The surest indicator of a great nation is represented not by the achievements of its rulers artists or scientists but by the general welfare of its people

Some people are of the opinion that the surest indicator of a great nation is represented by the achievement of its rulers, scientists or artist as against the general welfare of its people. Even though this belief seems to align with many underlying principles of judging a great nation, I will say that it is a biased view. Contrarily, I am of the opinion that the general welfare of the people should be regarded as the indicator of a great nation.
Over time, "great" rulers, scientist and artist have been highly lauded for their contributions to the greatness of nations. However, when this is done, the most salient parts of their contribution-mostly the negative effects of their contribution- are often ignored. Some things to be considered are mentioned in the following paragraph.
Firstly, rulers of great nations in the part have worked hand in hand with scientists in ensuring the scientific and technological advancement of the nations. However good this may sound, many at times, the health of the citizens is not often considered being one of great importance. Through history, a lot of damage has been done as touching the health of many citizens in achieving breakthroughs in technological advancements. A good example is the introduction of DDT as an insecticide many years ago in a country called Negorio. While DDT successfully removed pests from crops in local and industrial farms, its deleterious effect was far more pronounced than was expected. After months of using the insecticide, many people died of food poisoning. It was then discovered that there was a wash off of insecticides into rivers and streams. Unfortunately, aquatic animals were poisoned and DDT ultimately found its way into the body systems of citizens, since they fed on fishes. Even though a modern scientist will argue that more biodegradable insecticides have been introduced over the years, the prowess of science cannot be trusted to essentially prevent similar occurrences in the nearest future, especially with the understanding that a pandemic has recently occurred because of a disease which broke out because of a slight oversight during a scientific research.

Moreover, many renowned rulers are lauded to have done well as a result of a general improvement in national infrastructure. This seems to be a good reason to laud a ruler. However, it is good to consider the backend of these developments. In the process of building roads, bridges and offices, many people have been made homeless and many more have been given over to abject poverty. This is because some landed properties of some citizens, for example, are usually hijacked by the government during road construction, leaving the citizens who hitherto had depended on these properties for feeding either through farming or other forms of use with nothing left to survive on. In fact, some citizens who are prone to infections relating to breathing get ill as because of pollution in the process of these infrastructural development. All these could be curbed if the ruler will pay more attention to the welfare of the people by probably building new infrastructures in remote areas. Untill conditions like these are taken into consideration, no nation desrves to be called a great nation.

In addition, artists from certain nations with strong traditional artistic backgrounds tend to protect these background by contributing generally to the international fame of art which stem from the nation. Instead of looking for ways by which the emotional needs of people through art, they rather forcus on raising the bar of creativity to international standards, protecting the fame of the "nation's" art. A good example is the sublte morphism that occred to Juju music when it was taken to the international level. MUch of the rudimetary elemets were modified intryingto make it fit for international acceptance, thereby leaving the traditional satisfaction of loclas out of consideraton. Much of what is left of Juju music today no longer appeals to the hearing of locales. In the name of making the nation great, citizens have been emotionally starved by its artists.

Finally, except adverse effect of decisions of rulers, scientists and arists are looked into, by considerting the general wilfare of the people, the natoin will not be truely great. The defficiency inprovision which is a derivative of salient oversights will only lead to the raisng of a deficient people. Ultimately, there will remain no citizen sound enough to fill this gap in the future, since children are being inured to the paucity of proper welfare.

In conclusion, with all that has been said, the indicator of a great nation is represented by hte general welfare of its people and not the achievement of its rulers, artists or scientists.