Assessment Of Nigeria’s 59th Independence Anniversary

By Guy Ike Ikokwu

The situation in Nigeria today, is egregious and monumental that it gives a great majority of our peoples a feeling of total hopelessness in such a way that the general belief is that there must be a catalyst within the system.

It is now clear to the Nigerian masses that they have been deprived of their sovereignty for more than 50 years by the high ranking military personnel since January 1966 which torpedoed the civilian democratic norms inherited in various discussions with our British colonialists who had acted equivocally in their own self and economic interest. 

We have had 9 constitutions in 25 years to usher in real democracy which our young heroic musician and artist Fela Anikulapo Kuti called “Demon – Crazy” that was a philosophical thoughtful expose but the perspectives of our past decades show that our system of governance has really been demonic till this day! The last 1999 constitution which Nigeria had was initiated by Gen. Abudulsalami Abubarkar. Today we know that the 1999 constitution was a fraud as it was not delivered by the people of Nigeria. 
A university Prof. D. Ononogu opined recently that “only a people-oriented government that is responsive to the need of the governed will survive”. Recently, Afe Babalola SAN, in his reflection on the 1999 constitution said that “the 1999 constitution is the problem with the governance of Nigeria today being an imposition” which has left the regions and states impoverished and unable to carry out their economic and other functions with fiscal responsibility.

The truth must be told that the Generals of the Nigerian military who had usurped the governance of the country, most of whom are still living today are Yakubu Gowon, Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida, Abudulsalami Abubarkar, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari while some of the expired and dead Generals are Muritala Muhammed, Sani Abacha, etc. The real issue among the Generals is the number of years each of them will preside over the economic resources and destiny of Nigeria, which no doubt have made all of them clamour for at least 8 years of leadership and have accumulated such domestic and foreign wealth that they cannot exhaust within their living years and cannot repatriate to Nigeria from the banks where they are stashed.

The state of the Nigerian nation today as we are about to celebrate our 59th independence anniversary was recently reflected upon by an international scholar, who said that “the issues now raging are corruption, cronyism, poverty, cultism, violent crimes, terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, sectorial violence, Muslim fundamentalism which has polarized the religious sects and the government into bloody clashes and loss of lives and properties”.  

The United Nations rapporteur to Nigeria said recently that the Boko Haram terrorism has accounted for the loss of more than 30000 lives and several millions of internally and externally displaced refugees in IDP camps. Schools have been shut down and tertiary institutions have not opened for months since our last anniversary due to the unresolved issues between the government and ASUU. It is the education of our youth that is hindered and drastically lowered. 

In the past year, the unemployment of our youths who are out of school or who used to have gainful employment in various institutions has really reached the 20% mark. It was this very year of 2019 that Nigeria was said to have overtaken India with a population of over one billion people as the poverty capital of the world! Surely this has been an agonizing revelation for Nigerians due to the lack of performance of our present governments and particularly due to the unviable governance structure of Nigeria. Even with the present abject poverty, politics is now the main source of wealth for economic consumption rather than a productive sector!

Ex-Governor Bararabe Musa as leader of the conference of Nigeria’s Political Parties said that “Now we have leaders who only care about themselves and whose primary objective in life is SELF” But the life expectancy of Nigerians is now an average of about 45years with a lot of suicides currently, as life is not worth living for many as the extended family living system has broken down in most rural communities and in the urban areas. If we review and compare the salaries of members of the National Legislature, not to talk of the State Legislature or the Executives, Ministers, Commissioners, and their humongous infantile aides, it will be seen why there is today in Nigeria such debilitating unrest and impatience in our governance system in the last 20 years till this moment of 2019.

For example according to the Guardian newspaper the salary of a Nigeria Senator is said to be N750,000.00 monthly with a sitting allowance of N13.5million and a constituency allowance of N200million allowance per annum plus other numerous allowances for their wardrobes, vehicles, office’s multiple retirement and pension allowances, etc. It is such an amount when combined with those of the executives that have made our budget in the last 4 years of Buhari administration to be in deficit. It also resulted in the last recession from which we have not really come out as Nigeria is still borrowing from the World Bank and the IMF to meet its recurrent expenditures with an economy that is growing at 1.95% per annum only till 2019.  

The quagmires of this situation led to the devaluation of Nigeria’s currency which is now N360 to $1 whereas after independence, the Nigerian Naira was stronger than the US Dollar. As a matter of fact, just last week, Nigeria under President Buhari again approached the World Bank for a $2.5billion loan which will help us meet our deficit budgetary provisions in which capital expenditures amounts to not more than 15%. Nigeria has failed to meet its own responsibilities as espoused by the United Nations and the World Financial Communities unlike some other countries are doing in Africa. We are incapable of meeting the expectations prescribed due to our reliance on external debt for the execution of internal expenditure rather than the product we sectors of our economy with the capacity to pay back the foreign debt. Nigeria’s foreign debt rose to $25,609.63billion compared to the figure of 2016 of President Jonathan’s administration which was $9.760billion. It would be remembered that Obasanjo and Okonjo Iweala were able to get our external debtors to cancel a large chunk of our foreign debt due to the World Bank and IMF.

Nigeria’s DMO office has again reminded the administration that most of the external borrowings are used for recurrent expenditures like salaries and allowances and also to refinance maturing obligations which will not grow our economy. The United Nations listed the Millennium Developmental Projects which Nigeria and other developing nations should urgently focus on. These are:  No Poverty, Zero Hunger,  Good Health and Well-being, Quality Education, Gender Equality, Clean Water and Sanitation, Affordable and Clean Energy, Decent Work and Economic Growth,Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Reduced Inequality Sustainable Cities and Communities,Responsible Consumption and Production Climate Action,Life below Water, Life on Land, Peace and Justice Strong, Institutions,  Partnerships to achieve the Goal. 

An analytical fact check by Nigerian experts maintained that for democracy to work properly, public figures need to be held accountable for what they say or do. Their claims should be publicly assessed with skills and evidence from institutions in economic, finance, technology, science, banking, universities, corporate institutions, media and industries in order to distill or sort out facts from fiction. The current performances of Nigerian institutions in the past 3 years and particularly in this 2019 are bedeviled by fictions and propaganda in the statistical realm and non-patrician analytical domain. As Nigerian’s we cannot appreciate where we are in order to improve on governance situations in the interest of our own well being. It is known that at the moment, Nigeria depends on a mono economic structure which is crude oil to the extent of about 80%. The non oil sector has not yet achieved its optimal capacity hence the current deficit budgeting. In fact the present administration in which the President is also the Petroleum Minister and in which the NNPC controls the production, the refining and the sale of our crude has been financially worrisome in respect of its very poor accountability. Nigerians are surprised to learn this year that we spent more money importing refined petroleum products from abroad than the amount for which our crude oil is sold to foreign entities. Nigeria’s NNPC is still employing the crude oil swap for imported petroleum products due to the inabilities of our own refineries. Indeed the NNPC under our President Buhari as Minister is spending trillions of naira on oil subsidy, a situation that is fuelling monumental corruption and unaccountable financial applications. Informed experts and IMF have urged the Federal Government to scrap the colossal funds involved in the corrupt subsidies payments so that Nigeria’s economy can urgently be rejuvenated and our system of governance should be constitutionally restructured through the urgent devolution of powers to the states or federating units where sovereignty lies.

The Nigerian-Benin border was recently sealed leading to very high rise in commodity prices yet there is still a clandestine smuggling through the borders at night and with motor cycles in the Northern borders. All these are in breach of the Agencies Free Trade Agreement just signed. It is hurting our own economy. In the last 2 months President Buhari’s government in a bid to start his first year of the 2nd tenure, made two proposals to the national assembly. One was for the control of the river sides and water ways in the country and the other was for the 774 local governments to be made autonomous financially and other wise and removed from the control of the state governments. 

These proposals are unconstitutional for a set up of true federalism which enunciates the truism that sovereignty belongs to the people at the grass root and therefore the residual and main constitutional powers should belong to the states which will cede some limited powers to the central government, to be able to execute some overall Nigerian factors such as immigration, defence, foreign affairs, some infrastructure etc. In the last two years, the Southern and Middle Belt leaders have been proposing a restructured polity since President Buhari rejected the implementation of the detailed resolutions of the 2014 Abuja constitutional conference convened by President Goodluck Jonathan, by consigning the reports to the archives and turning Nigeria into a so called ‘unitary federalism’ which is an unknown contraption in legal jurisprudence. With the state of the Nation today in such a deplorable situation, the Southern and Middle Belt and the Sahelian Upper Northern Areas of Nigeria’s 6 geopolitical zones should wake up from their slumber and make a final push for the realization of a new governance structure for Nigeria to move to greater heights.

An analytical and unapologetic observer in the social media last week said “All the Southern but accused slaves and other useful idiots in their regions should be recalled and placed on cognitive psychotherapy for total emancipation, freedom and redemption despite their height of delusion and narcissism”. The above may not be very farfetched from our present almost delusional situation, when as a matter of fact the end is very much at sight for Nigeria to end our current deplorable situation. A former USA Ambassador to Nigeria HE Princeton Lyman said a month ago during a Brown University Colloquium of Prof Chinua Achebe that “Nigeria is becoming a strategic failure to the world and Africa” A recent United States department analysis on our economic transparency submitted that “the defining moments of a clueless, despotic amalgam called Nigeria or Nigger-area has by its leadership truncated any definite movement of proper governance devoid of corruption, lack of transparency and accountability and normal developmental strides as a replica of its movement of growth from its self governance system to independence”. Such truths are of course, hurtful even though they can be remedies in our own interest!