Which Way Nigeria, Which Way?

 By Basil Onwukwe

The dream of lasting peace in Nigeria remains a fleeting illusion until fundamental human rights are equal and guaranteed for all. Without this, the pursuit of economic growth and political stability can never be fully realised. Righteousness exalts a nation, and doing things right is not an option? Let’s not pretend that political alignment is about public interest.

Nigerians will be waiting to see whether they will establish a legal framework that enables the reconstruction of the nation’s failed issues. Let’s call it what it is: a carefully masked attempt to fund elite wasteful spending. Any change from frying pan to fire cannot be tolerated anymore, or state capture that offloads systemic failure onto the backs of the masses will not be acceptable.

The political class is increasingly out of touch and faces a critical moment given the current situation. We have not yet seen the end of Nigeria’s political struggle, and unless urgent action is taken, we cannot feel secure in the hands of these political elites who are treating the affairs of our unborn generation with reckless abandon.

There is a growing mental health disorder among those who present themselves as Nigerian leaders; leadership is the management of people and resources. They have abandoned essential leadership principles, such as those practiced in SWOT analysis, where strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and talents are identified based on their availability from any part of the country, this is widely used globally.

Instead, they continue to engage in discrimination and isolation of other parts of the country. What we are witnessing in Nigeria is a function of a dysfunctional government and mismanagement of our growing population, and we are expecting other segments to compensate for their failures. Unless leaders acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses of the Nigerian community, inept leadership will persist in every political coalition or merger.

Sometimes, actual change requires the dismantling of old structures to allow something stronger and more unified to emerge. Today, as discussions of electoral reform dominate the national conversation, one would expect this new emerging group to advocate for implementing the electoral reforms, making electronic transmission of results mandatory to make stealing of paper results a non-issue.

However, we are waiting to see where their focus will be on the political structure that is the bone of contention in Nigerian political instability, It is not sure that a leader with the fortitude and courage to redesign the affairs of the Nation will emerge because the Nigerians focus is always on the elites that has massed the earnest money to share around that benefit from their votes and until the man in Sokoto and Eastern states considers the person in Calabar and Osogbo as his equal compatriot in the affairs of the Nation.

The recent realignment of the political class is a welcome development, but it has left us with more questions than answers. We all know that it is not a political party merger but a summation of aggregate sectional leadership and religious protectionists who have been the architects of sectional politics and born-to-rule actors. They may have united to unseat the ruling party, but are they committed to correcting the political imbalance in the national polity?

The earlier indication has shown that the fundamental leadership role has not been agreed upon, nor is there any agreement on how the political dividend that will revolutionise the country’s economy will be reached. Nigerians will continue to oversee this political permutation, and it is hoped that it does not turn to self-preservation, patronage politics, and institutional mediocrity. A legislature disconnected from the reality of its people has no moral authority to legislate on the suffering of Nigerians, doubling down on fuel subsidy removal and additional taxation on goods and services to fuel the lavish spending of the government.

The political greed of the opposition party during the last dispensation robbed them of the 2023 election, resulting in the ruling party, already in free fall, regaining leadership. One would ask if any lessons were learned in the last two years! Nigerian politicians are likened to a goat that urinated on its place of abode, thinking its master would not feel it, not knowing that it would be felt more by the goat lying on it. It is unbelievable how they benefit from the failed system and do not realise that opponents will capitalise on it later when they regain power.

The imposition of leadership against the dictates of democracy through falsification of results is a bad practice that pays no one any good. Allowing people to choose their leaders should not be considered evil in Nigeria. However, now that the riggers are being rigged, the opposition that has been in power for all these years and refused to correct the fraudulent election and left the loophole must agree to correct it.

The new coalition can be a welcome development, but will they have the courage to use this opportunity to confront the harsh reality of adopting a regional or true federation that is the mark of political instability in Nigeria? This necessary choice will make the coalition viable, rather than wasting time on pointless personal interest mergers against public service. Buhari’s government primarily favored his kinsmen and governed with lavish political favoritism while impoverishing the nation.

Now, President Tinubu appears to be following a similar path with the one voice legislative council and the present Judiciary in his pocket, making court pronouncements an executive prerogative. We understand some of these developments can be synonymous, but they are becoming increasingly suspiciously unusual, especially with the Abuja legislative council, which is disconnected from reality.

It does not matter what the ordinary citizen is going through, when the fourth-term legislature complains that fourteen million is inadequate as a monthly salary. While the government does not prioritise paying a minimum wage of eighty thousand Naira in his constituency.

In just two years, the present government has worsened the nation’s situation, and people are apprehensive about what the next six years will bring, alongside WIKE, which seems to be a political suicide for the opposition. The opposition cries about perceived injustices everywhere, knowing that if they had corrected the governance imbalance when in power, another group would not have exploited the loophole they mismanaged during their tenure.

Now, the chickens have come home to roost in their mistake. There is no Nation that survives governance by ethnographic or religious patronage. It is unfortunate that subsequent past and present governments in Nigeria have weaponised ethnic and religion sentiments during politics, and it has proved to be counterproductive on policies.

The struggle for Nigeria’s soul has begun; however, it seems to have ended before it truly started. We must demand legal frameworks from this political alignment, primarily when representatives act as middlemen for corporate profiteers rather than as defenders of the public good. This raises questions about Nigeria’s direction and until we know which way this political gingernuts wants to pull it nothing is certain.

In a country burdened with poverty, poor infrastructure, collapsing public institutions, and a youth population stripped of opportunities, a government with misplaced priorities continues to claim renewed hope for agriculture.

However, insecurity continues to drive people from their ancestral homes to IDP camps. One must wonder if agriculture is being executed in a vacuum, economic insecurity cannot be achieved without the security of lives and properties of the nation.

*Onwukwue is a member of Political Action Group, Worcester Massachusetts, USA.