Economic Confidential, November, 2009

FEATURES

Nigeria: Time to Check to the Drift

By Dansulieman Mohammed

The threshold to nation building does not lie in the hands of the leaders alone, but rather, characterized by the noble interest of its citizenry. I have seen nation building as a collective responsibility, thus, the trouble with Nigeria is not failure of leadership, but rather that of the failure of all Nigerians men and women, young and old, literate and men of letter. In other words, since building or destroying a nation was always a collective responsibility, we are all guilty one way or the other in bringing Nigeria to the present sorry past.

In the life of a nation, there was always a moment when truth must be told, no matter how bitter or whose ox is gored. Besides once a nation reaches a crucial turning point, pretext of normalcy and hypocrisy of silence hardly serve any useful purpose. Although there is disturbing tendency in some quarters to dismiss the disturbing state of the Nigerian Nation as normal, a close analysis of all the variables on the ground reveals otherwise. In fact, in view of the sickening socio-political and economic developments in Nigeria today, it will not be an exaggeration for one to conclude that the country is sick and perverted; this, the Danmasanin Kano, Alh. Yusuf Maitama Sule, referred to as symptoms of revolt loom large as anarchy appears close in the horizon.

The country’s infrastructure has been a topic of debate and discussion over the years. The scenario has now juxtaposed itself with the security of lives where no effort was made to save the recently lost of lives of 43 innocent Nigerians all in the name of recruiting prison and immigration officers; neither did the authority concerned deemed it fit to  investigate the cause and inform the general public. Although the country is not exposed to natural disasters like tsunamis, earth quakes or hurricanes, the rate of death recorded on Nigerian roads should be worrisome.

With an economy in disastrous state characterized by substandard production and collapsed many manufacturing sector, inflation and unemployment continue to sear high, the negative multiplies effects of this economic down turn in Nigeria are glaring everywhere. These include severe poverty and diseases among the vast majority of the people, upsurge in lawlessness and urban violence, pervasive insecurity, youth restiveness and collapse of essential services-water electricity, health and education services and poor and inaccessible roads.

Ogho Okiti in 2007 had alleged that Nigerians suffer daily from an economy that is divided, polarized, palsied, placid, parasitical disconnected, disjointed, split, alienated, rancorous, severe, isolated, aimless, confused, disordered, displaced, muddled, unconnected, dichotomized, bisected, limited, detached, distant, ragged and wrenched. As much as we view some of these allegations to be true, we must not forget that the success in nation building lies within the arm bit of our resolve to join hands to appraise the government with our opinion. Now that the endless problem of the economy has been identified, the need now is to participate on individual perspective.

In the speculative banking sector, heartless criminals pose as credible corporate players. Young men and women are employed and given outrageous targets with instruction to do anything to meet these targets. Ladies are been exposed to corporate prostitution; fictitious bank charges, high cost of borrowing and harsh operating environment have turned many other wise credible borrowers into bad debtors. I believe the banking sector don’t only require the Sanusi’s Hurricane, but also needs our support in making sure the culprits are punished with adequate prison sentence, or better still, borrow from the Japanese style of punishing financial criminals.

The dire need to revive our falling educational sector may still remain a night mare, now that private schools and institutions have transformed educational services into cash-and-carry business. Students’ grades are largely determined by their parents’ paying capacity rather than actual performance. This continues to promote the rate of illiteracy in the nation, as the value of education is only available to those whose parents could afford the high fees in these schools. This menace is been injected into our tertiary institutions, which could be closed down for months without the government, or those entrusted with the mandate to save the sector paying dump ears to the sector. This is not far fetch from the fact that there wards are alleged to find solace in schooling abroad, courtesy our stolen wealth.

Perhaps the greatest threat facing Nigeria is that posed by its youths. The youths have been left to wash away in penury and grieve, thus gave birth to the dreaded militancy in the Niger Delta and several other version all over the country. Heinous crimes such child prostitution, hired killings, political assassinations are the order of the day. We have failed to notice or realize that our destination towards enlisting the nation among top economies (by whatever slogan you call it: vision 2020, economic recovery, agendas, etc) lies with the status of the youths, and once the future of a nation’s youths is lost, the destiny of such nation is doomed.

It is not worth stating that the “the challenges facing Nigeria is so enormous”. We have the problem of poor leadership, agreed. We have the challenges of lack of infrastructures, agreed. The roads are bad, energy and power supply is comatose, agreed. The fact is that because of years of neglect and lack of adequate leadership, many Nigerians don’t believe in Nigerian project intact, to many Nigerians, Nigeria is worth nothing, hence the sabotage, vandalization lacks of patriotism and commitment to national duty.

Now is however the right time to put our acts together and face the onerous task of nation building before it is too late. Counties like Zimbabwe , Somalia , Iraq and others followed the path we follow now. As we stand today all our national symbols are scandalized our national institutions are crumbling, essential services have virtually collapsed physical and social securities are now a hourly very few Nigerians can afford and everybody is in a state of confusion and trauma A promising nation turned to failure and a beautiful dream turn- sour yet we continue to delude ourselves that all is well, while all is not well.

My last warning is for the Nigeria politicians. Trade softly and note that Nigerian politics is like one mammoth bottom less vessel that looks attractive but interested with sharks, crocodiles and other dangerous creatures. That very few who plunged into pond made it to shores. Even the few did so without wearing smiles on their faces. And like Au Muznic has rightly observed, Nigeria is engaged in a democratic experiments; friends and lovers of Nigeria should always pray for her because all the past democratic experiment. A word is enough for the wise and to be forewarned is to be forearmed, lets save this country.

Comrade Dansulieman Mohammed,

a Chartered Accountant contributed this piece from Kaduna Polytechnic