Wake up, redeem Nigeria!

WEDNESDAY COLUMN BY USSIJU MEDANER

info@medaner.com, justme4justice@yahoo.com

Like I started two weeks ago, this country is like a big playfield where everything goes. It is a fact that Nigeria is a nation with laid down laws but without respect for the same. We are a nation where most of the politicians are a bunch of people who would trample on anything to ascertain their control over resources and authority to control spaces. Altogether, almost all of us, politicians and the populace, a bunch of melodramatic elements entertaining themselves and the country at a time when the whole nation begs for serious commitment and citizens’ serious participation in national development.

Must it be us, one unproductive event per week? Last two weeks was the National Assembly brouhaha; a national embarrassment that must be dealt with as fast as possible. I am not interested in who is right or who is wrong, as much as I have no standing to assume who tells the truth. But I am bothered about the demeaning of the sacred institution that the Assembly represents. If truly, the President of the Senate did abuse the female senator as alleged, it is an act that we must all frown at, and must not be allowed to be swept under the carpet; yet, sentiments and games aside, it is an allegation that must be established on the strength of tenable evidence. However, we have to be careful altogether as a people. We cannot on the basis of wanting to oppose the system, jump at mere words of mouth, a possible ‘non sequitur’ to arrive at self-serving conclusions. Even at that, it is appropriate that Senator Uduangan, would provide Nigerians with pieces of evidence beyond the ongoing rhetoric. This is important and mandatory; this has gone beyond an impasse between the duos. Once taken to the media, and into the full glare of a global audience, it cannot be settled underground anymore. Nigerians and the world must see the allegation to the end.

As for me, I am more focused on the main reason the senator got suspended from the senate for the six months duration. Having been a legislative analyst and resource support staff of some of successive presiding officers, precisely serving at the Office of the President of the Senate for over a decade, I am conversant with the reality of the circumstances demanding her suspension. At no time in the past has any senator escaped the axe after breaking the Rules and chose to go out to cow the Senate, without immediately apologising on the floor of the Senate or the House as the case may be. Whether the changing of her seat was done in bad taste to punish her for whatever reason would be a secondary issue; rejecting the change and shouting down on the leadership and proceeding to the media are combinations of assaults on the sacred rules of the institution.

I think at that point, the senator would have obeyed, taken the newly allocated seat, and then submitted her petition to the ethics committee to the effect of her refusal of sexual advances being the reason for the perceived maltreatment. She would have, then been operating from a point of advantage, breaking no rule and the Senate would have no other option but to attend to the aggrieved senators’ petition.

Altogether, almost these issues are not what we should be discussing in a nation that is grasping with too many struggles to get things up and right. At what time exactly would we begin to separate politics and politicking from the need for Nigeria to get it right? Every issue literally is turned into a political opportunity to muster strength and discredit one another, not caring what is damaged in the process. The problem in Osun state is there, Rivers State is still boiling, changing gear every other day, the National Assembly in turmoil, and all what politicians and political parties are interested in are how they can turn these challenges to political gains. Nobody cares about what they do that is damaging to the country or to the people of Nigeria.

Now, it is another wave of publicised defection; political defectors distracting the people with the same old rhetoric. While it is everyone’s fundamental right to associate at will, it is both morally and patriotically wrong to build defections on emotional grounds and unfounded excuses. It is about time Nigerian politicians moved away from politics for personal gains. The politics of if it doesn’t favour me, we must pull it down is unpatriotic. I have no problem with anyone moving away from any political structure to another, but claiming realignment with better political ideology is a slap on the intelligence of Nigerians. What are the ideologies of the parties? It is clear to all that politicians move to find space to express themselves, not for ideologies or the sake of the country. We can at least accept such reality rather than deceiving ourselves.

That is about that. This week I am pressed to address pertinent issues defining the sanctity of the country on several fronts. Insecurity continues to ravage the country, though, less severe than it was months ago. All the same, the target would and should remain to deliver a nation absolutely safe for all citizens at all costs. Insurgency is relatively reducing, but other expressions of insecurity in kidnapping, banditry and similar vices are still on the ravage.

Whatever it is we are doing, we must improve upon it to cut across all areas of challenges. The discussion on the establishment of state policing has continued to be on the table. Should we get to the point where we will have to engage the Federal and state police side by side to win both the war and the battle against local insecurity, then, we must be proactive in establishing where the boundaries of control should lie. It must be emphatically noted that while the proposed state police would be responsible for maintaining internal security of the states, the federal police will remain in the state and hold superior authority in specified security fields including election security, and others as may be deemed necessary. If we can collectively agree that election security would remain under the purview and control of the federal police, strategically solving the scary problem of state governments that may tend to abuse legitimate use of their control over the police at such critical periods.

Another challenge that is hitting us hard and yet being ignored is the half resolved issue of local government autonomy. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, the governors are still technically devising ways and means to keep the third tier of government under their control. We still have governors in the last few weeks making attempts to interfere in local government affairs, to the extent of removing elected chairman and forcing their wills on the councils. We cannot allow this to continue. Can we then agree that we are at a point where the president should begin to tamper with the prospect of removing state governors, if the governors would continue to assume they have the power to remove chairmen at will? These are all constitutionally empowered and independent tiers of governance. The governors must have to let go of their perennial control over the local government and allow duly elected officers administer the running of their respective local government areas.

We must build the will to enshrine the autonomy of the local government tier. The unholy control of the state emanating from the use of the state electoral commission must be broken and ended. We should begin to have INEC and the state election commissions to organise LGA elections together, with INEC playing both coordinating and supervisory role that prevent manipulation of the processes from the state tier. The federal government must as a matter of urgency approach the National Assembly once again to review the Constitution and effect changes that will authorise INEC to coordinate the local government elections, while the state election commissions would become state offices of INEC.

Again, the country must be ready to discuss once and for all the much needed ideal and most suitable federalism. We cannot afford to have weak states in the union because we are becoming lazier as a result of the handouts from the centre and shared resources, when we can generate resources from within – every state – to service the myriads of the needs of the states. The need to force the federating units to become more resourceful is as important as any move to reengineer the nation’s development capacity. It is only when the federating units become serious at self-survival that prudent resources generation and management would become a norm. The United States of America is almost all self-sufficient; some states are even stronger than most nations. We must address our federalism to set a timeline for ourselves to evolve fully into a healthy working federalism. This period, probably a twenty (20) year projection, would accord each and every state the needed space to organise its capacities to self survive, and eventually produce a  weaker and less patronised centre that would reduce the craze we are experiencing now at the federal level and the near non-development of the majority the of the states.

To achieve the important previously stated goal, the country’s onslaught against corruption, in all the forms it exists, must be total. Good and great policies would fail to yield projected results, if corruption continues to foster itself. Administrators and managers of programs in a corrupt system would remain unreliable; resource mismanagement would remain the norm, and failure of outcome, a reality. If there is anything we need to end to really kick start the full development of Nigeria, it is corruption; institutional and individual corruption. In reality, we have experienced budget failures over the years, not because the budgets are weak, but because the budgetary allocations are mostly cornered and diverted along all routes.

In the last two years of the Renewed Hope, the reason why Nigerians have not seen the hope represented by the many positive policy directions of the government is corruption. The fuel subsidy removal, for instance, has continued to appear like it was not well calculated. There are people who are not willing to let go of their corrupt enrichment from the national oil and gas sector, including their demonic perpetuated subsidy regime over the decades.

This country is too blessed to have anything to do with poverty. It is about time we stopped unhealthy and long-term damaging politicking and started developing Nigeria for real. It is about time we preached patriotism and acted patriotic. It is also about time politicians let go of the craze for access to government resources; and the populace change for once to allow sanity that prioritises the wellness of the country about individual gains.

GOD BLESS THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA!