By Dan Amor
There is a lamentable and disturbing magnitude of
violence in Nigeria .
So is crime. The country is constantly on the boil. The atmosphere in the
country has been nothing but a tawny volcano. The situation conveys at once the
chief features of the Nigerian spirit: it is vertical, spontaneous, immaterial,
upward. It is ardent. And even as tongues of fire do, it turns into fire
everything it touches. What we are experiencing today is induced by poverty,
hunger, frustration, apathy, desperation and sectional or tribal expansionist
ambition.
In the midst of the misery and lack that is the lot of our youth and
other Nigerians, a few Nigerians are still swimming in affluence and under the
best security system and protection one can think of. What has indeed compounded
the Nigerian misfortune is the sheer bravado, if not braggadocio with which
Fulani herdsmen are butchering other Nigerians on a large scale across the
country. This is even happening without the sitting government raising an
eyebrow against it. Many Nigerians even believe that the Federal Government of
President Buhari is culpable in the mass hysteria afflicting the country. It
hardly seems a time for timidity and restraint.
In fact, unbridled activities of fraudsters, narcotics
couriers, swindlers and the emergence of a class of billionaire idle
politicians, have diminished our international stature to an embarrassing
level. The net effect of this has been the sorry spectacle we have cut for Nigeria and
Nigerians in the international arena. The reality is that the corporate image
of the country is almost irretrievably steeped in crises. It is therefore no
more news that the high rate of criminality in the country is traceable to the
endemic corruption which has enveloped the land. Nigeria 's name is synonymous with
corruption and crime all over the world. It is agreed that with the emergence
of General Muhammadu Buhari as President since May 29, 2015, given his much
vaunted integrity and principled stance against corruption, the international
image of the country would be redeemed. But it seems, from the reality on
ground, that the change mantra of the APC-led Federal Government is fraught
with contradictions and ironies. Almost three years into the regime, Nigerians
are gasping for relief. There is discontent in the country as hunger and lack
rule the land. And one can sense the fear of the unknown. The signs are not
difficult to see. They are the signs of internal decay; the dry rot of apathy
and indifference within the ruling party. Nigerians have mistaken baboon for
monkey.
The whole scenario is unwholesome: the decadent social
institutions, the comatose and despondent state of the once vibrant economy,
the decaying infrastructure, and the unnerving bout of high cost of energy and
scarcity of petrol in the six largest producer of crude in the world. All this
could not have been mere speculation by whatever standards. Indeed, it was
speculated recently that more than 80 per cent of Nigerians are living below
the poverty line. Economically, there can never be anything more humiliating
and even frustrating than the current exchange rate of the Naira. Anyone who
had witnessed the strength of the Nigerian currency against the dollar in the
late 1970's would realise that the slightest tinkering with the economy spins
off a frantic palpitation which may lead to a cardiac arrest. This is why wiser
nations often fix their gaze on the enigmatic ups and downs in the stock
market. They are wise and experienced enough to know that an ostensibly
inconsequential drop in the currency rate of a nation may precipitate a
phenomenal fall of any government. How does President Buhari feel when he sees
the Naira exchanging for 365 to the US Dollar? Does he ever remember his
campaign promise to Nigerians when the Dollar was even exchanging for N165,
that he would make the Naira at par with the Dollar within his first six months
in office? This is not all. Hundreds of thousands of our graduates and school
leavers still trudge the streets of our cities in search of jobs that are not in
sight, and the communal bonds that once held our various nationalities together
have been rendered taut by the forces of annihilating and devastating poverty
and inter-tribal wars.
Nigerians now keep a feeding regime that skips meals.
Yet the country is said to be one of the most endowed nations in the world.
Buhari must set targets for his ministers. It is curiously shameful that
Nigerians are experiencing untold hardships under Buhari, an administration
that boasted of so much goodies for the poor and downtrodden. It is awfully
disappointing that market women were forced by circumstances to stage a
peaceful protest in Lagos
recently. Almost three years after his inauguration, Nigerians are yet to see
any sign of change in their standard of living. Rather, things are
deteriorating to their nadir by the day. The Federal Executive Council meetings
must generate fresh ideas and must bring to a logical order fresh initiatives
for the effective implementation of budgets in ministries and other strategic
government departments and agencies. Nigerians, on their part must ask Buhari
what his administration's blueprint is. Despite its high-profile intentions,
not many Nigerians are impressed with the President's proposition. The alarm
raised during the immediate past administration and also during the
administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo by some budget monitoring groups and
agencies over the low performance ratings of Federal ministries, departments
and agencies would have been enough to jolt the present administration from
illusions into stark realities. It would be recalled that General Theophilus
Danjuma, Defence Minister in President Obasanjo's cabinet resigned from his
appointment alleging that Obasanjo was not implementing budget, which was
accountable for his abysmal performance in office.
Also, the fact that the phenomenon of "unspent
budget" was padded into the nation's over-bloated political lexicon and
became public knowledge even during the administration of the late President
Umaru Musa Yar'Adua would have been enough cause for President Buhari to set
targets for his ministers. Yet, a point too potent to be over-stretched is that
with the sudden collapse of public infrastructure across the country and the
alarming rate of poverty among Nigerians since Buhari became president
precipitated by mass unemployment, no sensible minister would need to be
reminded to work hard. Again, the President and his advisers must note that
even though liberal democracy can thrive only in a relatively prosperous
national economy, the economy itself can only grow in a relatively liberal and
accountable atmosphere. Therefore, while the government takes an unflattering
look at the corruption and squandermania of the past office holders, if only to
serve as a deterrent to the present ones, the anti-graft war must not be seen
to be selective. And since the menace permeates all sectors of the national
economy, the only thing that will serve as a bulwark against corruption is
beaming the searchlight on the business sector also and ensuring that this
highly inflated economy is reflated. Added to this is the urgent need for
government to support manufacturing and agriculture.
Only exceptionally viable and favourable policies can
make the nation produce competitive goods and services that can earn hard
currency for the economy. The current effort at revamping the power sector
which started with the Jonathan administration must be taken to its logical
conclusion. A high premium on agriculture will make the country at least
self-sufficient and secure in food production. Emphasis should thus be placed
on long term lending and low interest rates for farmers, manufacturers and
small and medium scale entrepreneurs. But revamping the agricultural sector
cannot work in the face of horrendous killings of farmers across the country by
Fulani herdsmen. The value of the Naira can only be strengthened if the
government summons the political will to scrap the parallel (black) market and
break the continuous monopolization of the Afex market by the Central Bank of Nigeria . A
state of emergency should be declared on our failing network of roads and other
infrastructure to attract foreign investors into the country.
Good roads and bridges engender economic activities and
their construction creates jobs. But investors can only come into our shores if
security of lives and property is guaranteed. Consequently, while the Boko
Haram insurgency is brought to its knees, government must halt the heinous
killing of people by Fulani herdsmen across the country. The absence of peace
is affecting the pace of development in the country. A surgical operation
should be undertaken in the health sector while government should be seen to be
encouraging private sector participation in the building of modular refineries.
Above all, Nigeria
must be returned to its original federal republican structure, to make the
centre less attractive for peace to reign. Without all these in place, no
amount of propaganda can change Nigeria .
Not even the planned dubious sale of our national assets to willing buyers who
looted our collective wealth into their private pockets would do.
*Dan Amor, an Abuja-based
public affairs analyst is a regular contribute to this platform (danamor641@gmail.com)
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