Culture: The Software Behind National Failure

ReCulture Not ReStructure

Restructuring won’t save a corrupt nation.

Real change begins with culture, the invisible operating system 

that shapes leaders and citizens alike.

We keep saying:

Restructure! Restructure!
Enforce the laws.
Sanction those who break the laws.
Change the Constitution.

Or blame the amalgamation of North and South Nigeria in 1914, 112 years ago. By implication, blame the British.

But when are we going to look inside ourselves and hold accountable the very hands that have wrecked this bounteously blessed country?

Before you point at “leaders,” point at yourself.

We all need to take a step back and think this matter through carefully.

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Some Levity

Try a simple self-audit.

Record yourself in a verbal argument about restructuring.
Play the recording back in the evening.
See if you can make sense of your own arguments.

If you can, Einstein has nothing on you.

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Seriously Now

How can restructuring a corrupt nation be the solution to anything?

#ReCultureNotReStructure
#CultureNotStructure

We can see this clearly in America: a lawless man running from his past, ready to drag his country to the depths in order to make every lie he has told appear true.

Where does culture come in?

That is the software he has run on all his life. Lies. Corruption. Anything goes.

And that software traveled with him from the streets of New York to what was once the most respected office in the world.

Culture is like the shell of a tortoise. It cloaks us. We carry it wherever we go.

And it will degrade or ennoble everything we touch.

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Culture Is Not Food and Fashion

When we say culture, we are not talking about food, fashion, or festivals.

We are talking about operating system.

Culture is the invisible code that runs a people.

It is what feels normal.
What feels acceptable.
What feels shameful.
What feels admirable.

It is the unwritten constitution beneath the written one.

Culture determines:

• What leaders get away with

• What citizens tolerate

• What is rewarded

• What is punished

• What is laughed at

• What is feared

Structure is hardware.
Culture is software.

You can restructure endlessly, but if the software is corrupt, the hardware will malfunction.

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What Reculturing Means

Reculturing simply means:

• Recapturing our moral center

• Reclaiming high standards

• Restoring dignity to service

• Re-anchoring a people to truth

• Reinstalling lost values

Redrawing maps and returning to a regional system is like sellotaping a broken blade onto a propeller. The plane might still fly, but you have ignored the real problem: why did the blade break in the first place?

To fix it, you must unbolt that blade, replace it, and test run.

Reculturing means moving from an anything-goes mentality
to a some-things-must-never-go mindset.

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A Parting Thought

The major difference between Abraham Lincoln and Trump is culture, the software that runs their lives.

The same can be said about Nigerians and Germans. Or the Congolese and Singaporeans.

The only difference between decline and dignity
is the code a people choose to run.

And that code is not written in their constitution.

It is written in their character.

I rest my case

Don Kenobi
#BigAgendaAfrica