53 years of hypocrisy and systemic failure

Perhaps more than ever before in Nigeria’s history, we live in a society which is aware of its vulnerability, but is deeply not too worried about it. That is to say, in spite of the worries that Nigerians would ordinarily have, the government seems not to worry in a particularly intense way about how things are out of control. Since 1960, nothing much has changed. It is somehow unthinkable that the colonial era which was characterised by plundering of the country’s resources and divide-and-rule politics of the British is still manifesting; an indication that the leadership of Nigeria has slept for so long and driven by greed and blurred vision. The founding fathers of Nigeria did not contemplate such a slow motion growth that we celebrate every year, rather they engineered a virile nation that was endowed with all it needed for a catalytic growth in all ramifications of life. They sacrificed their future and well being to jumpstart a country that was designed to bring succour to the suffering people of Nigeria. Fifty three years on, we are on the same spot!

Granted, every year and perhaps every day in the history of our nation brings a new test. Sometimes our strength as a people is tested and in recent times it has been our security. And it is not just security of life but of food, jobs and good leadership. Those human rights that are commonly referred to as fundamental are no longer sacrosanct. The right to worship has become fearful and dreadful as worshipers now attend religious gatherings with their hearts in their mouths. It is disheartening however that as many as these challenges are, successive governments have not been able to tackle at least one of the nation’s challenges successfully. The effects of inept leadership have hit people so hard in the past 53 year such that Nigerians have nothing good to remember about their severance from British rulership.

Sadly, since the nation’s independence and through 2013, we worried so much as nation about the state of infrastructure such that we got used to eating, reading and sleeping in the dark as a result of continued underperformance of PHCN or NEPA as I still call them. The roads are still death traps while education is degenerating. We worried about our continued existence as a nation during the last general election when zoning almost caused ‘war’ within the ruling party. The attendant killings and maiming were heights of insecurity in the land. The worries were too many to live with and they might be the fears of coming years. The story is not different at the moment going by how the polity is being heated by selfish ambitions.

As we opened our eyes to see October 2013, there is no shortage of things to be genuinely worried about: we still worry about livelihood; whether we will be able to meet our daily expenses in a country where there is no social support from the government. We still think so much about our health considering the status of the public hospitals and the influx of improperly regulated private hospitals. Young men and women of marriage age do not only worry about, but fear relationships. The number of single women who desire marriage is alarming because of lack of wherewithal on the part of the male counterparts to enter wedlock. Married couples and single parents worry about children – and still fear whether they will be able to keep them safe and how they will turn out in life because government, at all tiers, keeps depriving them of the instruments of leadership such as access to quality education. Parents whose children have graduated fear that the children might not get jobs because of cronyism. Many young children roam the streets and hawk when they ought to be in school. What then does Nigeria’s independence signify?

Ours is a nation where a few people who run the state continue unashamedly to plunder public resources while the escalation of poverty and the civil service structure become bloated. The social service delivery and the productive sectors of the economy have crumbled at the hands of gross mismanagement. Yet, we are celebrating! As it is, apart from the astronomical hike in the prices of petroleum products, we have no idea of exactly what we will experience in the next few years. Whatever we think we will experience is only a projection from the awful past experience foisted on us without justification. And for the worries of the past 53 years not to constitute the fears of the future, there is an urgent need to bring on board fresh brains who can proffer selfless solutions to the myriads of problems that have confronted the nation. The older ones who have featured prominently before and after independence up till now should give way for the younger generation to enable them chart their future as quickly as they could. Granted the old broom knows the corners and might sweep cleaner yet, in our instance, the old broom has always swept just its own side ignoring the need for other part of the room to be clean.

The government should get the right young people to fast-track job creation for the teeming unemployed in order to forestall crisis. The elderly should be supported to live the remaining part of their lives in dignity. National Assembly should enact law to enable local councils establish old people care trust. The lingering crises in education sector at all levels should be meaningfully and purposefully addressed with a view to bringing back the schools to life and relevance. If the worries and fears would reduce, government must act fast and create an enabling environment that will give people a better lease of life as against the present the-rich-have-it-all system of government. No doubt, our leaders’ smugness and disconnection is personified in the government and its ragbag of officers. At the moment, Nigeria, for certainty, is plagued with avalanche of problems that cripple us as a nation and our common priority should be how to fix some of these avoidable and self-inflicted problems. A good manager would not be expending billions of naira yearly on a ceremony that has no bearing on the people while the staggering amount could be used to fix part of the problems.

Instead of celebrating, we should be cataloguing our failures and begin to fix them. We should look back and see where and how we derailed. We should take stock of our woes and bring to book those who took us to this point. We have no basis to roll out the drums if many of us could not afford average and decent living, when our young men and women are jobless, when both old and young are sickly and malnourished. What is the basis of the celebration when the government lacks the will to turn things around for better?

The inaction of the poor cannot continue forever; they will soon get to the brink!

• Osunnuga writes from Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State.