In this day of
sophisticated communication, the world
is our neighborhood, and its peoples,
regardless of status, are our friends
and neighbors. Whatever concerns us
interests them, and the advices they
give us at times of our challenges
whether solicited or not are deeply
considered. This is the case also on the
flipside in literally all aspects of our
daily lives. We tend to compare extant
observed conditions outside our shores,
with whatever prevails within our own
immediate surroundings and seek
solutions from among others, asking our
friends and fellow citizens of the world
community offshore for counsel.
Conditions in our country
compared to those outside are grossly
absurd. The most remarkable difference
perhaps is in the lack of respect for
the individual and his most fundamental
needs by government and those who
populate it. The culture of impunity is
enthroned by the ruling class in all
their dealings with the underclass in a
manner that the only contending
interests are those of these two classes
in a primitive style conflict.
Identifying the primary
causes of Nigeria’s problems in the past
decade is not mind-boggling task. For
the nation, it has been a decade of woes
within which period we have retrogressed
when our contemporaries have leaped into
unbounded prosperity in literally all
fronts of human and material advance.
Every conscientious Nigerian knows that
our nation is rich in potentials and
that the only element required to
actuate its rich promises is prudent
management. Many have argued that the
PDP which has been the managers of
corporate Nigeria during the last decade
and half has failed in the task of
providing requisite leadership to
improve the conditions of the men and
materials locally. Some of us argue that
since one is adjudged as having failed
following a conscious attempt to succeed
which falls short of a cut off mark, the
PDP does not qualify to receive such a
grade, but rather its grade is
“unclassified”. It is unclassified in
the sense that its methodology is alien
to all known civilized approaches of
governance and that is why the people
are in perpetual revolt against
established principles of civility.
These revolts find expression in crime,
social unrest, religious and ethnic
intolerance, as well as in youth
restiveness, in women and child abuse,
and so forth.
Against the popular will,
this party has repeatedly forced its way
into power, and repeatedly battered the
collective sensibilities of Nigerian
citizens in the crudest and most brazen
manner. The average citizen logs these
abuses of public power and continually
seeks avenues to express his
indignation. These collective logs form
the critical mass upon which the remote
causes of every act of social unrest is
built. This is the reason why the nation
embarks in series of wasteful strikes
such as the one we presently have.
The Jonathan
administration had no manifesto or
roadmap from the outset except to
perpetuate misrule and in so doing hope
to bring about a ‘breathe of fresh air’
to a suffocating citizenry. Its
emergence from within the PDP had been
occasioned by the unsound logic that
turned its avowed zoning formula on its
head. The bickering and struggle for who
will be awarded the presidential ticket
had made any meaningful construction of
a manifesto impossible for all the
warring parties seeking it. When
eventually it was settled (settled?)
that the Jonathan/Sambo flag flies, all
serving PDP governors entered into a
pact of ‘return us and we shall return
you’. The charade of election for
President that occurred in the South
East and South South which deserve
especial mention played out.
Now in office, the
reality of governing a nation at
crossroads dawned on President Goodluck
Jonathan different than the structure
and composition of the feeble ones he
had inherited from his deceased
predecessor. In his estimation, the way
to go was to bring on board his
government individuals who possess
enviable pedigree and expertise in their
fields of endeavor in the hope that they
will coalesce their collective geniuses
and miraculously turn things around. In
his estimation, Jonathan felt that since
economics as some say in Political
Science constitutes the substructure
upon which a solid political and other
superstructures are built, all that was
required was to call an ace Economic
Minister and a cerebral CBN Governor and
subordinate the other ministers to the
whims and caprices of the former; so
that the suggestions of the coordinating
minister become the basic advice of
cabinet to the Mr. President. In the
estimation of Jonathan, that removes the
burden of leadership from him and frees
up much time for him to look into
Bayelsa politics and embark on more
irrelevant foreign travels.
Whereas the President of
the nation ought to be the coordinating
minister – he being the number
politician and philosopher-king – should
select like he did, some of the smartest
brains the nation has produced and at
various meetings especially cabinet
level ones, receive guidance from each
minister on critical issues as well as
bouncing such recommendation off other
Ministers whose fields would be directly
or indirectly impacted in the event that
policies are made based on any piece of
advice. The input made by colleagues of
an expert in a council can be of great
insight to the presiding authority
because experts like Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala
give wonderful world best practice
advice which can work so beautifully
with ‘all things being equal’ or under
controlled environments. Most things are
so skewed in this nation such that all
things should be taken in context, and
this first principle ought to remain
constant constantly in the mind of our
Head of State/Head of Government.
Perhaps Mr. President is overawed by the
intimidating resume of Sister Ngozi and
Uncle Lamido, but these worthy children
of this great nation alone, even with
the best of intentions, cannot know
everything about the nuts-and-bolts of
how this country can be piloted to
utopian heights. At best they will only
come across as proposers of utopian
political and social reforms.
It is the belief of many
that if Mr. President had sat in council
with the Economic Minister, the Minister
for Interior, the National Security
Adviser, the Inspector General of
Police, the Minister of Transport, the
Senate President, the Speaker of the
House of Representatives and a few other
key cabinet members, to consider the
issue of removal of subsidy on petrol
and allowed everyone of them to speak
freely, while he himself assumed an
unbiased mindset, the way an manner this
subsidy removal implementation was done
would have differed much. The
wastefulness of many days of national
shutdown which did no one any good would
have been averted. But because he
didn’t, a large section of the country
feel insulted in the timing, the
methodology and the sheer insensitivity
of government.
Imagine an almost
unanimous House of Representative
passing a motion for the reversal of a
major decision of an executive president
of a nation, only days after such a
decision was made. It means that the
President irrespective of his intention
had played very bad politics capable of
bringing the good name and image of the
country into disrepute, and in saner
climes this tantamount to a vote of no
confident and subtly obliges the
President to resign. In places like the
United States of America, a policy with
impact so pervasive on the populace such
as the one we have here, would have been
subjected to bipartisan consensus both
on the construction and implementation
fronts. But here, the PDP is still
trapped in the early post-colonial
mindset whereby the views of opposition
Parties were regarded as either
Communist or Capitalist incursions
(depending on the leaning of the status
quo) to subvert and overthrow the
incumbent regime and which must
ruthlessly be crushed.
Because the opposition is
so put down and disregarded in the
scheme of political affairs, Civil
Society groups and Labour picked up the
gauntlet to check perceived excesses of
government which all too often have
resulted in grave socio-political and
economic consequences. All too often the
government turns around to blame
sponsorship of these reprisals on either
ethno-religious or opposition party
elements, or the so-called enemies of
the administration. This is like the
proverbial dog chasing its tail while
much beneficial food materials pass by.
Finally, many observers
erroneously believe that Nigerians are
protesting merely against the effect of
increase in petrol prices occasioned by
the removal of subsidy on the commodity,
whereas the more discerning ones see the
strike for what exactly it is. Nigerian
people for the avoidance of doubt are
demonstrating against age long
unacceptable levels of official
corruption and its attendant putrid
essence within our village neighbors in
a new world where citizens individually
have literally become ambassadors of
their own nations. They are protesting
against the great inequities and
widening social gaps fueled daily by the
enthronement and celebration of
mediocrity in society. We are
ventilating our disgust about the
insensitivity of our government to
critical development challenges and the
relegation of meritocracy. Nigerians are
expressing their anger at the lack of
capacity and political will to effect
sustainable change in the most endowed
environment imaginable, by an inept
bureaucracy. The people are unhappy with
an irresponsible, truce breaking and
agreement-bending government bereft of
moral qualms, as well as their
alienation from a strange Constitution
by which they must daily abide and
uphold. Nigerian people are hateful of
all their so-called representatives who
emerged through subverting the electoral
process and whose collective greed is
funded by one quarter of their annual
National budget. Nigerians believe that
all their past sacrifices were imposed
upon them just so that the rich and
ruling class may feed fatter, and that
the current call to sacrifice will fare
no better.
This round of avoidable
strikes has already cost our economy
billions of dollars in lost revenue.
Mr. President, Nigerians
desire for starters that you please set
clear benchmarks, tasks and targets for
all your appointees and key public
office holders, explain clearly the
principles of discipline against
tardiness and dereliction of duty which
you must ensure are applied unbiasedly.
Chigbu Tobechi (Ezinearticles
Expert Author) is an ACN statesman and a
political scientist. He writes from
Owerri.
ptchigbu@gmail.com
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