By Dr. Charles Dickson
SIR: History is a funny subject. Whether we like it or not, study it or not, get it out of our curriculum or not, get revisionists to change it or not, fact is that as a nation we are at a threshold of another telling decade.
What we want is exactly in front of us; do we want to build a nation from an uprising or we want to regret, talk about recessions, and more missed opportunities?
According to the Economic Report released in November 2019, government’s budgetary projections sustained its pattern of shortfall by N218.05 billion.
At N322.62 billion, the estimated federal government’s retained revenue for the month of November 2019 was below the monthly budget of N705.44 billion by 54.3 percent.
With the above, the sad and bad news is that we are not going to see a better Nigeria despite a possibility of January-December Budget for the first time. Nigeria is in crisis and either we know it not, or we are running from it.
With every turn, the warnings are everywhere with many insights into the hardships and precarious uncertainties threatening the Nigerian state into the next decade, but there is nothing on our bookshelf, nothing really drives us.
There is a dearth not just in critical thinking, we are not frightened at the autopilot nature of affairs of state, and there is an absence of moral and political arguments to encourage common people to fight for an egalitarian government.
We are temporarily reeled in the joy of a Sowore and Dasuki release, but quiet about several hundreds of citizens at the mercy of a system that negates the principles guiding the rule of law, or separation of powers.
Read Also: Apologise to Sowore, Dasuki, Falana tells AGF
These are the times that try men’s souls. The very fabric of the Nigerian soul is being tried, being tested. For how long will it hold against insecurity, biting poverty well lubricated by unimaginable unemployment – we cannot tell.
Where are Nigeria’s harmattan soldier and the patriot of the rains, those that will hold government to accountability, people that would not relent in asking where Leah Sharibu is, or seek answers regarding what has become of the Chibok girls?
Nigerians devoid of sectarian and nepotic persuasions; willing to drop the CAN, MURIC propaganda for the Nigerian flag – patriots that will remove their flowing agbadas and adorn robes of equity, fairness and justice.
Our crisis is breeding tyranny, like hell, and it is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: ’tis dearness only that gives everything its value.” Who will dare? Is President Buhari ready to dare? Do we have local heroes at the state and local levels of government that want to be counted as having brought us out of the doldrums? Can the episodic crisis torn APC start a positive change at a level unimaginable for Nigerians to smile?
- Dr. Charles Dickson, <pcdbooks@gmail.com>
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