Goodbye yesterday, welcome today

Happy New Year, and welcome to the Year of Vision, the year 2020. I would make haste to forget the difficult year 2019, and I have already resolved that the year 2020 is going to be a better year. This is however against the mainstream of thought. A babel of voices from critics of the […]

Happy New Year, and welcome to the Year of Vision, the year 2020. I would make haste to forget the difficult year 2019, and I have already resolved that the year 2020 is going to be a better year. This is however against the mainstream of thought. A babel of voices from critics of the Buhari Administration say to me that given what policies are being offered, in terms of a debt-ridden economy, tottering over a cliff of another looming recession, my optimism lacks basis. The nation’s debt according to the Government stands at $84bn even though non oil earnings doubled at N2trn and the treasury single account inflows also doubled making the debt burden difficult to justify. Yet it is this profile of a turning around that has informed my hopes. They are not built on what I see. My hopes are built on my personal attitude to the coming times, and as I write this morning, my hope is to encourage anyone who desires a 2020 better than the dead year 2019, to adopt a new attitude to the new year, believed to turn out a more harsh economic climate, but well pregnant with potential for self actualisation. It is simply in obedience of the maxim, ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’.

The year 2020 is going to be better for any one who abandons profligacy for a life of more thrift, and that is acting tough. It is going to be tough for pensioners because even if they were engaged in registered businesses, bankruptcy looms for without securing any contracts in 2019, their mushroom companies will not survive if no jobs come by June 2020. They are more likely to go under if they have not done so already. Survival on pension alone definitely means a change of lifestyle to one of a very mean living on austere choices. Yet also against this scenario, IT and especially Artificial Intelligence hold a new wide vista of opportunities for migrants from the analogue world and economy. 2020 is going to go down as a boom year for digital marketing of personal endowments. Simple.

Obviously this entails that for the year 2020 to be a better year, one must be more global in outlook, and indeed, more productive in a total turn off from consumption. One must make every effort to produce what food is consumed – a return to the old ways. Domestic livestock rearing to include birds like turkey, ducks, and chicken even in the smallest of stake-holding will be fulfilling and profitable. Where possible also fish production will prove to be a worthy venture. Many in fact survived 2019 by so doing.

I related a lot during 2019 with job seekers in the North East area. Majority of them are secondary school products either without university admission merit, or with the merit but are unable to support the cost of further education. I discovered that while the annual fees are between N100,000 and N150,000, living expenses would require another N200,000. A shocking discovery was also that many well to do folks I engaged, are prepared to pool resources together to fund genuine sponsorships. Regrettably there is no community link between the duo. The year 2020 would be fulfilling if time is committed to creating this awareness and as well the provision of a viable link. It is easy to brush this problem off with a wave of the hand offering menial labour as a solution. Even at that, we have an economic downturn affecting activities that would support menial labour. Added to that, majority if not all the unemployed youth are without skills with which to offer services. This is a serious drawback that renders the youth vulnerable to several experiences of abuse. This must be addressed with all State Governments bending over backwards to provide for skills acquisition for the teeming youth.

Two issues will keep much of my attention. The first is the Boko Haram, which remains a frustrating challenge to our Armed Forces. Last week, I sided with Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State to contend against the military pronouncement that Boko Haram does not occupy an inch of Nigerian territory. Zulum had cried out that 3 local government areas, Kukawa, Marte, and Abadam are in the hands of the terrorists. As if to prove a point, Boko Haram began a fresh spate of attacks on soft targets. This makes big news. I quite understand that it suits the propaganda purpose of the terrorists, and I maintain that the intention is to downplay their degraded status, and cause a societal rift along religious lines. Abductions are mainly of Christians, with the church as target for destruction. The subsequent unspecified demands, I believe to include finances. I am happy that President Buhari has urged for unity between the Faiths, to put to lie the claim of the fundamentalists that their objective is faith based. Happily also, globally even the Islamic world is doubling down on fundamentalism and support for radical groups, in search for a more peaceful world. Nigerian must unite in the purpose to defeat terrorism. I think that the military needs to tighten the noose even the more. During the week, the high command announced a date for the start of withdrawal from the North East. I am not surprised that at the Security Meeting presided over by President Buhari on Monday, the Governors in the hotspots put forward the view that withdrawal was untimely. Indeed Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum demanded reinforcement. The decision to keep or withdraw troops by April is a Military one and it is hoped that it is well informed. I concluded this column last week saying if we do not laugh at ourselves, the world is laughing at us. The insurgency has lasted longer than it should and with unacceptable cost in men and material. It must be brought to an end and quickly too.

The second issue is the North East Development Commission which appears to remain stuck on its drawing boards as the year 2019 came to a close. I am not sure this is owed to inactivity, it may be the insufficiency or lack of publicity to whatever engagements the Commission has kept itself busy on. Against the dreary profile of the Boko Haram devastation of the North East Nigeria, the North East Development Commission appears to be taking too long in revving its engines. The challenges are there in the open – broken down bridges on roads, destroyed educational infrastructure, and far worse, a crisis proportion internally displaced population wasting away in camps across the entire country. The North East Development Commission must roll out.