It will be an understatement to say that the outlook for the Nigerian state, and her citizens, is dull as this new year 2019 unfolds. The truth is that despite the promises and forceful expressions of politicians and some political office holders, the country is nearer the precipice than ordinarily imagined. To put the country back into safety, and in serious contention with the rest of the world, is a major challenge for all Nigerians in the new year.
A crucial expectation of Nigerians is perhaps the peaceful and satisfactory conduct of the general elections scheduled to start next month. Even the international community is watching closely because any misadventure in the country will have far-reaching destabilising consequences on neighbouring countries and the world at large. In this day and age, after almost 20 years of uninterrupted democracy, there should be no disappointment.
To achieve a free and fair election is a task for both government and the people. While the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration as well as the Independent National Electoral Commission take the lion share of responsibility in this regard, every other Nigerian owes a duty to be vigilant, and to conduct himself/herself in a manner that will facilitate the realisation of that peaceful election. The cost of an enduring democracy is eternal vigilance.
Politically, the country is far from attaining her desired and deserved height. Politicians are largely considered as a special breed of people high in speech and low in action. In many instances, the only time they are excited and diligent about an action is when the benefits will accrue to them, personally and collectively. In such instances, the interest of the larger society is held in secondary position.
How else can anyone justify the disdain with which politicians treat Nigerians who call for transparency and accountability in the award of salaries and allowances for themselves? How else can one describe the fact that politicians, particularly lawmakers, do not care to explain their huge perquisites of office, which ordinary citizens consider to be outlandish and grossly disproportional to the country’s capacity to bear the burden?
Why are politicians running away from the fact that cost of governance in the country is bloated and unsustainable? Do Nigerians need soothsayers to let them know that politicians are mortgaging the future of the nation by not just seeking to maximise their consumption of her resources, but also neglecting the development of the youth, thus rendering them largely unproductive in their prime? Do politicians think they are immune from a violent revolution just because they have the resources to train their children abroad and leave them there while the home front boils?
If Nigeria is to remain a working project in 2019, politicians must take the first step to rectify their anomalous disposition to governance. They must embrace service to the people as their foremost responsibility, and they must do away with trivialising serious issues on the altar of politics and political differences. They must rethink their stance that Nigeria belongs to them to be dealt with in accordance with their whims.
The country is coming into the new year against lingering memory that the last few months of the past year were horrible in terms of security of lives and property. Human lives have become cheap and meaningless as criminals take over virtually all parts of the country, decimating their victims at will; snuffing lives out of innocent souls because the victims or their relatives could not provide money at all, or in sufficient quantum to bail out their captured siblings, children or spouses. In many parts of the North, the wanton killing is informed simply by the desire of the killers to impress government of their prowess.
In the year 2019, it will be unacceptable for any government to consider itself as such without adopting enduring measures to restore safety of lives and property, in line with the injunctions of the 1999 Constitution that they swore to uphold. In years past, and also in other climes, government is powerful enough to reverse any unwholesome situation affecting the populace, through sheer political will.
Nigerians in the new year crave for a government that has the will to reverse their misfortune, and that can back the will with appropriate action to achieve its goals. It will be unthinkable that the country is now bereft of men and women of valour to defend the country from internal and external aggressors. The killing is enough. To tolerate it further is to write off the country as a jungle.
Economically, the country has been wobbling. The prevailing high level of unemployment should be a matter of grave concern not only because of its drawback effect on the economy, but also its direct proportional relationship to criminality in the land. Besides, it remains crassly anomalous for a country to be so endowed in natural resources and population as Nigeria, and yet be home to the poorest people in the world. In 2019, Nigerians demand a correction of this contradiction.
Importantly, hope and the reason to live, is getting scantier among the masses of this country. What Nigerians need is the raising of that hope, by a people-centred government making deliberate and genuine efforts to lift the people from its morass. By the experience of many other countries, this feat is achievable. It only needs a crop of leaders that has the people’s interest uppermost in their hearts.
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