Tormenting uncertainties touched off by biting austerity and hard times notwithstanding, there are some guarded optimism and infectious cheer concerning Nigeria’s improving prospects. No; our problems, endemic dysfunctions and rowdiness have not magically disappeared. What Nigeria has going for it currently is a sense of euphoria, accelerated by the recent peaceful change of leadership, that there is light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. And for good reasons; an election preceded by a cottage industry of doomsday foretelling about the break-up of Nigeria was carried off successfully, producing the first transfer of power from an incumbent party to the opposition in our history.
Elections and an orderly transfer of power are the heart of the matter, to the extent that for much of our history, and all over the continent, they remain un-mastered assignments and obstacle courses. Looking back, our history has featured an alternation of strong presidents and weak presidents. Strength may yield purposeful governance in some respects, but is often associated with a huge dose of self-regard, know-it-all and vanity. In the period since 1999, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua and former President Goodluck Jonathan can be regarded as “weak” while former President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Muhammedu Buhari can be characterised as “strong”. Interestingly, it was Yar’Adua that set the nation on the road to electoral sanity by frankly recognising that the election that brought him to power was vastly flawed; while Jonathan it was, that terminated the jinx of massively compromised elections.
Obasanjo, to be fair, recorded interesting achievements but they do not include decent elections or the leader’s willingness to subject himself to the rules, as the abortive third term agenda suggests. Buhari comes in the mould of a leader who is not afraid to take decisions or initiate changes. However, his tendency to personalise decision-making and a fair amount of disdain for public opinion have begun to show. Time will, of course, reveal whether his strength and sense of purpose will include giving the electoral commission the free hand it requires to perpetuate fair elections.
The Nigerian state, it is well-known, once enjoyed a relatively inspiring past, unknown to our predominantly youthful population who know it only as a derelict guardian. The older stratum of our population, once experienced the state as one with orderly and efficient institutions which provided such services as health, quality education, potable water, motorable roads at affordable costs. The social contract of those times was such in which a caregiver state provided reliable services to an expanding population. Not anymore; whatever services the state still provides or subsidises, are incompetently, if at all delivered including sadly, security services. It is also important to note that our youths manifest a high level of disconnect from a state which they never knew as a responsible trustee. To underline the point, simply ask when was the last time that good drinking water flowed from public taps in any part of the country? To take another question, why is it so easy for a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation to be kidnapped in broad daylight? In other words, for the current optimism not to be replaced by cynicism and bitter disappointment, state decay and the breakdown of institutions must be reversed by borrowing from what in retrospect now looks like the golden era of the Nigerian state.
It is pertinent that an anti-corruption war is being waged, and provided it does not derail as it did under a previous civilian government into a political cudgel for hewing down opponents, it is both timely and potentially redemptive. Can anti-corruption war be perverted into an instrument for hounding opponents? Ask the business mogul, Chief Mike Adenuga, who had to flee abroad when he became a target of victimisation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, because it was suspected that he was not too enthusiastic about Obasanjo’s third term agenda. Thus, the choice to be made is whether to repeat that unhappy history or chart an altogether new path by making public the template for sanctioning corrupt offenders.
On the economy, the omens are not too good if we take into account the recent warning by the Governor of the Central Bank, Mr Godwin Emefiele, that the economy, unless diligent care was taken might hit a recession next year. For a decade or so, and in spite of massive corruption, the economy in a period of global recession has enjoyed between five and eight per cent Gross Domestic Product growth rate. Buoyancy produced a new class of billionaires brandishing private jets, private universities and a wide array of leisurely gadgets. It even brought close to realisation the dream of Nigeria becoming one of the 20 largest economies in 2020 as it is currently rated the 29th largest. But the good news stops there; successive governments have failed to diversify the economic base away from an oil dependent straitjacket into which it has been fixed since the oil boom of the 1970s.
For the entire span of the Fourth Republic, the country has sustained a prodigal, allocative federalism in which the main business has been the sharing of oil proceeds rather than an increase in the size of the cake or instituting a system that saves for the rainy day. Instead of learning from history, including the contemporary travails of distressed countries like Greece, we waited to be taught by adversity and a downturn in which most of our subnational governments have become unviable. As things are, hard decisions will have to be taken, including fairly drastic cuts in the cost of governance and the probable removal of the oil subsidy, if indeed a subsidy still exists.Governance in austere times is demanding, and both the federal and state governments will be tasked to their wits to think and act outside the mainstream boxes that brought us to the current estate.
The national question has never been fully answered by any Nigerian government as efforts to address it have either been half-hearted, inchoate or bitterly contested. Till date, the 2014 National Conference Report, its imperfections notwithstanding, is one of the most lucid answers to the national question produced by the collective wisdom of Nigerians. Regrettably, however, the current administration has treated the document with attitudes ranging from calculated indifference to mild derision. Indeed, some Northern leaders have recently called for its jettisoning. If that point of view prevails, will Buhari organise another conference or will he govern by pretending that the national question does not exist? As criticisms of his pattern of appointments show, we cannot long postpone sincere efforts to re-compact and revalidate the Nigerian state. For, if the nation drifts apart, even the best reform efforts will come to naught, as they will be interpreted through the conflictual lenses of clashing nationalities.
Urgent and topical too, is the need to bring back our fallen educational system to a level accepted by the world. A situation where none of our universities is listed by the recently released QS World University Rankings in the top 700 is far from satisfactory.
It is time to set benchmarks for progress in all the areas in which the country currently lags. Happy Independence Anniversary.
PUNCH
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