Segun Gbadegesin
SO long, 2020. Welcome 2021. But did we just end an old decade and now starting a new one? Or are we a year old in a new decade that started in 2020? The fact that there is no uniform answer to this question confirms the point made on this page last week. Numbering of years is arbitrary.
A monk gave us the Gregorian calendar based on his calculation of an event which may not have been an accurate one. The Farmers’ Almanac agrees with his numbering and suggests that 2021 is the beginning of the new decade, (there is no Year 0). However, our cultural preference favors 2020 as the beginning (we talk about the 20s not the 21s).
While we don’t need to be bogged down with the arbitrariness of year numbering, we need to bother about what we think and do in the new year or decade and how what we think and do impact our lives. The nation has been slouching slowly to a precipice over the years. And this is impacting the lives of residents and citizens in negative ways. What exactly is the challenge and what should be our response to meeting it head on? How might we turn things around beginning in 2021?
We are not in shortage of critics and analysts. From the objectively naive to the subjectively personal and every one in between, this country is immensely blessed. It should concern us greatly that our freely offered criticisms and suggestions have not had the desired effect of moving the nation forward. And this is not just a recent phenomenon.
Genuine policy differences have always played out in the public arena as is normal. The Anglo-Nigerian Defence Agreement, 1958-1962 was one such in the First Republic while controversy over census figures and election manipulation ended that era with military putsch.
The military era, justified as a corrective regime, ironically ended up muddying the water and politicizing the fundamental blocks of the nation, ending in a bitter civil war, the consequences of which are still with us today. It is heart-wrenching watching the degeneration of our contemporary public discourse especially because it parallels the degeneration of public accountability.
Let’s be clear. While there is a lot of self-serving critics and commentators posturing as genuine patriots, many critics and analysts are sincere in their love of country and we have no right to second-guess their patriotism. Even self-serving criticism, based on verifiable facts, can be useful despite its motive. Let us take this lesson from the utilitarians that motives do not negate the rightness of an action that promotes good consequences.
For instance, I do not doubt the usefulness of a former elected official’s criticisms of aspects of governmental policies even though I am not sure about his motives. Furthermore, that he had eight years in office to oversee some of the issues he’s raising now is a fair observation. But it doesn’t detract from the rightness of his observations about what ails the nation. It would be good for him to acknowledge his omissions while in office. But if, for reason of character flaw, it doesn’t occur to him to do that, we can still use his born again insights.
What is clear now is that there is mass discontent in the land. The economy may be on the rise in global ranking but the feat of being number 25 is felt neither in the pocket nor in the stomach of the people. And as we saw with the recent unfortunate protests across the nation, a hungry mob is an angry mob. What should we do differently this year? Let us agree that the government is doing its best in the matter of infrastructure development and that, hopefully, this will translate into a better populist economy in the near future. But what happens before then? How shall we meet the basic needs for food and shelter of millions of youth without a means of livelihood?
Much has been made of the government’s renewed focus on agriculture and mining meant to supplement or even replace fossil fuel as foreign exchange earners. Agriculture remains the base of the economy and focusing government’s efforts on it appears to be yielding some decent dividends. According to available statistics the contribution of the sector to GDP increased from the second to the third quarter of 2020 and is expected to rise again in 2021. This is promising.
Yet there are obvious constraints that dim the prospects of this bright picture. The rural areas are home to both small scale and large scale agriculture. Even with limited access to financing, subsistence and small scale farmers are still the live wire of the industry. But they face serious challenges from insecurity to lack of access to public goods, including but not limited to good road network to connect them with markets for raw materials and farm products.
A national newspaper published a story about the crisis of insecurity in Oke-Ogun and Ibarapa divisions, the food basket of Oyo State. With increasing episodes of kidnaping and armed robbery targeting rural banks, fear has gripped these communities and lives have been dislocated. Helpless farmers are at the mercy of herdsmen feeding their cattle on farmlands, destroying crops with impunity. And the state governor recently alerted us on bandits’ invasion.
Combine this challenge of insecurity with the abject poverty of rural dwellers and you have a perfect storm from which young people seek refuge elsewhere, usually, in the urban centers. This increases the need of urban areas, and it further marginalizes rural communities as resources and facilities are concentrated in the cities. To compete with the latter for security personnel, rural communities must make contributions that are not demanded of cities. Ditto with educational institutions. While city communities are not required to contribute buildings and generating sets to secure higher institutions, these are typical conditions for campuses in local communities. Needless to add, these kinds of policies further alienate rural communities.
The point worth emphasizing, however, is the primary importance of security as the foremost purpose of government. With banditry and terrorism rampaging the north, and kidnapping, cultism and armed robbery afflicting the south, the nation certainly needs new ideas. To this end, the establishment of community policing was approved months ago. And, acknowledging the inadequacy of police officers, the federal government also endorsed the recruitment of additional police personnel and implementation is apparently ongoing with screening and training. Hopefully, these measures will make some tangible difference nationwide.
These two issues–economic woes which citizens face and insecurity that threatens their lives–are at the heart of the discontent and alienation that people have felt for a long time. And naturally, they compare this new dimension of life since the military era to the life more abundant they enjoyed in the first civilian republic. And they ask two simple questions: why did we abandon a system that served citizens well? And why did civilians adopt the military system of central control for a federal republic?
The answer they figure out only further deepens their sense of outrage. For it occurs to them that it is not for the benefit of the common good. It furthers the interest of some while negating and jeopardizing that of the masses of the people. Hence the incessant call for a new structure that ensures equitable development and fair distribution of the burden and benefits of national life. This is not too much to ask. It is the core of a just society.
More relevant is the fact that what we have practiced in the last fifty four years hasn’t worked as successfully as the system we practiced in the first six years of independence, the golden era of the nation. And as the wise acknowledge, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, getting the same poor result, and failing to change course. In this 61st year of the birth of the republic, we must change course. If we don’t and we record another year of failure, we cannot blame 2021. We must blame ourselves.
Happy New Year!
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