Nigeria, a clay-footed giant at 62

 

Last Saturday, October 1, Nigeria, the most populous black nation in the world, the biggest economy in Africa and the purported giant in the continent celebrated her 62nd independence anniversary with pomp and pageantry. There were religious services in worship centres, presidential independence day broadcast as well as commemorative ceremonial events at Eagle’s Square in Abuja. There were also town hall meetings, media interviews and analysis, newspaper editorials and sundry activities to assess how we have fared thus far.

I was part of many of these events, especially those organised by the media and civil society organisations. I granted several media interviews and was part of a team of analysts on Trust TV and Nigeria Television Authority. I was also one of the speakers at the Lux Terra Leadership Foundation town hall meeting held last Monday in Abuja. Discussing Nigeria on a daily basis across several media channels evokes mixed feelings in me. Sometimes, I join millions of Nigerians to agonise about our unfulfilled dream of good governance and development and at other times I see hope and spread the news of a better and greater future for Nigeria.

The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), in his farewell independence day broadcast, gave what can be considered a scorecard of his over seven years in the saddle as No. 1 citizen of the country. According to him, he made a commitment to improve the economy, tackle corruption and fight insecurity and lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years. In his view, his regime has made appreciable progress in these areas. He lauded himself on the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act, the Electoral Act 2022, the Social Investment Programme and the fight against corruption.

He acknowledged the intractable insecurity facing the country and said, “I share the pains Nigerians are going through and I assure you that your resilience and patience would not be in vain as this administration continues to reposition as well as strengthen the security agencies to enable them to deal with all forms of security challenges.” The president pleaded with the Academic Staff Union of Universities to suspend their eight-month strike and sought the mass participation of women and youths in politics and governance. He also for the umpteenth time promised to leave a legacy of credible and peaceful elections.

To many Nigerians, the president’s speech is hot air and did little to lift their despondent spirit. Current reality and opinion of both the elite and ordinary citizens is that the incumbent regime has moved Nigeria from top to bottom. Truth be told, if statistics are anything to go by, this regime cannot be said to have performed. This newspaper in its editorial of last Sunday, October 2, 2022 said inter alia, “While the ruling elite are running the country aground and the people grumble helplessly, the fault lines in the federation, long papered over, have widened to chasms. For long, several international agencies have rated the country as fragile, or failing. To yet others, the country is already a failed state. In the Fragile State Index 2022 prepared by the US think tank, Fund for Peace, Nigeria ranked 16th most fragile country. The OECD’s State of Fragility 2022, using parameters such as economic, political and security, rated the country’s fragility from strongly fragile to severe. The World Population Review’s Failed States Report 2022 ranked Nigeria 14th and among the states “most in danger of failing!”

The editorial noted further that ”It is estimated that Nigeria accounts for 20 per cent of the $50 billion in illicit financial flows by multinationals in Africa annually. The Chartered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Professionals of Nigeria reckons that over 70 per cent of the national, state and LG budgets is lost to corrupt practices. Infrastructure is poor and the daily power supply of 4,000 megawatts cannot sustain a population of over 200 million, or an economy with GDP of $440.1 billion. Education is in a shambles: adult illiteracy rose annually by 21.43 per cent between 1991 and 2018, reported Knoema, with the number of illiterate adults rising from 24 million to 41.76 million in 2018, and 76 million by 2021, according to the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu.”

Sincerely speaking the current regime is not solely responsible for our parlous state of governance and development. It’s a build-up from successive administrations from colonial to post-colonial; military to civilian. As I have persistently said on several media platforms, Nigeria runs a democracy of three arms—executive, legislature and judiciary—as well as three tiers of government—federal, state and local governments. Unless they work in sync, have shared visions and are jointly committed to solving our myriads of national challenges, good governance and development will continue to elude us.

At the Lux Terra Leadership Foundation town hall meeting, Fr. George Ehusani, the Executive Director of the centre who is also a fiery catholic priest, opined that Nigeria’s problems can be solved by imbibing rule of law; abrogating the dichotomy of indigeneity versus citizenship and collapse the current unsustainable 36 states structure into six strong regional governments. While I agree with him on the first two solutions, the practicability of the third option is infeasible. Learned silk, Femi Falana, dwelt on several cases of human rights abuses and the way forward while I called on critical stakeholders namely: the Independent National Electoral Commission, the political parties and candidates, the media, the judiciary, the security agencies, civil society organisations and the electorate to play by the rules in the lead up to, during and after the forthcoming 2023 general election.

I posited that the forthcoming election is a low-hanging fruit to vote out bad leaders and elect credible ones. However, the focus for positive change should not be only on the presidency but across the entire 11,082 political offices in Nigeria, As the saying goes, a tree does not make a forest. Many other speakers like Comrade Ezenwa Nwagu and my learned friends, Hilary Ogbonna and Obo Effanga, both senior lawyers, were in agreement with me. There was a joint call for massive turnout during the 2023 general election. Maupe Ogun Yusuf of Channels Television tasks citizens to hold politicians to account both before and after the elections. It also came out from the jaw-jaw that there is trust deficit between Nigerian leaders and the led and that we all need to uphold the virtue of honesty. Other takeaways include the need for restructuring the country and the imperative of equity, justice and fairness.

On the whole, it was a very vibrant discussion session but, as I said at the forum, the solutions to Nigeria’s problems are very well known to our leaders but what is lacking is the political will to act. It is interesting to learn from Fr. Ehusani that his centre has published a summary of all political reform dialogues and national conferences held in Nigeria between  1979 and  2014. I hope the centre will use the document to engage the presidential and governorship candidates during this campaign season and see if they can implement some of the noble provisions when those who would have won are sworn into office in May 2023.