Nigeria as presently structured, presently constituted and presently administered is unsustainable. By extension, the same is applicable to Africa and we need to be having discussions and debates on these issues. What is a bit baffling is why our elected officials do not initiate these issue-based discussions, rather they want to waste our time and public fund talking about the infamous and irrational compulsory vaccination for corona. How insensitive!
Every thing is wrong when a people assume public offices without mandate and without a people-focused agenda. All we see is irresponsibility in its different shapes and forms, and our people are too gullible to ask questions let alone hold our leaders accountable. If indeed democracy intends for power to be with the people, then may I ask you, “who are the people?” “what happened to the power?” When will the people finally use the power that is supposedly enshrined in democracy, if indeed what we have in Nigeria (oh Africa) is democracy?
First, our people need to wake up and decide that we want to have a voice in how our society is organized and administered. Concentration of power at Aso Rock or any arrangement that gives the president as much power and influence as Aso Rock wields is unhealthy, unreasonable and unsustainable. Time and again have we seen this power abused even by wives who have no business in governance, having contested no elections in the first place. That your husband or wife is suddenly called the President of an organization or a country does not give you right to meddle in the business of government. That you are called Chief of Staff does not mean a supreme court judge has to bow to your wishes in the administration of judgment. That you were declared governor even when you know you didn’t win the election does not give you the right to approve contracts and award them to your in-laws as you wish. Do you see that a system that runs like this is rotten and going the way of oblivion? Do you not see Nigeria represent this ugly picture am painting?
If the foundation is destroyed, what shall the righteous do? Let me assert here that i am yet to believe that Nigeria as presently constituted was designed to flourish. If anything, she was designed to fail her people and favor the colonial masters. So the decolonization of Nigeria (as well as all of Africa) is a task that requires urgent and concerted efforts. Look at the economy and see how we fare even with the oil when it boomed. Nigeria had so much money they didn’t know what to do with it yet roads were not tared, hospitals were not built, schools were not built, electricity was not provided, and industries were not established. What did we do with the oil money during the boom? How much is Nigeria owing the IMF or China or whoever? All the loots from all the tormentors of Nigeria that were supposed to have been recouped, were they not re-looted as quickly as they were repatriated? So at one level the problem is self-imposed. Our leaders in history have become our looters and those who were supposed to tend the flock are tormenting the flock. Those whose jobs it is to manage our resources have stolen all the resources and we haven’t been able to call them out by their real titles “service thieves”.
Look at the oil sector again and tell me who has benefited from that sector more than anybody else? The big multinationals and corrupt politicians. So now that the fate of oil hangs on the balance, the best they will do is hang around a little to see if prices come back up or leave. But the people of Niger Delta, the oil producing areas of the south have no water to drink, no fish to catch, no land to cultivate. All the big names from the rest of the world who have oil blocks will fly out to the next place business is booming and the locals have nowhere else to call home. That is unfair, it is unjust and it is criminal. What makes it criminal is lack of adequate corporate social responsibility and neglect of basic attributes of being humans. We are all human beings but we are not all being humans.
So Nigeria must start diversifying her economy, must decentralize power, and go back to regional government or risk disintegration sooner or later. But she must do that as a matter of urgency or she will have to put herself in a precarious situation especially given that the oil money will no longer be flowing down from Abuja as was the case before now.
There is hunger in the land and there is so much a people can take. The next move to resist corrupt politicians from executing personal agenda will be sporadic and every state will be involved as the youth will get tired of letting old men mortgage their future for political exigencies. This is not about Biafra or Oduduwa or Arewa, it will be people of all backgrounds uniting in their refusal to comply with a system that has failed. If Nigeria refuses to act, she will soon be declared a failed state…think about a situation where a company declares bankrupt. China will not stop until you have paid with things you don’t even have, and those interest rates will neither go down nor will they be renegotiated in line with present economic realities, and soon the people that took those loans will start dying of natural courses and leave behind an economy where a bag of money cannot buy a morsel of bread. Is that service or disservice?
Africa has to step up as a region to build up trade and commerce ties that will link all the major hubs with ease of doing business across the continent. Maybe we can start with railway that connects major African cities and then enter into a deal that makes it easier for fellow Africans to do business in any part of Africa without fear of xenophobia. This is the way to become relevant and be able to compete with China and the rest of the world. Our local companies must be encouraged and supported. Otherwise, it will be a long way to recovery post corona virus. What we know as hard times now may actually be the beginning of what may snowball into a serious economic depression. There has to be African way of contending with the problems that confront African and we cannot expect the west to come up with the solution that fixes our motherland. I am not a prophet of doom, but I remain, your leadership analyst and a voice from diaspora.
I will like to hear your opinion @MezieOkolo