BY DELE MOMODU
Fellow Nigerians, as we enter the last day of the year today and start the beginning of a new year tomorrow,
please, permit me to wish everyone a very happy and prosperous year
ahead. This is the ritual we are all familiar with. Many of us would
head to church tonight to try
and pray and possibly cajole God to grant all our best wishes pronto, as
soon as the new year begins. More often than not, we want God to do
things for us even if we refuse to do His bidding, the commonest of
which, according to my faith, is to love our neighbours as ourselves and
forgive our enemies seventy times seven times. The dearth of love and
the absence of forgiveness, I believe, is one of the major reasons
Nigeria is in such a mess today.
I will never get tired of sermonising
about this unfortunate reality. Nigeria needs love in all ramifications.
It seems we are too oppressive to one another. The wickedness of man’s
inhumanity to man has manifested itself in our daily lives. It is the
reason some of us misbehave and carry on with no modicum of care in the
world. We love religion but hate religious tenets which regulate our
beliefs. We love the good things that we see abroad but fail to
replicate same at home. In fact, we believe those things are not meant
for us and should be the exclusive preserve of those who can afford to
travel and return home to regale us with tales of a glittering Dubai and
a New York that never sleeps.
We have lamented endlessly and it
seems there is no end to our woes in sight. Life should not be as tough
and rough as it is in our dear beloved country. I think this season
affords us the opportunity to rethink and reroute our ways of doing
things. We must start by reconciling our many and varying differences.
We can’t and won’t go far until we come to terms with the issues that
divide us and make a conscious effort to embrace the things that can
unite us. No nation can ever develop in an atmosphere of permanent state
of topsy-turvy.
At the level of different tiers of
governments in Nigeria, there is so much chaos everywhere; unpaid
salaries, poor infrastructure, vindictiveness, profligacy, nepotism, and
all the ailments Fela sang about aeons ago are still very much with us.
We have blatantly refused to try new methods and methodology and yet
expect miracles to happen. Of all our problems, the one that worries me
the most is our propensity to prefer the use of brute force above the
well-tested strategy of persuasion despite the failure of tyranny on too
many occasions. I wonder why mankind starts a war, destroys everything
along its path before returning to the negotiation table. Why was it
blinded in the first instance about the possibility of peaceful
settlement?
The latest theatre of madness is in
Syria where foreign powers are taking time and turns to gang-rape that
historic country. No matter the outcome of the latest ceasefire, Syria
and Syrians are already sentenced to a life of perpetual misery and
penury. When and if tomorrow
comes, the same super powers would queue up to determine who gets what
business for the reconstruction of a totally battered nation. It is such
a big shame. I’ve noticed and noted the same similarities in Nigeria
where we prefer to waste our resources on fighting dirty and abandoning
governance before returning to our senses and begin to preach peace and
reconciliation.
I had admonished the ruling party in
Nigeria, APC, when it started its own war of attrition but hardly did
anyone listen. Rather they accused us of working for certain enemies at
the time when we were only concerned about the collateral damage to true
and productive governance. Nigerians voted last year for a singular
purpose which was to arrest the drift towards perdition and enthrone a
new regime of performance, discipline and integrity as opposed to
incompetence and corruption. Nigerians wanted to witness a sporadic
change in their lives and not listen to a plethora of excuses for
failure. If truth be told, the APC frittered away its humongous goodwill
and lost a lot of its uncommon equity when it got carried away over the
assumption of its invincibility. APC behaved like it had all the time
in the world and failed to take cognisance of the traditional impatience
of Nigerians. It is not too late for APC to retrace its steps and give
Nigerians a new political order. I shall endeavour to give my humble
suggestions, as always.
I have always maintained that nations
are never governed by saints but by performers. Therefore, let me assure
President Muhammadu Buhari that his seeming search for saints to work
with may not yield fruits after-all. I now plead with him to urgently
search for some vibrant and accomplished Nigerians to work with in the
new year. In another five months, two years would have passed since
Nigerians in our collective wisdom or amnesia catapulted the President
back to power after over three decades in retirement. It is a rare
honour and privilege that should never be rubbished by anyone. I’m
certainly convinced that a few things have definitely gone wrong with
his avowed plans to make Nigeria one of the greatest nations on earth.
Let me fathom a few guesses.
The President is probably surrounded by
people who are not in tune with current trends in the modern world. The
President may be a veritable victim of his own persona which makes
people around him to live in dizzying fear of an omnipotent boss. Only
the President can release such people from their gilded cage. The
President would not be privy to quality advice and factual information
if the people around him are too timid jelly-like to speak out their
minds because they are afraid of a backlash. There may truly be a
powerful mafia that has grabbed the jugular of Nigeria while the
President has been practically hypnotised by them. Whatever it is, only
the President can confirm if he thinks the current mafia is what he
needs to deliver on his attractive promises to Nigerians made on the
soap box.
I doubt if there is any serious Nigerian
today outside the corridors of power who feels the present team of
President Buhari can drive Nigeria to the promised land we all anxiously
want to see. If I were the President, I will change the tempo of
governance within the first month of 2017. I do not know the level of
power and authority currently given to the Vice President, Professor
Yemi Osinbajo, but I would like to see him get more involved and become
very assertive. He is relatively young, highly cerebral and innovative
with far reaching global contacts that Nigeria can benefit from. As a
distinguished scholar, he is conversant with modern trends and can gain
access to the most brilliant Nigerians that litter everywhere on this
planet. I’m not sure Nigeria is currently making use of one of its best
assets in government today.
The time has come to reduce the
dangerous level of mistrust and distrust in our country today. From
North to South and West to East, Nigerians are at war against themselves
and their country. The perceived fear of a Northernisation agenda can
be curtailed if President Buhari can make that extra effort to speak
directly to Nigerians and explain certain decisions that inform some of
his appointments. He should never dismiss the agitations of any part or
group of Nigerians. Every Nigerian citizen should be given a sense of
belonging. The senseless killing of Nigerians in certain parts of our
country should be totally discouraged. No country can afford to operate
in complete paranoia. The rule of law must be followed and obeyed in
dealing with criminals and troublemakers. The government should never
assume the role of accuser and judge at the same time. A situation where
the government becomes a Law unto itself may lead to occasional
skirmishes and even anarchy. This explains the volatility we’ve
witnessed recently in some parts of Nigeria.
The Buhari government must rejig its war
against corruption. There is no marked difference between the style
operated by President Olusegun Obasanjo and the current format. Instead
of the present staccato fashion, President Buhari should restructure the
operations in a way that it would not only target certain individuals
but also the particular institutions that attract and thrive on
corruption. As noted on this page in the past, not all corrupt
tendencies emanate from greed. My thesis is that corruption in Nigeria
has become almost irredeemably endemic as a result of chronic needs from
top to bottom. It is so easy to attack a few Governors, Ministers and
legislators but corruption begins from the time many of the government
operatives were certified paupers. Significantly, the government cannot
preach integrity when it is distinctly lacking in such integrity itself,
epitomised by its failure to keep its covenant with its workers through
the payment of their salaries. You cannot continue to recklessly commit
the country’s funds to frivolous and wasteful projects and expect that
those involved in doing the donkey work on these projects should go
unpaid but nevertheless retain a semblance of decency.
It is impossible for an average Nigerian
to survive on his normal income. I still don’t know how most workers
manage to get to work on paltry salaries. Many don’t receive their
salaries for several months and the employers can also not be totally
blamed due to some dwindling turnover. The quality of education has
dropped abysmally and many graduates are thus not employable by the few
companies that can still afford to do so. And if lucky to get the job,
you must pay for transport, cough out one or two years’ rent in advance,
feed on something and still cover sundry bills. This reality has driven
many Nigerians to desperation and the need to survive, by fire by
force. No amount of preaching by any government can change the
debilitating conditions that force many honest people to resist the
temptations of surviving against all odds.
In other climes, the solution is not too
far-fetched; there must be a credit system. It is a no-brainer that
credit begets and creates wealth. It expands the economy and puts more
money and purchasing power into the hands of a lot more people. However,
obtaining credit in Nigeria is not an easy matter and never a better
option due to many factors that are so obvious to you and I. The Buhari
government should work with the Central Bank of Nigeria on how to ease
the inherent fiasco of obtaining rents, mortgages, car loans, health
insurance, education grants and scholarships, business start-ups and so
on. No government can employ even ten percent of all employables but it
can help facilitate many difficult necessities of life. Those hoping
President Buhari would help them find jobs should, please, stop living
on false and misguided hopes. I reiterate, there is a limit to the
number of jobs that any government can create of its own accord. All
that government can do is to formulate policies that can alleviate the
suffering of average Nigerians. This is not too visible at the moment.
President Buhari should not be
distracted by the politicians who think more of contesting elections and
who will therefore be telling him that all is well. Mr President Sir,
all is definitely not well. Indeed, it seems that nothing is well! The
best and easier way for you to win the next Presidential election if you
are so interested, and rightly so, is to perform now. Believe me,
Nigerians would voluntarily ask you to continue. That should be your
priority at this highly critical, tense and depressive period in our
country’s development. Only true change across board can ameliorate the
situation. The time to embrace such change is now, as we begin a new
year. That must be the President’s New Year Resolution. It will take us
all out of the doldrums.
THISDAY
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