Getting it right in 2019 election

AS another general election year draws near with many political parties on the queue to slug it out with the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), there is every compelling need to focus attention on key areas where we got it wrong after 57 years of independence. It is not only disheartening but well-nigh appalling that in spite of our abundant human and natural resources; Nigeria still gropes marvellously in the dark with a cast of neophyte actors at the helm who churn out policies that keep Nigeria moving round in circles. The resultant effects of this are abysmal failures while other countries gallop ahead in the long and circuitous race to economic growth and development which positively impacts on the lives of the citizenry. Today, in spite of the economic policies in place, there is nothing to suggest that Nigeria is on the path to economic recovery, nor is there anything to suggest that it is on the path to redemption. Insecurity of lives and property is one knotty problem today that is rending Nigeria to shreds as she battles a deadly insurgency in the country’s northeast. This doubtless has claimed no fewer than 20,000 lives and with its devastating and appalling demographic change.

Is it not a bundle of ironic that hunger stares over 75 percent of Nigerians ominously in the face in a country that is blessed with vast agricultural potentials and that many go to bed on empty stomachs while the government in Abuja makes spurious claims of food export overseas?  This sad situation, if we need reminding, reeks of dilemmas, ironies, and paradoxes and promotes crimes of varying degrees. Attention must, therefore, be focused on key areas such as the economy, jobs, security, power, health, and transportation which are ambitious goals for a country where traditionally government-led change has become very slow and hopelessly ineffective. Nigeria urgently stands in need of under the existing circumstances is a political party whose manifestoes contain a scheme or plan as a blueprint for future development programmes. Fortunately or unfortunately, these are non-existent in the governing party and the main opposition!

To Nigeria’ s economy, we must now turn. The ruling APC has overseen an abysmal economic performance in the past two years with rising inflation and soaring unemployment figures.  For Nigeria to develop and record a strong economic growth, it needs a political system that would be willing to create at least one hundred million new jobs for our teeming school leavers via vocational training and youth empowerment scheme as obtains in advanced capitalist economies. This will no doubt create a competitive business and investment environment capable of making Nigeria a world leader in manufacturing and agricultural production instead of over-dependence on oil as our main foreign exchange earner. Similarly, also to be captured in the radar is a political system for a decentralised governance, more accountability, and a simpler regulatory environment that will bring about job creation as its primary economic objective.

This will, in no small measure, promote honest business and entrepreneurship while manufacturing, agriculture and the service sectors will remain areas to focus on and develop. To achieve these, there is every compelling need for the government to hands off running businesses and solely improve infrastructure to encourage private enterprises. We must not also lose sight of the fact that a political system that will encourage a manufacturing-driven economy by waiving all taxes on exported products and applying minimum tariff protections to encourage local manufacturing upgrade infrastructure and engage in more Public-Private Partnerships will reflate our comatose economy. The moribund transport sector needs to be revitalised and attention should aptly be given religiously to connect the remotest outpost to rail services thereby reducing pressure on our roads. The larger part of Nigeria’s population must be moved to the middle class by strengthening traditional areas of employment like agriculture and retail through arights-based approach by allowing every citizen the right to housing,health, and social security. Attention must also be drawn to foreign investment by improving the policy framework. There is no denying the fact that Nigerians also groans under the crushing effects of hyperinflation.

It is very disheartening that all the policies put in place and being implemented by the APC government to stem inflation and increasing food prices have failed woefully due to a wrong approach and failure to map out a development model to grant every citizen access to food, housing, education, healthcare, power, and water.  Halfway into the life of the Buhari government, it has been engulfed in numerous corruption scandals, a government during its inception that promised Nigerians to give the highest priority to accessibility and transparency in governance systems ,track down and recover stolen funds that have been stashed away in foreign bank vaults. The question that agitates this writer is how many of these repatriated stolen funds have been used to reflate the economy and develop the country? What is certain here is that far from genuinely fighting corruption, the central authority has not only been hijacked bya criminal cabal but by conspiratorial intrigue, maladministration, gross incompetence of the governing APC with its avowed declaration to bring in transparency in government’s decision-making process suffering a humiliating setback. In fact, it has failed woefully to establish a system capable of eliminating corruption via effective reactions between citizens and government, simple tax systems and government processes.

To successfully bring the endemic problem of corruption to a standstill, Nigeria urgently needs a political system that will deal decisively with the cankerworm by increasing the use of technology to reduce graft, setting up an anti-corruption ombudsman and not the EFCC which is a toothless bulldog. The is also every need to bring in a stronger piece of legislation that applies to all public officials, including ministers, jail offenders found guilty of corruption without fear or favour, and have their assets confiscated and forfeited to the state. Nigeria’s current education system is not only pitiful but chaotic as the common man does not have access to high-quality education. Strikes by the academic and non-academic staff often disrupt the school calendar.  Be that as it may, a responsible government should be able to expand higher education opportunities for students in low-income families, make education free and compulsory for children aged 5-18, open up the higher education sector to foreign investment and increase skill development programmes.  But back home in Nigeria, the reverse is the case as young children who attend school do not learn basic skills like reading and writing, and graduates of higher institution often find themselves unemployable due to poor quality education or a lack of job opportunities.  Emphasis should, therefore, be placed on encouraging more firms to hire apprentices and improve monitoring of certifications, quality of education, ensure universal enrollment in secondary education with a view to reducing drop-out rates.

Again, Nigeria must run or evolve a political system that would abolish illiteracy and pledge to men and women alike all possible help to continue and complete their education,   develop closer interaction between education providers and industry, improve the quality of teaching, and set up online courses to further their education. A large number of vocational training institutes that would provide incentives to students to establish their own enterprises is also deemed absolutely necessary at this juncture. How achievable are these? Which of the political parties has a clue to the barrage of problems enumerated above that has given rise to ethnic agitations threatening our corporate existence as a nation?  As you can see from the foregoing, there is no gainsaying the fact that our country suffers hopelessly from too many problems ranging from our individual complexity to frustration factor, we have the poor and the common wage earners while unemployment is a national phenomenon promoting crimes particularly violent ones. In my own unshaken conviction, the totality of this broad spectrum of our population must be fully mobilized in a truly nationalistic sense.