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 and desperation.
There is no more thermometer to measure the degree of frustration and desperation in the land than the long closure of our tertiary institutions, especially our universities due to strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) since the past eight months.
The #EndSARS protests and its aftermath were also partly caused by chronic idleness, hunger and frustration, among our youths, the result of many years of unaccountable leadership. As we write, Nigeria is still on the boil. In the midst of the misery and lack that is the lot of our youths and other Nigerians, a few politicians are still swimming in affluence and under the best security system and protection one can think of. 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 indubitably 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 was 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. More than five years of the regime in the saddle, 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 too difficult to see. They are the signs of internal decay; the dry rot of apathy and indifference. Nigerians had 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 in the sixth largest producer of crude in the world. Petrol was selling for N86 per litre when this government was inaugurated on May 29, 2015. It now sells for N170 per litre. 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 450 to the US Dollar? Does he ever remember his campaign promise to Nigerians when even the Dollar was exchanging for N187, 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 parade 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 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 beyond their control to stage a peaceful protest in Lagos recently. More than five 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. Why is there so much hunger in the land and our network of roads terribly bad whereas our debt stock has risen to about N31 trillion? What is the government doing with the long list of loans and incomes generated from the sale of oil, taxation, customs service, immigration and other sources? Why did the government say last week that it is very broke, with no money to pay salaries of its workforce in more than 400 departments, agencies and parastatals? What is really happening?
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 propositions. 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 budgets, 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 the past five years 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. 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 which has refused to be defeated is brought to its knees, government must halt the heinous killings of people by Fulani herdsmen and bandits across the country. Rather than creating and fighting enemies at every twist and turn, the government should create time for sober reflection. The Food and Agricultural Organization, FAO, an arm of the United Nations, circulated recently that there is severe hunger in 16 states and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT. This is very disturbing.
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.
*Amor, a public affairs analyst writes from
Abuja
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