By Olukorede Yishau
In a matter of days, our dear Nigeria will be 60 years as an independent nation. For 46 years before Independence, the Colonial masters toyed with our lives, rewrote our story, made us believe Mungo Park discovered River Niger, where our people had long been fishing, and impressed on us a culture we are yet to fully understand.
As we turn 60, girls in Nigeria, according to the World Bank, get an average of 7.6 years, and boys get 8.7 years of education. The 2019 Gatekeepers’ report shows that across sub-Saharan Africa, girls have an average of two fewer years of education than boys.
The report also shows that one in three Nigerians live in poverty. That represents 32 per cent of Nigerians. The number of people living in poverty increased from 66.83 million in 2017 to 67.48 million in 2018.
Thirty-seven per cent of children suffer from malnutrition. This is 37 per cent of the kids’ population. About half of Nigerians still use unsafe or unimproved sanitation, according to the Gatekeepers’ report.
Nigeria still ranks 43rd of 52 African countries on a recently compiled sustainable development goal index. The implication is that the country has only gone 47 per cent towards achieving sustainable development goals.
Nigeria, the Gatekeepers’ report also shows, still has the second-highest number of deaths of children aged five and under. It tags behind India. Interestingly, the report observes that education is not enough to bridge the gender divide.
“In some countries where girls tend to be well-educated they are still underrepresented in the workforce because they also face discriminatory norms and policies.”
We are clocking three decades at a time the world is forcing itself out of the tight corner COVID-19 has boxed it. Schools are just being opened in Nigeria. Cinemas and other entertainment-based businesses are still locked. From the media to manufacturing and others, thousands have been rendered jobless. There are fears we are also heading towards recession. The times are really scary.
In the midst of all these, the actions of many in political offices are disgraceful. They behave as though the world can respect us when our actions show that we see ourselves as inferior. They are stealing the people blind and taking the money abroad. Even at a time like this.
One of the revelations at the probe of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) shows that the pandemic provided a cover to steal. Members of the Interim Management Committee (IMC) in charge of the commission admitted awarding themselves N1.5 billion for Coronavirus relief. They also approved funds for foreign trips at a time COVID-19 locked up international airports. Maybe they wanted to charter jets to travel out of the country.
Sixty years after, we are yet to get our politics right. What we call politics at the moment is nothing but a joke. The Labour and the Conservative are the two political parties that have decided the fortunes of the United Kingdom for time immemorial. In the United States, the Republican and the Democrats dwarf other parties to swing the American pendulum whichever way they want. It is rare to hear that a Conservative member defects to Labour or vice versa. It is also hard to find a Republican or a Democrat defecting.
In Nigeria, our democracy, which is patterned after the U.S. and the UK, is a variant of what obtains in both nations. But that is where it all ends. In the main, our party system is unique to us, in an abnormal way. It is difficult to discern the ideology or principle behind our political parties. The only glaring thing is the desperation to grab power.
Closely related to our faulty politics is the relegation of merit. Almost everything is done on the basis of ‘where-are-you-from’. The advanced world has shown us clearly that we can only achieve tamed progress with this kind of attitude. At a time in the United States, two Bush brothers were governors in two different states. If it were Nigeria, they would have been confined to Texas where their father was from. It matters not that they were born in different states and had contributed to its growth through tax payment and other means.
Except Lagos, Kaduna and a few others, indigenes of other states have no place in their civil service. Whether you were born and bred in those states mean nothing. You are from where your father comes from. Your mother’s state is irrelevant. Our problem is so compounded that some people will not even agree to sell landed properties to non-indigenes. The most ridiculous is when love affairs are put asunder because parents will not allow their son or daughter to marry from outside their state or tribe.
Even within the same state, the part where you come from also matters. It is not alone for you to be from Kwara or Lagos or Ogun. In some instances, what part of these states you come from also counts. For me, we can never grow with this sort of mentality.
In Yoruba land, some sub-ethnic group will not allow their children to marry from the Ijebu stock. The myth is that the Ijebu are fetish and can do anything for money. So for this ridiculous reason, love has been sacrificed. There is also the myth that Egba women are quick to abandon their husbands when things are tough. As a result of these, an Egba woman is no go area for some Yoruba. In the Southeast, some parts believe that they are the ‘superior’ Igbo.
What do we make of discrimination within the same town? Some towns are divided culturally into two, a situation which leads to what I once referred to as “one town, two people”. Loyalists of the two traditional rulers in such towns clash regularly and blood is shed. Yet, these are supposed to be one people. They have been made two by tradition, which someone describes as “peer pressure from dead people”. The hatred dates back to ancestors who are long dead but their evil is living after them.
If people within the same town cannot accept one another, how can we blame people from different ethnic groups? But what really should matter is the fact that Nigeria is one country which needs all of us to work as one to get it out of the crossroads. We are in trouble and everybody is needed to run and help the area they are born or where they reside.
The tight corner that the challenge of state of origin has pushed us into has seen people committing perjury to claim a state that will help them get the best of every situation. Not a few have been known to claim Lagos today and shift to Ogun the next day. A sizeable number of students in our universities have had to pay a bribe to get documents showing they are from a catchment area. This would not have been the case if you are allowed to claim where you reside or were born, instead of where your ancestors hailed from. In states where governments pay bursaries to indigenes, forged documents are used by students to be eligible.
My final take: Nigeria is a super-important country and because of this, our primary healthcare system deserves utmost attention. Our education deserves the chunk of our energy and resources. There is no justification why the quality and funding of our education and primary health care system are below some countries with lower-income.
Our government should be responsive to our least-empowered citizens, and give more support for farmers to adapt to climate change’s worst effects. We can do better.
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