By Edet-Honesty Effiong
This is my second theme on the 64th Independence anniversary of Nigeria. And just as I did in the first piece, I am still tempted to ask the same question whether we have cause to celebrate at 64.
Placed side by side her contemporaries in South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and even China, can anyone proudly and confidently raise a glass for a toast to Nigeria? We were at par with these nations and even better than some at Independence 64 years ago.
Today, Nigeria is in retrogression and decline, degenerating rapidly into anarchy. Everywhere one turned, it is a tale of despair; disunity, raving hunger, poverty, extreme unemployment, insecurity, infrastructural paucity and rising hopelessness.
While Nigeria’s contemporaries have gone ahead to create perfect environment for sustainable all – round development, we are here still searching for answers.
Take the small island nation of Singapore for example. Here’s nation with little or no natural resources, but has been able to transform into a global economic giant – a tech hub of sort – one of the most industrialized nations on planet Earth.
What is that this tiny nation is doing differently? It is having the right and perfect leadership! Simple. Here in Nigeria in 2024, the Senate is debating the propriety or otherwise of a return to parliamentary, regional constitutionalism. Imagine. When her counterparts are already building structures in the Moon.
Absence of a visionary, selfless, transparent and inspiring leadership plus indolent public service and corruption have set Nigeria several decades behind.
At 64, our economy is in shambles. The National Currency – the Naira which in 1978 exchanged at One dollars to One naira ( $1 – #1) is today #1,620 to $1.
Today, according to global poverty index, more than 150 million Nigerians are living below poverty level. Nigeria is now the poverty capital of the world, having overtaken India. So many homes can hardly afford one meal a day – square or no square.
Today, unemployment is at the extreme, and it is reported that more than 70percent of the population is roaming the streets without jobs, and the consequence is the high incidences of crime and criminality in the regions of this country! General instability!
At 64, Nigeria can only generate about 5000 megawatts of electricity in a nation of over 200million population, grossly inadequate to even power the energy needs of residential homes, not to mention industrial and commercial activities.
Any wonder that several industries have either relocated to our neighbouring countries or shut down completely. The few that are still operating do so at extremely reduced capacity. And the end result is scarcity of industrial goods and higher cost of living.
Agriculture, hitherto the mainstay of the National economy before and in the early years of Independence has virtually collapsed due to neglect, leading to food insufficiency, hunger and even starvation in some areas.
Today, the Nigerian youth finds it increasingly difficult to access tertiary education owing to poor and inadequate government funding. The few who could gain access have had to contend years in school due to incessant and prolonged strikes by Academic Staff Union (ASUU) over poor condition of service and inclement working environment.
This explains why the United Nations’ Human Development Index (HID) ranked the nation abysmally at 163 out of 169 countries. Such an unenviable position for a nation so stupendously blessed.
Denied easy access to quality education and or gainful employment, the Nigerian youth now finds solace in other areas – crime, because survive he must.
The inter – play of inaccessibility to good education and the absence of a caring and accountable government has foisted on the nation a generation of I’ll – equipped, maladjusted youths, creating a societal pandemic that is racking us today, loose cannons – young guys wandering the streets of our major cities, day and night, engaging in every manner of vices such as ritual killings ( Yahoo Plus) and kidnapping. With this, the future looks not too inspiring.
It was a tragedy that the military violently invaded the democratic space and interrupted the civil administration 5 years into Independence, thereby denying the Nation the wisdom, experience and vision of its founding fathers.
It was a monumental error of judgement to think that the future of Nigeria was in her military, as events later proved; for after almost 40 years in governance, the military finally left the political economy in tatters, bequeathing endemic corruption, nepotism, bigotry and tribalism ( the very excuses they gave for disrupting the democratic government) as their legacies.
The military clan of that era is populated by some of the richest men in Nigeria today. Paradoxically, many of the founding fathers that they ousted had no houses of their own when they were sent packing.
Today, Nigeria bleeds from all parts, badly battered, but I recognize the fact that this is no time to bemoan our failures. It’s the time for every hand to be on deck, devising strategies to steer the nation away from imminent collapse. As someone said somewhere, ‘ it is time for all good men ( and women) to tremble for our country”. Every effort to heal the land from our little corners shall count.
The government must now embark on sincere and sustained moral rearmament and structural mental adjustment away from primitive acquisition of wealth and worship of mammon. The Church should return to the teaching of the old time religion of salvation and holy living and love for one another. Islamic clerics should return to the sound preaching of Islam which is peace and not war and hate.
Every public office holder must know that he/she holds such in trust for the people and not as opportunity to amass wealth at the expense of public good.
The war against corruption must not be selective but total, targeting the entire spectrum of public life (and private practices). Government at all levels cut down on the cost of governance. It is immoral and sacrilegious to ask the masses to tighten their belt and bear the current hardships in the hope of a better tomorrow while they embark on profligacy.
Going forward, every new entrant into the public service should be made to undergo forensic screening to ascertain their integrity quotient.
The National Orientation Agency (NOA) should design a program for mass mobilisation of people for social and ethical reorientation to fight our common enemies – disunity, bigotry, nepotism, ignorance and corruption.
Finally, and a very passionate note, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should remember that over 70 percent of those who voted for him believed, and rightly so, in his capacity to structurally redesign the Nigerian nation towards equity, fairness and justice. I have no in my mind that some of the bold tough decisions he has taken so far are aimed at jump – starting our socio – economic transformation because we had slow-walked for too long . He should not be afraid to restructure Nigeria.
Edet – Honesty Effiong is the President – Emeritus,
Uda Community Development. Union, Lagos Branch.
