No time is ever proper to resolve overarching questions of
development in a polity like ours where the leaders demur at every crucial
moment to grapple with the challenges of nationhood. Thus, in the hands of our
leaders, what should be a laudable process of envisioning becomes travestised
as a trajectory of disguising their inability to confront head-on national
challenges. Or why do our leaders have the penchant for setting national goals
in a time frame that is perpetually elastic? Remember? Under varied rubrics such as “Housing for all by 2000
AD” and “Vision 20:2020” our leaders have
found a way of not coming to terms with national crises that would eventually
haunt us or the subsequent generation.
Now, the official refrain is that
this is not the best time to talk about restructuring. As they flounder for a
pretext under which to avoid confronting the issues that the need for
restructuring has thrown up, our leaders have not been so fortunate to think of
offering the agitating citizens the anodyne of “Restructuring in 2050 AD.”
For our leaders, what should presage talks about restructuring is the
restoration of economic buoyancy, a goal that would remain elusive as long as
our leaders continue to see their political positions as means to
self-valourisation. The unimpeachable argument that the economic misery of the
people was sired in the first place by the absence of a restructured polity
holds no appeal to them.
