Nigeria in the last one year

Ordinarily, one wouldn’t find anything wrong with such a declaration. But that is impossible in the circumstance that Nigeria is finding itself, especially in the hands of its central government. Over the years, the government has made tremendous resources, but what we have is increased level of poverty at virtually every aspect of our national […]

Ordinarily, one wouldn’t find anything wrong with such a declaration. But that is impossible in the circumstance that Nigeria is finding itself, especially in the hands of its central government. Over the years, the government has made tremendous resources, but what we have is increased level of poverty at virtually every aspect of our national life.

Nigerians are increasingly becoming hopeless and the suspicion between the people and their government is ever expanding while the nation continues to groan in the lack of every good thing that supports life. The tragedy has become so intense that government and its officials don’t seem to make any meaning to the Nigerian people. To be fair, this is a scenario that Goodluck Jonathan and his government inherited.

What has become alarming, however, is that the last one year in government after the fiercely disputed elections in April 2011 saw Nigeria’s worst moment in the area of security and other sectors. The difference between the last one year and years preceding it is the absolute breakdown of security in greater Nigeria. Nobody needs to be told that most parts of the country are occupied by the soldiers who ought to defend the citizens from both internal and external aggression.

It can be said with no reservation that we in Northern Nigeria today are under Jonathan’s military occupation. Life is so short because apart from the menace of the Boko Haram movement there is the fear of soldiers who seem to have the authority to kill and maim all in the name of maintaining security. In Maiduguri especially, young able bodied men have been killed by the so called JTF at will and nobody seems to be stopping it.

The other day the Borno Elders Forum comprising of very many distinguished senior citizens like Mamman Shuwa and Abba Kyari, who were Generals in the army long before the current leadership of the Nigerian Army was even recruited, came up with the fact that extra judicial killings by soldiers in the name of taming Boko Haram was massive. But instead of addressing the issues raised by the elders, the current Chief of Army staff General Ihejirika called them liars. This is unprofessional, indiscipline and outright indication that the leadership of the Nigerian Army and the government in Abuja are out for a game of annihilation.

The insurgency continues, just as the military brutality on unsuspecting innocent citizens continues. Though over a trillion naira, out of the 2012 budget of about 4.6 trillion naira, is dedicated to security, we are still not secured. Over 75% of Nigerian citruses go to sleep with their two eyes open. Nobody can guarantee safety and security of citizens despite the huge resources that the government deploys to the sector.

Security has become the most outstanding challenge in the country today. Several theorists are beginning to hold the view that the challenges of insecurity across especially the Northern region are a deliberate creation of the security forces at the highest level. They accuse these forces of aiming to achieve certain political objectives and to continue to milk the nation dry through massive allocation of funds to the security agencies in the name of fighting security while the situation continues to deteriorate.

It is certain that the incompetence of this government is about to set the entire nation under similar situation as the North finds itself in today. When the insurgency began in Maiduguri a few years ago, others thought it was purely a Maiduguri phenomena, it began to eat deep into other parts of the state before spreading to the state of Yobe and other places in the North East and later North West and parts of North Central, including Abuja.

Those in power are still looking at the issue as purely a sectional problem. It is a Northern thing so they should be allowed to kill each other.

If care is not taken, the whole nation may be consumed by this mayhem in not too long distant future because those who ought to know are playing giraffe. Simple social issues are interpreted politically and the main view from government to all this carnage is that some sections or peoples in the country are not happy to see Goodluck Jonathan as president. They are not looking at the capacity or the lack of it of the president as a factor. No! It is the North and its clique that are causing all these wahala!

Let’s assume that their thinking is right, who then is responsible for the colossal failure that we continue to record in the power sector? There is no light in all of Nigeria today. The other day in Port Hacourt, Governor Rotimi Amaechie expressed his frustration as regards the over 500 megawatts that the state was generating. At the end of the day, what Rivers was generating had to be evacuated to the national grid, leaving the state, which requires a little above 400 megawatts, with no light.

Who is responsible for these federal roads that have become death traps? The government in Abuja is. In fact I have been to several states in the North and South where state governments are working on federal roads. Despite the 52% that the center collects from the federation account, the federal government is unable to do any serious job across the length and breadth of the country. What a shame!

What we have in the last one year from the government in Abuja is avalanche of failures and hopelessness. There is degeneration in virtually every index of our lives. I challenge anybody including the government to point to wherever or in whatever area any progress it achieved in the last one year.

I am worried because the claim from the Jonathan government that it is doing well is a pointer to the fact that the government hasn’t really come to grasp with the reality of its failures. And, sadly, the victims of this thinking will continue to be Nigeria and Nigerians.