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There is no better way to describe the current state of Nigeria than the planned strike by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). Barring any last-minute change of mind, the organized labour will embark on indefinite strike from Tuesday, October 3, 2023, two days after the celebration of our independence anniversary.
This partly indicates that Nigeria is not truly independent. Market men and women are in pains. Artisans are in agony. Most workers, nay Nigerians, are in chains. The NLC went on a warning strike recently. But government turned a deaf ear to their demands.
The situation is dire. During his inauguration as President on May 29, 2023, Bola Tinubu announced with glee that subsidy was gone. He was to later boast that the subsidy removal issue was not in his prepared speech; but that he just summoned courage to announce it. He apparently expected us to clap for him. But Nigerians are not fools. They know that there was no clear-cut policy on palliatives to cushion the effects on poor people. The government later came up with jaundiced palliative measures. Criticisms trailed the policy. Pronto, the President suspended it only to come up with another wishy-washy palliative policy that his government is now implementing.
Palliative or no palliative, Nigerians are dying of hunger. They are dying of acute poverty. Over 133 million citizens are said to be multi-dimensionally poor. They are dying from the misrule and greed of our political office-holders who masquerade as leaders. While these politicians cart away billions of naira from the national treasury, the poor workers collect peanuts as take-home pay. Minimum wage has remained N30, 000 a month while a bag of 50kg of rice now goes for about N55, 000. The majority of our youths have no job, no home. They live under the bridge in many cities. Some don’t know where the next meal will come from. They scavenge the refuse bins for remnants of food to keep body and soul together. Even those who have some money to buy food, the inflation rate has made a mess of their income.
When former President Olusegun Obasanjo handed over power to Umaru Yar’Adua in 2007, the inflation rate was 4.6 per cent. In May 2015, Yar’Adua’s successor, Goodluck Jonathan, handed over an inflation rate of 9 per cent to Muhammadu Buhari. By the time the lanky retired military officer was through with us in May 2023, the rate had jumped to 22.41 per cent. Under Buhari too, the country experienced two recessions in 2016 and 2020. Currently, under the incumbent President Bola Tinubu, the inflation rate has further ballooned to 25.80 per cent. This is said to be the highest in 20 years. Food inflation is far worse.
As it is now, most businessmen are confused. Nigeria’s public debt profile rose to N87.38 trillion in the second quarter of 2023. Exchange rate is now about N1, 000 to a dollar. At the advent of this Fourth Republic in 1999, it was about N21.89 to a dollar. Importers have abandoned thousands of their imported fairly-used vehicles at the seaport. Most clearing agents have become jobless. They now look for menial jobs to do to keep body and soul together. It is that bad. Many Nigerians have become walking corpses.
This is why crime rate has escalated. Over the years, successive governments have failed to provide security, the primary duty of any government to its people. Citizens live in fear. The roads are not safe. Neither are the railways. Thousands of our compatriots have been kidnapped, innocent schoolchildren inclusive. Some live in Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) camps because terrorists have killed their loved ones and set their homes ablaze. Some are released after payment of huge ransom. Some do not return home alive. In August this year, some eight National Youth Service Corps members travelling to Sokoto from Akwa Ibom State were kidnapped in Zamfara State. Their poor parents managed to squeeze out a ransom of N13 million. The kidnappers changed gear, upping the ransom to N200 million. So far, they are yet to regain their freedom. More people have been abducted since then. More will still be kidnapped. We have moved on as if all is well.
Here is a nation that is naturally endowed. We call ourselves the giant of Africa. But dwarfs now do better than us. Look at Rwanda. Last August, our governors travelled to that country for a three-day leadership retreat. I became ashamed on their behalf. The East African country suffered a debilitating war like Nigeria. But, today, it has overcome its differences and is doing well relatively.
Many Nigerians have continued to allow ethnicity and religion to becloud their sense of reasoning. The so-called leaders know this and they have used it to maximum effect. They tell their people that it is their turn, just to turn them against the other ethnic or religious groups and achieve their selfish interests. Competence is hardly considered. Integrity is nothing to such people. Accountability and prudence mean nothing to them. “It is our turn and we must grab power and run with it,” they are wont to say.
That is why they make corruption and nepotism the cardinal principle of their state policies. Buhari was a master in it. He cornered most appointments, especially in security circles, to his Fulani stock. But has it changed anything? Now that he is out of power, his successor is trying hard to emulate him. The North has started complaining of marginalization. The South-East has long resigned to fate. Since it lost the civil war of 1967 to 1970, the region has been crying like a bird with a broken beak. While others have at least six states, it has five. Because the zone is far away from the presidency, it has the least ministerial appointments. The people are bitter, with Biafra agitators daring security agents every now and then. No nation progresses with this kind of setting. We are not being truthful to ourselves.
To move forward as a nation, we must begin to tell ourselves the truth. And what is the truth? We are not yet a nation. If Tinubu and the leaders of Nigeria love their people, they must initiate the restructuring of this country. Nigerians had since decided on how they want to live together. It is contained in the report of 2014 National Conference. We need to follow through with the recommendations of that report. Or, if the current leadership is not comfortable with it, they could set up another national dialogue where Nigerians will sit together and decide how they want to live together. We cannot continue to live a lie that Britain imposed on us in 1960. Let us liberate ourselves. No group should feel marginalized. Each region needs to leverage on its strength and, collectively, Nigeria will be better for it. That will discourage the undue struggle for power at the centre. It will discourage the ‘grab and snatch’ mentality of our greedy leaders. And it will encourage the country to grow exponentially. Should I even say happy independence? Are we truly independent? It is time to stop this annual ritual until we are ready to speak truth to ourselves.
Re: Tinubu’s UN fantasies
Casmir, it was perplexing watching Tinubu gloat on the highly destructive double-edged sword policies of his hasty and unilateral removal of fuel subsidy and the unsuccessful unification of exchange rates, that keeps deteriorating the standard of living of Nigerians! The UN is not promoting democracy in countries by allowing personalities whose purported victories/integrity are a subject of litigation to address the world body. The poverty of nations whose leaders are richer than their countries won’t end due to massive corruption. Investors know this. They are scared of investing in Nigeria! Tinubu should look into the mirror on most of the issues he raised! The solutions are within and not without. Only a greater sense of commitment by leaders coupled with purposeful leadership would free Africa and Nigeria in particular from the shackles he spoke about. Enough of fantasies or day dreaming on issues! He should walk the talk! Investors will naturally follow suit. He needs not belabour himself on that. The rule is, do your homework on the home front and get the result sequel to good works. Rhetoric, sophistry, hypocrisy that he loves engaging in will not take him far in the long run!
-Mike, Mushin, 0816 111 4572
Dear Casy, he who pontificates about anything good or noble must be seen to be above board. He who goes to equity must go with clean hands. How can the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) listen to the advice of any African leader whose ascension to power was shrouded in apparent fraudulent election? How can the UNGA pay heed to any African leader who’s pleading with the U.S court to protect his academic credential by all means possible? Someone who claims to have graduated with distinction from a particular university is profusely pleading with a court to stop the university from displaying his credential? If someone makes a good grade from an institution of higher learning, shouldn’t the person be proud to flaunt it? The desperate and frenetic efforts to permanently conceal the academic credential indicate that something “immirimious” (very putrid) must be in that credential.
The UNGA is situated in U.S and perhaps the authorities in that country may be privy to the content of the hidden credential. Charity, they say, begins at home. The president should look into the injustices and marginalisation meted out to the south-east first before pleading the case of Nigeria with the rest of the world.
-Ifeanyi, Owerri, +234 806 156 2735
Dominating, intimidating, humiliating, influencing are all negatives that can never ever allow Nigeria to be really pure and genuinely united! With all this ‘one Nigeria’ as a slogan, every tribe, every citizen wants to feel independent indeed and not paper independent! A country where government disobeys the law while citizens only must obey the law and are even treated like slaves in their own country cannot celebrate independence! Where is citizens’ independence?
-Romanus Ndehigwo Idiroko Ogun State, 0805 790 7482
