WEDNESDAY COLUMN BY USSIJU MEDANER
info@medaner.com | justme4justice@yahoo.com
This piece is largely an adaptation of a previous publication I made a while ago. I have reasons to revisit the topic as events in the last few days once again have opened up the country by exposing the gory menace of corruption in the highest places. There have been arguments regarding what constitutes the greatest challenge to Nigeria; some have been of the opinion that our problems all stem from disunity and our inability to peacefully cohabit as a united people of one nation. But, while this is understandable and a close call to the reality of the country, I have continuously refused to accept that position. Side by side, I have been of the opinion that the duo of corruption and disunity are inseparable twin challenges that the nation must deal with to see any meaningful development across the board.
Today, disunity and segregation are big problems in the country. Our inability and near lack of capacity to come together for any good cause, has made it near impossible for us to address head on and end corruption as a national problem. However, that does not ascribe causative role to disunity. Infact, the reality would always be that at the onset, the desire to pocket part of, or rather, as much of our commonwealth by certain individuals has been a notable driving force that throws up the differences we share as a people ever since.
I took a working lesson from the events as they unfold in Ukraine in the last one year thereabout. Quite unbelievable; the Russian force and the president would never have believed they would still be on the warfront with Ukraine, one year after the offensive began. Till today, Ukraine is still in the war and fighting to suppress Russian antagonism and putting up an impressive fight as observed; and not because of any support it is receiving from the West. The fact stands that Ukraine is still on its feet and proudly so, because the people of Ukraine make it so; the Ukrainian citizens and their government are teaching us all a historic lesson in unity of purpose and patriotism. The people are what make the difference in the war. Standing together, fighting with purpose, setting aside all their known differences before the war, the people have resolved and become ready to fight to death for what is theirs, standing solidly behind their leaders and saying unequivocally altogether, a resounding no, to all external oppression at the expense of their lives and livelihood.
While serious nations and their citizens play politics of togetherness for the betterment of their respective nations, we play politics of tribalism, religiosity and jingoism for the betterment of our individual and affiliated groups hence, the politics of pull-him-down, get it at all cost, regardless of whose ox is gored. To achieve a lot of our selfish ambitions, the method is acceptable once the end is desirable. Setting the system against itself and the people against one another, we keep bleeding the country to become whatever it is now, a space occupied by directionless citizens, polarised into supporters of politicians they do not know what they have to offer because they have not bothered to ask.
It is understandable how a nation of 220 million people and counting, oppressed on all sides by monumental challenges, have lost sense of the problems of their country and have become obsessed with directional political support, based on narrow affiliations. It is high time Nigerians, especially the youth population woke from the ongoing stupify emotional support for politicians without getting a productive reason for doing so. Politicians should be supported on the strength of their character, integrity, proven leadership capacity, past performances, and evidence of national patriotism devoid of ethnic bigotry and religious and jingoistic tendencies; and never on the basis of emotional biases and emotional responses to ethnic and religious bigotries and as well as media-made and propagated images that have no evidence in reality.
The time to look back to learn from the past is paramount at the moment; to consider what has been our undoing as a people, what are the pathways taken without positive outcomes that altogether need to be jettisoned? The time to redefine the basis for political support in the country; realising that since 1960 and counting till now, politicians have programmed us to respond to their call for support based on factors that pose no bearing to the development of our country, and our individual life. They have tabled before us religious affiliations, ethnic memberships and whatever other emotional appeals, but cumulatively non-profiting to the Nigeria cause; and we have thronged along supporting them, opposing ourselves and fighting for their cause sentimentally. That must stop; coming from now, and all set to rid Nigeria of the mess we are in now, on too many fronts. We must make politicians accountable from a defined baseline or baselines; our support must be earned on the strength of established capacity of candidates to deliver to the country and their constituencies.
Then, we need to look around to established realities beyond emotional sensitisation of the social media which has become the order of the day in Nigeria. What social media presents to us today is a deliberate orchestrated weapon by political parties and candidates to redirect electoral processes, especially campaigns, or rather, propaganda away from critical issues of national concern.
On disunity, earlier on, we sided with Binance even when it was obvious the cryptocurrency platform was majorly behind the collapse and steep nonstop falling of the naira, and the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu was at the receiving end of all attacks. Across social media, Nigerians choose to support Binance, because Ribadu is working for Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the president they hated. We went into the elections divided. We came out of them divided, and we remain divided to stop free flowing of governance and rejoice at bad news happening to the country.
Today, all the way from #1900 to a dollar, the naira has appreciated to #1065 to a dollar and has become the most performing currency globally as a consequence of clamping down on Binance and ending its operation in the Nigeria space. Are we praising Nuhu Ribadu now? No! That would be tantamount to accepting that the man we hated is doing great work for the country! I share the sentiment of a writer who submitted that the elections are over and we do not have to support the enemy just because our preferred candidate did not win the election. If for nothing else, the National Security Adviser needs to be praised for standing his ground, ignoring attacks from Nigerians who chose to play politics with everything including the soul of the country. The National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu has performed credibly well, given where we are coming from, in the aspect of national security including the hostile attacks on the nation’s currency, the naira through Binance, the global cryptocurrency platform. His efforts so far are commendable.
The hit on the naira; the agony it brought on Nigerians and the need to totally end it and ensure that we do not have to return to that ugly phase of our national history again, are issue that must be on the front burner and of critical importance to policymakers and all well-meaning citizens of Nigeria. How do we go about it? How do we strengthen the 60 percent policy component that is gradually restoring naira integrity, and gradually removing the other 40 percent component consisting of government direct interventions. Summarily, to build a sustainable monetary and fiscal system, we will need 100 percent working monetary policies at work.
On the clamp down on Binance; would it mean an end of cryptocurrency operations in the country? No. With almost over 24 million crypto wallets in the country, we shouldn’t be looking at an outright ban but a conscious program that coordinates the operations in Nigeria to a mutual benefit to all parties. Essentially, considering effective local regulation of cryptocurrency in the country in a manner that brings about sanity and even income to the nation is worthy of pursuit at this junction and not to ban the emerging financial sector outrightly.
Now, the need to set up a mechanism to regulate all operating digital currencies, under the umbrella of virtual assets services providers (VASPs), a blanket that includes the cryptocurrency, crypto wallets and other crypto instruments in the country, is upon us, and we cannot afford to fail at it.
The regulatory mechanism must commence with the design of a comprehensive legal framework that defines the operations within Nigeria space. This framework will include a mandatory domiciling of the operation base of each and every digital currency in the country within the country and in a known and registered address. With a backup legal framework, promoting industry standards within the digital currency system will become an achievable task and would introduce a national regime of security, transparency and digital currency transaction accountability among the cryptocurrency exchange sector.
This will also include a mandatory recognition of oversight function, to be effectively domiciled in the office of the National Security Adviser, and in alignment with all financial monitoring agencies in the country. Again, and also, a change of nomenclature to recognise the VASPs fully as an integral component of the nation’s financial institutions, with the Security and Exchange Commission completely and effectively bringing their operations into its folder, and extending its regulatory framework to include the VASPs.
If these are done, we will witness a regime of greater fiscal monitoring and efficiency, and crypto wallets and all other crypto transactions, where applicable, will become taxable assets with corresponding books or entries open to all coordinating bodies. The gains, as expected, would be massive for Nigeria and Nigerians; we will see and witness a sustainable regime of dollar control as naira consistently strengthens against many other foreign currencies. With abuse removed, or at least minimised, naira will compete and take its rightful place in the basket of global currencies. Secondly, we would be seeing a remarkable influence on crime, money laundering and terrorism financing. And perhaps, more Nigerians would want to go into digital currency and other crypto instruments investment in a more responsible way going forward.
