The Beauty Of The 2023 General Elections

 By Luke Onyekakeyah

The 2023 general election, which is around the corner, is the easiest for Nigerians to vote and vote rightly. The anger and hardship in the land should be visited at the poll. People should be angry enough to say enough is enough and translate it by voting only those who are capable and prepared to bring relief to the people. This election is a matter of life and death for a country. It is either that Nigeria gets it right or this might be the last chance.

Luckily, choosing the right presidential candidate would not present any difficulty. The choice is very glaring among the contestants. It has never been like this since 1999, when the present democratic dispensation birthed. This is the beauty of the 2023 elections. In the previous elections, there were many capable contestants, which made it difficult for the electorate to select. The situation is different this time around.

Why Then Did Buhari Weep?

 By Ifeanyi Maduako

Unlike women, it’s natural that men rarely weep or shed tears. Whatever makes a man weep must have overwhelmed him emotionally in such a manner that he cannot hold back tears. Therefore, when a man weeps in public, it’s possible that he may have wept several times over in his closet. Whatever makes a general to weep on camera before the whole world must be on something that touches on his nerves beyond emotional control.

*Buhari 

Against the foregoing background, when the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari(retd.), wept before the cameras sometime in 2012 after losing the 2011 presidential election which was his third attempt at the presidential seat, the world was taken aback seeing a retired general shedding tears publicly ostensibly over the state of the nation.

Why Character Matters In Politics

By Patrick Utomi

One of the sad paradoxes of Nigeria’s political journey is the current widely held view that in politics anything goes. To explain the most disgraceful personal conduct, it seems ‘okay’ to just say ‘na politics na’. 

                                                                     *Prof Utomi 

This dominant vice of politics, as the art of the indecent, rather than the art of the possible, which is dominant in contemporary political culture in Nigeria is exactly opposite the core issue in Western political thought and history. There the central issue has been morality or public virtue, as Montesquieu calls it. 

The great escape from misery for Western civilisation, beyond Angus Deaton’s case for the contribution of health care and the discovery of the germ theory of disease, has largely come from freedom that democracy offers. 

Why We Are Failing As A Nation

By Jerome-Mario Utomi

Asked how he was able to grow 15 times, independent Singapore with a GDP of $3 billion in 1965 to $46 billion in 1997 and became the 8th highest per capita GNP in the world in 1997 according to the World Bank ranking? Lee Kuan Yew, the Prime Minister of Singapore (as he then was) explained thus; a united and a determined group of leaders, backed by practical and hard-working people who trust them made it possible.

*President Buhari

The story of Singapore’s progress is a reflection of the advances of the industrial countries – their inventions, technology, enterprise, and drive. It is part of the story of man’s search for new fields to increase his wealth and well being, he concluded.

Nigeria: Understanding Restructuring Aright

By Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo

Given the renewed momentum and calls for the restructuring of Nigeria, I am not surprised that it has dominated media headlines both in the one print and electronic media. Recently, I was watching and listening to a programme where the discussants dwelt extensively on the economy and what should be done. One thing that actually interested me was the various suggestions made by the panelists on how to move Nigeria out from the woods.

While the panellists were unanimous in their agreement that the economy has collapsed almost irretrievably, some of them recommended, as a way forward, that Nigerians should go back to the farms; others agreed that there is urgent need to restructure the country. Most of the discussants also dwelt extensively on the importance of restructuring. Even Vice President Yemi Osibanjo called in to make his position on restructuring known, though I find his explanation vague. 

But whether the Vice President agrees with restructuring or not, my happiness is that many highly placed Nigerians, both at home and in the Diaspora, who before now would hear nothing about restructuring the country, have become fiery apostles of restructuring. I have always known that we can never escape the route of restructuring because history is coterminous with the reality that restructuring is the only escape route for countries like Nigeria. In the past 35 years I have maintained this position.

However, it does appear that even when restructuring has become very trending today, many of the new apostles do not understand the full import of restructuring. I want to say for the umpteenth time, that what Nigeria needs now is not a back-to-land initiative (that is good in itself) but an urgent restructuring of the country. My worry actually, is the lackadaisical understanding of this process of restructuring, even by those we may regard as informed. 

Buhari, Payment Of N5000 To The Unemployed And The Future Of Nigeria

By Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo
The phrase “robbing Peter to pay Paul” is not new to us. It was in 1661 AD that Peter Heylyn in his Ecclesia Restaurata sought to explain the origin and import of this phrase. Though his attempt has been punctured severally by other etymologists, the phrase suggests a calamitous sequence of events where, before the Reformation, taxes had to be paid from the treasury of St. Peter’s church in Rome to defray the running costs of St. Paul’s church in London. At this time, the lands of Westminster upon which St. Paul’s church stood had become so dilapidated and badly run by Bishop Thirlby, that there was almost nothing left to support its dignity. Originally it referred to neglecting the Peter tax in order to have money to pay the Paul tax. In its proper context, this phrase simply means solving one problem in a way that makes another problem worse. 

*Dr. Arthur Nwankwo 

When this type of approach is adopted in managing the economy of a state the outcome is always disastrous especially for countries with teething economic problems. That is what I call casino or lottery economy and no country makes progress in this type of scenario. Even Adam Smith, variously referred to as the father of economics did not prescribe this type of voodoo economics despite the fact that some modern economist have interpreted his economic model as laissez-faire economics because of his insistence that the best policy by which a state can manage its economy was to leave the economy to the free play of market forces. 

Evidently, the interpretation of Smith’s postulations as laissez-faire economics could be linked to his polemics against what he called mercantilism, which was based on the principle of “robbing Peter to pay Paul”. One important role of the government in managing the economy is to provide the institutional framework required for competitive markets to function. In other words, a well-structured political system should be able to provide a secure framework for the market system to work efficiently. 

More broadly, the role of the state is to protect the members of society, both as participants in market transactions and in their private lives, from violence and invasion from other societies and oppression by other members of society. A good reading of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations will reveal that although well-functioning markets are good for society, individual producers might well find it in their individual interests to limit competition by entering into “conspiracies against the public”. Therefore, an important role for government is to design an economic system that as far as possible discouraged the creation of private cartels and monopolies. Buhari’s economic management policies since he came on board are deficit on this principle.

I recall vividly that one of the numerous campaign promises by Buhari is that his administration would pay every unemployed Nigerian the sum of N5000 every month as welfare package pending such a time the person will be gainfully employed. At the time the promise was made and now, I have always maintained that this promise is neither feasible nor achievable for several reasons. I have read from the papers that Jigawa state government has slated March this year for the commencement of disbursement of this money to the unemployed and the poorest youths in the State. 

Castro And The Politics Of Deification

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Since the contemporary world is streaked with political leaders who ruthlessly betray their people’s trust, humanity is not infrequently afflicted with amnesia that compels it to hanker after its torturous past. That was a past when the rule of the strong man was the norm.

*Castro 

Yes, such strong men recorded lofty achievements. Some not only enlarged the territories of their countries through the conquest of other lands, they exceptionally improved the standard of living of their citizens. But in most cases when their caprices became the rules, the regime of brutality that was often manifested in the torture, tears and death of citizens besmeared their glorious interludes of achievements. Through Genghis Khan, Charlemagne, Alexander, Chairman Mao to Adolf Hitler, humanity has witnessed strong men whose single-handed pursuit of their visions led to the development of their nations. But such people saw themselves as the sole repositories of the patriotism and wisdom that could place their nations on a stellar pedestal of development.

But we often dismiss the accompanying brutality as an inevitable upshot of their quest for development of their nations. Thus, for instance, we often refer to how through rarefied leadership, Lee Kuan Yew transformed Singapore from a third world country to a first world nation. It was the same notion of strong men as better leaders that herded the Nigerian citizens into electing Muhammadu Buhari who is now floundering. As far as we are concerned, the suppression of dissent that accompanies the regime of a strong man pales into insignificance in the face of the miracles of development wrought by astute leadership. Yet, we must insist that something is wrong with the progress that would abridge the rights and claim the lives of a significant proportion of the members of the society.

What is clear as most people look back at the life and times of Fidel Castro is that they swoon over the development he brought to Cuba. There is the linear narrative of his transformation of Cuba, a tiny North American country of about 11 million people, to a formidable force that could call the bluff of arrogant powers like the United States that embargoed it. After successfully routing Fulgencio Batista who had trapped Cuba under his military jackboots, Castro opened a new vista of development in his country. His era was that of unprecedented improvement in literacy and medicine. But all this tends to blur Castro’s ruthlessness that bordered on misanthropy that mocked the terror of medieval potentates.

How Buhari Can Put Nigerian Economy Back On Track

By Magnus Onyibe

It is human nature to choose the least option of resistance when faced with tough decisions.
That perhaps explains why government’s reaction to the current foreign exchange, fx, squeeze, arising from recent drastic drop in international oil price – from which Nigeria earns approximately 90% of fx – is to ban allocation of fx for purchase of some items considered not essential.

*President Buhari 

The barring of 41 items such as tooth picks and candle wax from official allocation of fx is justified by the fact that such items could be sourced locally, especially since they are simple items requiring no extra ordinary skills or technology to produce.

However, owing to government’s policy of not being self-reliant, instead preferring to source basic items from abroad, looking inwards was considered tedious when it could be more easily imported.
That laidback attitude of Nigerians towards local production is the reason the policy of import substitution introduced in Nigeria in the days of oil boom was not pursued with the vigor it deserves. The shoddy implementation of the policy institutionalized Nigeria’s penchant for foreign made goods and services, signaling the dearth of locally produced goods and services for local consumption.

Nothing demonstrates Nigeria’s penchant for foreign made goods better than the (in)famous container armada-ships laden with imported containers of assortment of goods into Nigeria, resulting in congestions in the sea ports in early 1980s under ex president , Shehu Shagari’s watch (1979-83).

In a recent article titled “In This Same Country”, Reuben Abati, the former chairman of Guardian newspaper’s editorial board, irrepressible columnist and ex-presidential spokesman, captured the mood of Nigeria and Nigerians during the so called good old days, which some people, out of nostalgia, fondly refer to as the golden age.

Abati’s article which was an eulogy of Nigeria’s heydays as a towering economic colossus, also contained reminisces of Nigeria of yore in comparison to now, and laments that the new generation – youths born less than 35 years ago – would never believe that Nigeria was ever so glorious.

Hear Abati “The angst of this young generation is made worse when they are told that Nigeria was not always like this. In their late 20s to thirties, these children have only known Nigeria where fuel scarcity is a fact of daily life, and part of the mechanism of survival is to know how to draw fuel with your mouth, or negotiate black market purchase of fuel, while lugging jerry cans, either at the fuel station or a road side corner where you cannot be sure of the quality of fuel.These children have only known a country where the roads are bad, services are sub-standard, people are mean, criminality is rife, and electricity is available once in a blue moon”.