STICK-TO-ITIVENESS (AFRICAN TIME) by Mr Dan Eboh
Have you recently attended a wedding in Africa and you had to wait for the couple and or the officiating minister? Have you attended a conference and you had to wait for the main speaker? Have you gone for an examination and you have had to wait for the chief invigilator and the exam papers to arrive? Have you gone for an office AGM and you find yourself sitting and waiting for the C.E.O plus the secretary to arrive with minutes of previous meetings previous ?Have you ordered for a car hire and you keep waiting for the car to come to your location after waiting for a long time? These and more are instances of African Time manifesting itself in different parts of the society.
African time is the reaction to time orientation and lack of punctuality, It is also a non-chalant attitude to time and a serious concern for punctuality in all ramifications. OSITA GREGORY NNAJIOFOR in his 2016 research defined African Time as a tardiness and a total disregard for schedules and programmes. We here at The Bow define African Time as lateness to events or an absolute lack of time discipline (a gross lack of punctuality)
People have different views to punctuality.
If you come early for an event, they may label you DESPERATE.
Nothing to do in event=INEFFICIENT.
Uneasy with promptness=AWKWARD/FOOLISH.
Disturbing the peace of the host=IMPOLITE.
However, African Time has very bad disadvantages such as these:
It affects effectiveness and consistency(leading to none efficiency and poor productivity).
It destroys trust in public life.
It promotes bad governance and backwardness,
It hinders economic growth and kills development.
It erases accountable institutions.
We must be diligent by being diligent, being timely by prioritizing our schedules and tasks on a daily bases.We need to have a high sense of efficiency and consistency.
This is it—–AFRICAN TIME,,,,it has to stop now.
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