept 17 PSA

Precept 18. Respect The Religious Beliefs of Others:

Millions of lives, several great civilizations, and countless dreams have been destroyed in history because of the intolerances for religious beliefs, and freedoms of consciences. For some reason, we think differently; and for this reason, among others, we often arrived at different conclusions, especially with regards to what we “like”, “love”, “believe”, “want” - these are words that ennoble the sovereignty of the individual. It is a sovereign individual who makes choices, and once the choice has been made, no one may interfere, otherwise, conflicts, wars, death, and desolations ensure; and great dreams die. The road to disaster is to insists that only your belief is good for everyone, and try to enforce it. A truly sovereign individual permits the freedom of thought, conscience, and association of others, with a proviso and limiter - that the thought, conscience, and association do not result in the denial, retardation, or destruction of the rights to thought, conscience, and association of others. See Precept 18 PSA

Precept 19. Try Not To Do Things To Others That You Would Not Like Them to Do To You:

Here’s one of the Golden Rules that is so apt for a people and society to flourish and prosper. When we do things to people that we ourselves can’t accept or tolerate, nothing good ensures, but problems and intractable chains of enmity. A sovereign individual is a master at “assuming the shoes of others” before he or she acts; seeking to know how that word or act will feel to the other person before unleashing it. See Precept 19 PSA

Precept 20. Try To Treat Others As You Would Want Them To Treat You:

Another of the Golden Rules. How do you want to be treated - so far as you are a normal, sane individual? I know we must not ask this question of a masochist - the person who ‘enjoys’ pain and degradation. Otherwise… But it is best asked of a sadist - that guy who ‘enjoys’ the suffering and pains and poverty of others. Sadists, by nature can’t bear any iota of pain or discomfort, but unleash them to others. But I can rest assured that virtually all sane and normal people (and the sadists) would like to be treated in the ways outline in the book under this precept. See Precept 20 PSA

Precept 21. Flourish And Prosper:

A most powerful precept that great men and women in history have used to the enduring of their names and deeds in history into modern times. When people attack you unjustly, aiming to destroy your work or goal, what do you do? The best way is to continue to work at your goals, dress better, smile more, laugh with mirth, communicate more, be healthier - else the destroyer will win. The destroyer aims to make you smaller, weaker, poorer, quieter. You will be assisting this dreg of the human race if you cower, afraid, and become depressed because someone condemns or attacks you. The only thing you can do successfully is to carry one with your goals in life, with flourish and color. See Precept 21 PSA

This book - The Way To Happiness - and its programs have been used in much more chaotic nations than Nigeria to create and nurture orderliness in the conduct of personal, familial and social affairs; bring about peace at the national level where armies of rebels and drugs cartels held the nations hostage; restores personal ethics, morality, and respects for the good laws of the society, among others.

The Way To Happiness has been designed for used for several sectors of life including:

Video presentation and speeches from 2008 Opening of The Way to Happiness Foundation International.

  1. Young people: These simple steps will provide teens with a practical tool to aid them in helping friends and in making correct moral decisions on their own.
  2. Parents: These steps are used to aid parents in raising and teaching their children common sense values for life.
  3. Community Groups: This program will aid them in making a difference in youth and in creating safe environments and neighborhoods.
  4. Crisis Zones: These steps help individuals spread calm to areas that are being torn apart by turmoil and war. Nations such as Columbia, Venezuela, Iraq, gang-owned Inner Cities of the US, and many others have been made more livable, even prosperous, by the use of the program. See Video of Columbia Program Briefing
  5. Governments: This program will provide nations with a moral code that each citizen, regardless of race, color, creed or religion can adhere to, and will therefore promote peace throughout entire nations.
  6. Police Program: This program enables police officers to use The Way to Happiness and reduce the spread of crime and violence in their communities. See video of an India Program.

The book is best used and effective when shared with others after one has read, understood, and started using the precepts oneself. So, endeavor to read, ensure you understand, and start applying each precept as you read them, and then start sharing with others around you, people who may influence, impact, or control your life. Of course, these people include parents, spouse, friends, business associates, professional colleagues, neighbors, etc.

Download a copy of The Way To Happiness booklet and Program Guides here.

In coming Part 4 of this blog series I will propose a national program - that will be based on the real problem of Nigeria, a proposed solution for the sovereign individual - for the recovery of our nation from the atrocious hands of the creators of criminality and evil, and the practitioners of criminality themselves, making them reclaim their native sovereignty.

Babatunde, coming back!

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