SIR: Events in this country will never cease to baffle me. Ours is a nation where issues, even of few months back are easily forgotten or ignored. We concentrate on present problems leaving out historical antecedents. We have even fortified this trend by banning the study of history in our schools. By institutionalising this national malaise, Nigeria continues to flop from one dark corner to another. In assessing the performance of the Buhari administration or in finding out why the economy has dovetailed, it is necessary to look back – into recent history.
First, let us look at the activities of terrorists. Boko Haram assault on Nigeria did not start with Buhari; it has been in gestation, indeed in full blown adulthood in the last decade. It took many weeks before the last administration believed that there was insurgency in the North-east. The economic consequences of a large chunk of Nigeria’s North East being occupied and devastated by terrorists can only be measured in I.D.P’s staggering two million people.
Second and connected with the above is the large scale diversion of funds meant to fight terrorist to private accounts. This act is treasonable as it affects the very existence of Nigeria. Billions of Naira ended up in bank accounts of military chiefs, their wives, messengers, servants, and house helps. This story would be seen as a fairy tale in other clime but it is accepted as the norm in Nigeria.
We also have to consider as a serious threat to our economy the quantity of crude oil that is now being pumped out of Nigeria’s wells. The figure which was 2.2 barrels per day (bpd) is now 1.6. Against all the rules of supply and demand, the price has dipped from US$140 to around US$40. With these dismal statistics, no manager of resources can break even. Oil, representing over 70% of our national income has proved the unreliability of a mono-product economy. Do we now put the blame on Buhari’s fifteen month old government?
In the last 17 years, governments have not addressed the problems confronting the nation especially in the area of socio infrastructures. Examples are roads, railways, airport terminals even dams. Take Lagos –Ibadan Expressway for example. Believed to carry the heaviest traffic in Africa, the motorway has been awarded, rewarded, concessioned and recovered several times over. Today and especially at week-ends, it takes six to seven hours to travel the 120km road. Why have the governments, all governments from Obasanjo, failed to fix the road which is so vital to our economic activities? We also have the second Asaba – Onitsha Bridge. This waterway has been ‘flagged off’ several times, and we have not got anywhere.
It is a strange coincidence that terrorist organisations like the Avengers, the break-away Biafrans etc have suddenly sprung up like tropical mushroom after the exit of Jonathan. Can we separate the goose from the gender?
We now come to public service appointment which is the human angle to the issue under consideration. By the Constitution public appointments – political and career jobs – made by the Federal Government should reflect the Federal Character of Nigeria’s state. But this was the exact opposite of what happened during the last administration.
In Jonathan’s time, over 70% of the appointments were from the South-south and South-east. Nobody raised a finger at that time. The almighty SGF Pius Anyim stood like a rock of Gibraltar against then interest of four other regions of Nigeria. Now the sleepy Federal Character Commission is awake, lamely shouting that the constitution has been breached and that four of the six regions have been disadvantaged. The cat is of course out of the bag. Over 70% of about 4,500 last minute appointees come from those two regions. Many knew this have consistently said it loud and clear, but nobody cared to listen.
With the catalogue of issues and events mentioned above, how can anyone in his full sense expect Buhari administration to jump the que, reverse the atrocities of the last 16 years and create a paradise here on earth?
With the kind of judiciary that we have, and senior lawyers, who parade themselves around court premises and a parliament that consumes up to five per cent of our national income, Buhari or anybody else would be a magician to change things overnight. As they say, you can’t build a solid structure on a muddy platform.
- Deji Fasuan MON JP
Ado-Ekiti