SIR: The 2023 campaign season has begun in earnest. Our politicians who neither visit their constituencies nor meet up with the promises have turned to or become regular visitors to communities with concocted lies and pipe dream promises. It is sad to note that our two decades of democracy has failed to translate the lives of Nigerians in appreciable ways. Our politicians have failed to provide even the basic infrastructures such as feeder roads, schools and hospitals to the electorate.
As our democracy ripens, it would seem that the bar of leadership recruitment has become lowered.
For instance, the Obasanjo administration to its credit carried out reforms in telecommunication sector which birthed the Global System of Mobile telecommunications, GSM. There is no gainsaying that GSM created millions jobs for Nigerians. It is also on record that Obasanjo secured Paris’s Club debt relief. At the end of his tenure, he left a debt free country with resilient economy.
The quality of Nigeria’s democracy started to dip after former President Olusegun Obasanjo handed over power to late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2007. Though, Yar’Adua came with his seven-point agenda expected to put the country on the pedestal of growth and development, he was unable to implement them due to illness that resulted to his death.
His successor, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, allowed corruption to fester and flourish under his watch. The Diezani– and Dasuki-gate scandals are sad reminders of the high level of corruption that dogged the government. With corruption and insecurity deteriorating under Jonathan administration, Nigerians in 2015 voted Muhammadu Buhari of APC.
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President Buhari promised to address corruption, insecurity and to fix the country’s battered economy. The high expectations that greeted the Buhari administration when it came on board evaporated shortly after. Now, with less than five months to go, many Nigerians have expressed dissatisfaction with the administration’s performance. They felt it has performed below expectations. There are also allegations of corruption in the management of subsidy; so also is rising poverty, kidnapping, banditry, inflation and mountain of public debts.
During the recent Kadinvest business summit organized by Kaduna State Ministry of Commerce and Industry, former CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, warned Nigerians to be wary of any presidential candidate who say Nigeria will be easy for him to rule in 2023. The former emir’s statements could not be unconnected with country’s worsening economy. The menace of oil theft continues to rob the country of billions of naira daily. Now, government has to borrow to fund infrastructural development and even to pay salaries.
Instead of promising heaven and earth, those who want to lead us in 2023 should tell us how they are going to address insecurity, poverty, inflation and the ailing economy. Nigerians are wiser and more political conscious than before. Nigerians will not entertain or tolerate any excuses by incoming government. What they need is democracy dividends.
•Ibrahim Mustapha,
Pambegua, Kaduna State.