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Between the promise of change and the change of promise

It is against this backdrop that early last year some promises, somewhere off the coast of West Africa entered into a 'contract of change' with a promisor.

Between the promise of change and the change of promise

We bask in the euphoria of our ignorance until circumstances, sometimes embarrassingly humbles us and shines the light on us. The word promise was one of such words, whose meaning I never really understood and thus inevitably abused its use.

I often thought it was merely to be used to underscore the seriousness of what I was telling a friend or classmate. If I had known then what I know now, I perhaps would not have used the phrase "I promise" back then as often as I did.

In the course of my study of Business and Company Law, I further understood that a promise was far more committing than I thought. Once a promise is made by the promiser to the promisee, and a valid consideration flows from the promise, an enforceable contract has been established. No wonder political scientists and philosophers described the relationship between the state and its people as a social contract.

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For in exchange for the promise of jobs, better infrastructures, improved health care delivery, security and quality education, people surrender their individual power to governments that derive their legitimacy from elections. It is against this backdrop that early last year some promises, somewhere off the coast of West Africa entered into a 'contract of change' with a promisor.

The terms and conditions of the contract amongst others contained promises to provide 3 million jobs in one year. Pay monthly stipends to unemployed graduates, feed school children with a meal per day, tackle the menace of insecurity in months, cut down extravagance in government and the cost of governance, and strengthen the nation’s economy that was in a dire bind.

When these promises were made a contract never existed until some 15.4 million individuals, collectively appended their signature on the invisible, but existing contract document.

No one tells the future better than ‘Prophet Time’. Once again, true to what has often said liars make the best promises. When would we ever learn? Lies and propaganda may take care of the present, but they have no future. Just over a year after most of those promises were made, they have out rightly been denied and disowned by the promisor.

So like Niccolo Machiavelli who said, "The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present." They lived and still live in the present, saying and doing what they had to and have to, to get what they want to at any given point in time.

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Little wonder they can promise changes one minute and change promises the next.More often than not, between the promise of change and change of promise is a chasm of despair, occupied by broken hearted people who tenaciously held onto the promises that were made, only to realise tragically, that they have been played. In his book, Promise Me, Paul R. Evans aptly said "Broken vows (promises) are like broken mirrors. They leave those who held them bleeding and staring at fractured images of themselves"

One Saturday, February 21, 2015, precisely, in London, the promisor said "one of the major killers of our economy apart from corruption is a waste. Our scarce resources are being plundered away very carelessly and unnecessarily wasted. Let me give you an instance, presently there are more than 6 aircraft in the presidential fleet. What do you call that? Billions of naira are budgeted every year for the maintenance of these aircraft not to talk of operational cost and other expenses.”

"Now for me, when we come into office all these waste will be blocked and channelled into our economy. We intend for instance to bring back our national carrier. We shall do these by bringing all the aircraft in the presidential fleet into the Nigerian airway and within a year increase the fleet into about 20"

Today our resources have never been scarcer, and over N5.8 billion has been spent carelessly and unnecessarily wasted under his watch in maintaining these aircraft, all of which he promised to dispose of. Sadly, he has used them on at least 25 useless foreign trips in just about year, embarking on more trips than his predecessor did in 5 years.

The signs were there even before the beginning that this promise of Eldorado was nothing more than an illusion, a glass castle built by the seashore with no foundation. It was visibly clear that when the tide rose and the overflowed the ocean bank, the castle would be washed ashore with no proof of its once and brief existence.

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The most difficult people to console are usually those shedding crocodile tears, the most difficult persons to wake are those sleeping 'crocodile sleep', similarly the most difficult persons to show the light of truth and knowledge are those suffering from 'crocodile blindness' Since there is no one as blind as those blind to reasoning it mattered less.

We can cast aspersions for all we like on our leaders. Call the political promise breakers names, well they deserve such. But how often do we easily make promises on a daily basis, promises we have no intention of keeping? We must bear in mind that promises are sacred, particularly when conditions (considerations have been given) have been met.

Any promise made is a debt incurred, if left unpaid attracts the wrath of God. The Holy Book reminds us that idle words will be accounted for, owe no man nothing but love. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

To our spouses and children, colleagues and friends, neighbours and random strangers, clients, customers and business partners, we must do away with this promise-breaking tendencies. We must get our values back on track and make the younger ones understand that they are bound by their words. Like the slogan of Fidelity bank, we must keep our words.

We must understand the hurt we inflict on others when we renege on our words. A famous quote reads “promises are worse that lies. You don’t just make them believe. You also make them hope”. Maybe, if we get it right as individuals, we may just get it right someday as a people.

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