ADVANCE THINKING AND MERITOCRACY

 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: my great audiences, after reading and re-reading of the interview brouhaha of the NDSC controller of a whole Lagos state and his ignoramus lauding exclamation of , " my Oga at the top" during a media public interview, I then say to my very self how, why and when do we get ourselves to this very sorry state and conditions where every responsibility and wisdom for our national growth must only be addressed by the only“oga at the top”.

 Are there is no more educated ,cultured, accomplished intelligentsias , well refined proactive minds again in our civil service organisations ,that can pilot the affairs of these very nation in all phases, why must mediocre and hypocrites, low intelligent beings continues to advance the course of our national development.


 On this note, I choose to discourse with you today on the theme: ADVANCE THINKING AND MERITOCRACY, of which I sensed that, is lacking in our individualism and collective projections towards our national evolution since independence has come to be the major challenges to our national enterprise and development.

The question now is, how can we infuse these notions into our national wellbeing.
First, let us start with the advance thinker and the definitions of what he should favour.

My concept of advance thinker, whom I double as the modern thinker of our time, probably must be in favour of universal liberty -- that is to say, he will be opposed to all outdated ways of thinking that corrupt the minds, He will give to all others the rights he claims for himself, he will neither bow nor cringe, nor accept bowing and cringing from others.
He will be neither master nor slave, neither prince nor peasant -- just an idea simply operator.
He will deliberately choose to be the enemy of all caste, no matter whether its foundation is wealth, title or power, and of him, it will be said: "Blessed is that man who is afraid of no man and of whom no man is afraid."
For the fact that the modern world is now governed by ideas and universal knowledge ,He must then be in favour of both where science ,investigations and demonstration will act as techniques to good governance and his mind will be opened to the suggestions of nature where he will be a learner and listener at the same time . He will believe in the duty of every person to shed all the light he can, to the end that no child may be reared in darkness. By education and self-improvement, he will direct the gaining of useful knowledge, the development of the mind along the natural paths that lead to human happiness and liberation.

This very thinker will always find his greatest joy in the happiness of all and he will know that the home is the real temple. He will believe in the democracy of the fireside, and will reap his greatest reward in being loved by those whose lives he has enriched.

 In the other way round, meritocracy model of governance, which am advocating here is simply a political ideology that holds that power should be vested in individuals according to merit.
The advancement in this very system is based on perceived intellectual talent measured through examination and achievements demonstrated in the field cum leadership management, all implemented in one fold.

 Through this very concept has existed for centuries, but one time British politician and sociologist Michael young first coined the term meritocracy in his 1958 satirical essay, in his book young questioned both the legitimacy of the process used to become a member of elite ruling class and the outcome of being ruled by a narrowly minded group.
Michael young's fictional narration explained that, on the one hand, that the greatest contributor to our society are not always the mass or majority, but the “creative minority” or members of the restless elite” On the other hand, he claims that there are casualties of progress whose influence is underestimated and that, from such stolid" adherence to natural science and intelligence arises This problem is encapsulated. In the phrase, "Every selection arrogance and complacency of one is avail for rejection of many" therefore, merit should be a yardstick.

Wherein appointments and responsibilities are objectively assigned to individuals based upon their "merits", namely intelligence, credentials, and education, determined through evaluations or examinations.
In a more general sense, meritocracy can refer to any form of government based on achievement. Like “may be used to refer to any government run by "a ruling or influential class of educated or able people."

A MORE ADVANCE DEFINITIONS OF MERITOCRACY FROM CIVIL SERVICE POINT OF VIEW
The Civil Service Reform Act stipulated that government jobs should be awarded based on merit through competitive exams and annual performance evaluation reports, rather than ties to politicians or political affiliation.
The essays of Michael Young were based upon the tendency of the then governments to strive towards intelligence and to ignore shortcomings and failure of education systems and utilize correctly the gifted and talented members within their societies.
Our old aged great philosophers like Plato and Aristotle also advocated meritocracy, Plato in his book The Republic, arguing that the MOST WISE SHOULD RULE, and hence the rulers should be philosopher kings.
So, if Plato and Aristotle are right that the deliberation is best if participants are numerous (and assuming for simplicity that the voters are the deliberators) then this is a reason for giving all or many citizens a vote, but this does not yet show that the wiser subset should not have, say, two or three; in that way something would be given both to the value of the diverse perspectives, and to the value of the greater wisdom of the few. This combination of the Platonic and Aristotelian points is part of what I think is so formidable for us today" adherence to natural science and intelligence and lets the wise men come and rule us.
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In summary of what I think that, the implementations of Meritocracy in our system will be able to achieve:
1. A perfect system in which every child will have an equal chance to succeed in life — there should not be elite private schools for the children of the rich and lower quality public schools for everyone else, NO! “good schools should be for all”.
2. The abolishment of party politics for the parliamentarians — in fact, the Meritocracy system wants to make it obsolete; all members of Parliament should be independents, elected for their specific expertise and merit where jobs should be assigned based on his or her grinded knowledge on the related field.
3. Only those with a relevant education and work experience should be allowed to vote, rather than just anyone who has reached the age of 18 — there should be citizen exams through which everyone can obtain the right to vote on a certain issue. For example, those who wish to vote for the next minister of finance should have a certain diploma, which shows they have enough understanding of this field to make an educated vote.
4. To replace free market capitalism with social capitalism and to replace democracy with a fully transparent meritocratic republic colored with democratic principles, under a meritocratic constitution.
5. The end of nepotism, cronyism, discrimination, privilege. and unequal chances

Yes, it does not sound too good but it can be practicable and much better than picking leaders at random or having some dictator appoint his drinking friends as we are witnessing today in Nigeria. However, having said that, there is no requirement in the definition above for the Meritocracy system to guarantee that everyone has an opportunity to fulfil his or her potential for success.

With Meritocracy, it will give us confidence that the people we appoint to lead are actually competent within the constraints of the system; it is simply about avoiding false positives (incompetent people rising or being appointed to the top). That is not a bad thing per se; it is just a bad thing if we presume that calling something a “meritocracy” means more than what it actually means, for Nigeria, is very simply to march advance thinking with meritocracy which is one of the easiest ways to get out from this abyss and attain the greater height as the true giant of Africa.