WEDNESDAY COLUMN BY USSIJU MEDANER
Apparently, too many conflicting issues require urgent as much as simultaneous attention to reset the operational module of Nigeria. Probably because of the intense effect of disturbances on the nation’s social fabrics and the economy, and the high pressure on the government at all levels to proffer immediate solutions, we have mostly resulted to trial and errors to see what responses could work to ameliorate the situational suffering of Nigeria and Nigerians. Unfortunately, why we cannot blame such apparent short-sighted attempts, which have become obvious since the days of President Obasanjo in 1999 till date, is not what we need; and certainly not for stability.
Yes, the nation is in there need of reform and overhaul even politically; with the emergence of a collusive opposition whose only objective is to discredit the system to their benefits, and thereby setting the populace against government policies and blinding them to what is working and fruitful. We have notoriously magnified our regional and religious differences that all we see is the need to pacify those divisions and identities at the expense of the generality of Nigeria and Nigerians and the centre; and thereby fueling agitation, calls for session and other instability. Our politics no longer could thrive without tribal, regional and religious influences; and it has become clearly impossible to formulate nationally effective policies without strong opposition from ethnic and religious jingoists as well as politically ill-bent opposition.
It is about time we asked ourselves the right questions and thrive to provide feasible answers. We can no longer afford to play trial and error; recklessly gambling with speculative solutions to nation challenges. It is also equally time we set out to recognise worthy policies of the government and offer a united, collaborative frontal support to see them through to fruition. We would have to stop deceiving ourselves, and pretending we don’t know where our problems lie as a people and as a nation. Corruption is eating deeper into the nation’s fabrics, yet our responses are minimal and deceptive. The anti graft agencies, for instance, as serious as corruption is, have merely been cajoling us in recent times with media dramas of arrest, investigations and trials that are never concluded. We run a national system where the same corrupt elements under trials for corruption are still the bigwigs in the political power corridors across the country. Yet, we claim not to know what our problems are.
Since 1999, we watched as the local government administration became relegated out of our national system. We watched most of the governors across the country, subjugate the power of the local government and transform the third tier of government to an appendage of the state government. We watched as some governors collected local government allocations every month and released whatever pleased them to their self-appointed chairmen or caretakers. We watched for 24 years as local government development is determined by the state house of assembly which often mostly cahoots with some of their respective state governors.
The pathway worth focusing on at this moment should include; promotion and enforcement of local government administration autonomy, recognising that the local settlements are strategic to the overall affair of the Nigeria nation. A developed grassroots system would literally stem up the path to rapid development nationwide. When local administration is purposefully allowed to function per the dictates of the Constitution, we will begin to see straight and sustainable improvement in the national agricultural sector with respect to public investment and gradually overcome the monumental food insecurity in the country. Employment generation at the local level would become a reality, infrastructural development would spur job creation at the basic level, and cottage industries would be springing up across the remote areas of the country. When the local administration is empowered, we will transform the local system to the first front of response to insecurity in the country.
It is indeed ideal that the focus and solutions to our national challenges are as close to us as possible, rather than projecting mundane and unrealistic ventures that will end up accumulating more problems for us. We should settle down and be realistic in facing and solving our problems.
Sometimes in the past, before we became greedy at the sight of oil monies, we were doing remarkably well regionwide depending solely on mass agriculture. We were having the bulk of our national income accruing from agricultural products exports and followed closely by solid minerals. Then, we discovered crude oil and we abandoned the cocoa plantation of the Western region, the oil palm of the Eastern territories that made the country once the highest producer of palm oil globally, and the famous groundnut pyramids of the North. Government investment was subtly removed from the sector and it continues to constitute a decline until it contributes close to nothing to our total development again.
At this point, what we need is not a return to regional administration. What we need is not an exercise in futility that will create further divisions among an already divided system. Let us solve our manifested problems. Let us return back to make agriculture a strengthening factor for our national economy. Let us empower northern Nigeria to do what it is capable of doing for the country. The region has enough arable lands to feed about a half of the entire West African subregion, yet the country is facing a morbid food insecurity perpetrated by very low agricultural practices across the country. Currently, the North is engaging less than 10 percent of its available arable land. That is one of our major problems and that is what we should find a solution to as a matter of urgency.
If the North alone is fully backed by government power to cultivate as much as 70 percent of its available arable lands under effective supervision and administrative support, the first thing we would be getting is abundant food supply across the country. The second will be massive empowerment of the teeming youth and women across the North, leading to increasing purchasing power and the springing up of cottage industries processing farm crops into finished goods. Across other regions, with the food insecurity solved, a major challenge is overcomed and our people would be able to live a better life.
When we are set to look at our common problems at the face and tow the way of simple and feasible solutions, we will also recognise that asking for huge arbitrary increases in minimum wage may never offer a working solution to our problem. Is it most of the state governments in the past six years that cannot pay thirty thousands minimum wage that will be able to pay what the Federal government is offering now, talkless of the non-feasible demand of the organised labour? Secondly, what would happen to the private employers? Are we going to enforce the payment of the minimum wage on them also? Altogether, how many government workers are Nigeria citizens? Probably less than 8 percent. Then, we will all have to grapple with the variants of inflation that will follow once the increase is announced. That has been the practice.
Rather than shutting down the national workforce to demand for the impossible and mount more hardship on an already suffering and struggling population, shouldn’t we be asking for what is feasible? I will be in support if the organised labour will go on strike today indefinitely until the national refineries are up and refining crude for local consumption. We all know at that time, we can as well ask for a remarkable reduction in the pump price of PMS to as low as #350 or thereabout. I will join any road protest and strike action to force the hands of the state governors to release the local government to function on their own. I will support any strike action that will force the hands of the government to redefine and organise the national anti corruption fight to bring to book all the elements that are responsible for the problems of Nigeria today because of their mismanagement of national and state funds at their disposals.
Rather than fighting for salary increases of the magnitude we are seeing now, we should be closing down the system to force a reduction in the cost of governance in the country. We should x-ray salaries and emoluments of public and political office holders and demand for a forceful action at over 50 percent reduction. If a university professor is collecting #600,000 per month, there is no justifiable reason why a Senator, a minister or any political officer holder should collect above a million Naira. None at all. We got it wrong when we went that way and we should correct it.
On the pockets of clamours for a return to regional government which might seem good for us, and indeed is theoretically great, but also comes with much more challenges including potential disintegration of the whole considering the existing fault lines. Would the national assembly allow it to be passed? Would a whole lot of lawmakers who are driven only by personal ambitions allow such a fundamental change of system that would terminate their dreams? Definitely not in Nigeria. We are more likely going to end up throwing the bill into the dustbin because we don’t have a clear pathway to have it passed by both arms of the National Assembly as they are currently constituted.
We should rather organise our current system to work for us, especially beginning with the focus, promotion and agitation for local government autonomy. If this cannot work, what is the guarantee that any other one will work or be better?
GOD BLESS THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA!
