Nigeria Still In Limbo At 60

Nigeria, a nation of about two hundred million, is uniquely peopled by a razzmatazz of varied tongues and tribes.

The Nigerian project, – some call it a contraption – is interestingly a big story of pomp, poise, pull, push, plenty amidst waste and lack. It’s an entity, adjudged recently by President Mahammadu Buhari – while unveiling the diamond jubilee logo of the nation’s political independence – as the ‘most prosperous black nation’. And one is forced to ask: Was the president referring to the past or living in denial? And what in the president’s estimation, constitutes a prosperous nation? Is it the same country which he (Buhari) wants to lift a hundred million people out of poverty from by 2050?

Ironically, the political and social-economic climate in ‘the most prosperous black nation’ today, is not only hazy, but it is stormy and deeply troubling. The current atmosphere totally beclouds the picture provided by those who mouth that the country is still the envy of the world, as was the case then, in the era of our founding fathers. What constitutes a prosperous nation? Is it a tale of the extremely rich facing the extremely poor, dwelling together and buying from the same market? Or is it the same country where more than 50% of its citizens eke out living in squalors and in (face-me-I-face-you) apartments, often the embodiment of abject and stinking poverty? Perhaps it is the insincerity and deceit by the ruling class, to keep the masses and the electorate in perpetual want and lack that defines prosperity in our clime.

An affluent former lawmaker, now a chieftain of the APC, recently told a bewildered nation on national television that he does not believe Nigerians are hungry, a stand reminiscent of Umaru Dikko, of President Shehu Shagari days in the early 80s. Since no Nigerian was eating from the dustbin, suggested Umaru Dikko, all was well and there was no cause for alarm. And indeed, when compared to the present dramatic turn of events, all could be said to be well, because at that time bread and sardines were regarded as poor man’s food. Alas! Today, ordinary bread without sardines is luxury. Many Nigerians are now going to sleep on empty stomachs. Even the dustbins that contained leftovers during Umaru Dikko’s Nigeria, are conspicuously empty.

More worrisome is the unending worsening state of insecurity across the length and breadth of the nation. Bandits, kidnappers, armed robbers and insurgents are on rampage. Death, dread and destruction reign supreme. Commuters on highways are ambushed, kidnapped and killed, sometimes after the collection of handsome ransoms from helpless and hapless relatives and families of victims. The nation has never degenerated to this level of helplessness and hopelessness.

Another notorious burden on the Nigerian people is the rising cost of living, exacerbated by COVID-19 pandemic – which has dealt a fatal blow on global economy. To cushion the adverse effects of the pandemic, which cure is yet to be found, countries with financial muscle such as America and the like aid their citizens through weekly financial bailouts and palliatives as the case may be. But in Nigeria it is the contrary, because the powers-that-be failed to plan for the rainy day, and are today shifting the burden to the masses by raising taxes, increasing fuel pump price, hiking electricity tariffs etc., and of course, the fallout of all of these definitely is the growing hunger in the land. Foodstuff prices like rice, beans, gari and other basic needs have skyrocketed. With the unfortunate increases on prices of basic needs, what remains of the purchasing power of ordinary Nigerians could be said to have taken away completely, in the face of a very weak Naira now at the mercy of other currencies.

Indeed, these are very difficult times for the country, a season of unprecedented woes. Meanwhile, the privileged few swim in extreme comfort and opulence to the chagrin of the urban and rural poor struggling daily to cope with the 200 percent increase in electricity tariff, hike in petrol pump price, biting inflation and rising unemployment throughout the country. The federal government insists the people must learn to live with the ugly times and rabble rousers in and around the corridors of power are completely out of touch with the reality staring poverty-stricken Nigerians in the face, because they have more than enough – mostly ill-gotten through corrupt and sharp practices.

The insensitive body language of the Buhari-led administration dominates public discourse in Nigeria. And judging from the fact that in the build-up to the 2015 presidential election, Buhari not only enjoyed the support and the goodwill of the masses, but the likes of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka and a host of others openly threw their weight behind him, leading to his eventual victory at the polls. Therefore, it is fair today – owing to the reality on the ground – to suggest that the president has turned his back against members of the very constituency on whose backs he rode his way to power. The standard of living today of poor Nigerians who trooped out en-mass to vote for the president is nothing to write home about.

No wonder prominent Nigerians, who are not too comfortable with the way things are unfolding in the country under the leadership of President Buhari, have considered it necessary to advise him on the need to review his policies and chart a pathway for progress in order to reverse the tipping over of the country. The alarming banditry and criminality in the rural areas further compounds the hopeless situation by undermining food security as many farmers have since stopped going to the farms for fear of being kidnapped or killed.

Hear Wole Soyinka’s lamentations – who was in support of Buhari in 2015 – in his recent piece ‘Collective Suicide’ on the state of the nation: “The nation is divided as never before, and this ripping division has taken place under the policies and conduct of none other than President Buhari. We are close to extinction as a viable comity of peoples, supposedly bound together under an equitable set of protocols of co-habitation, capable of producing its own means of existence, and devoid of a culture of sectarian privilege and will to dominate”.

As we prepare to mark Nigeria’s 60th anniversary of political independence, government at all levels would do the country a world of good, if those at the helm of affairs become more committed to addressing the nagging issues of worsening insecurity, alarming unemployment, welfare of workers, hunger and poverty as well as the political will to engender a national dialogue and consensus for the good of all, because the primary responsibility of any government worth its salt, is about the genuine welfare and security of the people.