Telling Nigerians the truth
Political Restructuring: A Distraction
The bane of Nigerian problem is that we have too many idle politicians created by the PDP regimes. They have no viable means of livelihood except attending political meetings were they receive handouts, which has dried up, participating in all self-proclaimed `leaders of thoughts` fora and issuing statements which boil down to advocating for national conferences, so that, they can warm their bank accounts and play the big men role.
Can Industrialisation be divorced from power and energy supply? Since 1999, the Nigerian Industry has been recording negative growth and our economy has been import driven. Nigeria has been operating a container and generator economy. China is a communist country with a unitary Government, yet the biggest success story. Britain, France are all unitary state but one of the biggest economies in the world. It is not being the Federal Republic that transformed Brazil into the 7th largest economy in the world with over 125 000MW of electricity production or Germany to be a powerhouse in Europe, but planning, discipline and the collective ability of the people to stay focused and plan with what they have.
Since 1954, our political elites have focused so much on the political structure of Nigeria rather than focusing on economic transformation. There is no country or continent in this world that has been devastated by wars like Europe,Japan. Yet they are among the first world. Syria and Iraq are at war yet, they have electricity.
The WAEC, NECO, and JAMB results might not be the best parameter to judge educational prowess of any state as we know the corruption, exams malpractices that go on some of these states. Educational advancement is meaningless if not linked with the transformation of our physical environment into clean and habitable communities. Disney world makes more of its revenue from Chinese tourists than Americans.
Let’s not be naively taken in by calls for restructuring coming from the same individuals who’ve always held sway yet did little with huge funds when they themselves were in power (some even have corruption cases against them). Let’s not naively believe that handing over more money to the same cabal will magically develop this country. After all, when states were brimming with money when oil prices were high, what was done?
Ethno-religious conflict in Nigeria is often sponsored, whereas we have enough states in this country to develop every single ethnic group, and to make everyone feel relevant and appreciated if government funds are used correctly rather than diverted. If proper healthcare and education existed in most states, it wouldn’t be so easy to recruit more Nigerians to work and earn a living.
If government funds meant for infrastructural development were properly spent, the government wouldn’t need to use the civil service as a welfare tool: citizens would be self-employed, engaging in all sorts of businesses, autonomously. But we’ve grown accustomed to distorting everything, from public discourse to the economy. The civil service has recruited half-baked individuals for years (all in a bid to mask rising unemployment), it is often incapable of delivering on government objectives, even when governors are well-intentioned.
It’s definitely more important, at this time, to recover stolen funds, plug loopholes and opportunities for corruption than to restructure the federation: this will be the inexorable conclusion of our march towards progress but it is neither feasible nor desirable in our current context. Calls for restructuring are a political distraction: let’s not fall for it
Monday 20 June 2016
Telling Nigerians the truth.
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