OSIONE writes: SUIT AND TIE (The Syndrome)

I was in a bus once, travelling a long way from a remote village in the east of Nigeria when I looked outside the window and saw the picture of a man.
He was the councillor of that village and the words on the sigh boldly read ''LET US JOIN HANDS AND DEVELOPE THIS TOWN''... Reading those words made me have a sense of hope in the man...but then my smile turned into a puzzled look when I noticed that the man had on a Suit and Tie..
.
I sat back, put my head on the head rest, closed my eyes, pressed play on my music player and began to think.
I thought of how my hope ebbed away when I saw what the man was wearing.
And then I wondered, how can a farmer ever farm effectively if he keeps worrying about the brand new leather shoes on his feet.
How can a guitarist play smoothly if he keeps worrying about his newly manicured finger nails?
How can a mother save her new born child from suffocating if she is too disgusted to use her mouth and suck the mucus out of her child's' blocked nose?
And then I ask myself, how can a man see to the development of a remote village if his Suit and Tie confines him to a chair behind a desk, with a plaster of paris ceiling above his head, white walls around him, refined air from a split unit AC blowing him and a door in front of him that leads him home or straight to the bank.
How does development come when the people that are equipped to make it possible, siphon the funds to maintain their suit and tie.
It is important to know that the people cannot be understood by someone who has spent his life feeding on the spoils of Urbanisation.
Only a person who has felt poverty can help the poor when he is rich.
How can the problems in the rural areas be solved if the chosen leaders have never even tried living in the slums.
And then I smiled at the thought of a certain man in one of the slums who people always called upon when there was light failure or when young men needed to be organised to fix a road. or clear a refuse dump. Yet such a man cannot become councillor simply because he doesn't wear a suit and tie. *the Irony*
I'm not trying to be a critic, I'm just one concerned citizen out of many who believe that the problems of the 'grass roots' can only be solved by the people of the 'grass root' themselves. People that have sat outside in the hot sun or sat under a leaking roof on a rainy day and wished there was something they could do about the situation of the people.
Those who contributed in word and action to make sure that the little community is maintained.
The men who wear rags and do not even dream of a suit and tie but do what they do because something needs to be done and they are able to do it.
My thoughts were cut short when the lady beside me tapped me, it was only then that I realised the bus had stopped and I was the only one left on it. I took my bag and climbed off the bus... I realised that the problem is not in the clothes. Instead the problem is the mentality behind it all.
Men made for the office with nothing to offer the people, who are too scared to get their clothes and hands dirty in order to make a situation clean.
Finally the solution to a problem really lies within...I said aloud as I walked away