It’s time to look inwards

THE standard of living of the people depends on the distribution of the national income and the level of production. If the distribution of the national income is low, the standard of living of the people will be low. But if it is high, the standard of living of the people will be equally high. Also, if the level of production is low, the standard of living of the people will be low. But if high, the living standard of the people will be high.

With the new government of President Muhammadu Buhari, the policy of improving the living standards of the people through job creation for the teaming youths, Operation go back to the land, should begin in earnest . Nigeria is learning the hard way. Today, due to greed, we abandoned agriculture which gives about 65 percent job creation. The greedy and corrupt nature of our leaders, most especially the past administrations, have further destroyed the nation’s economy. Let me ask; if the immediate past regime had been voted to power in 2015 wouldn’t the nation have become bankrupt by now?

Today, we are taking stock, particularly considering the new regime that is taking shape in the United States of America (USA), believed to be one of the most powerful nations in the world. The USA has a foreign policy of developing other less privileged nations in the world, including Nigeria. However, if the new regime decides to cut down or remove its special aid to Nigeria, this will have adverse effects on our economy. It will worsen the country’s present recession. It’s high time we looked at our domestic economy carefully. The hyper-inflation in the country and the increase in the exchange rate of the dollar are already having adverse effects on the life of the average Nigerian.  Those that have the opportunity to engage in trading are taking undue advantage of the situation to increase the prices of commodities on a daily basis. If not, how does the dollar affect the price of groundnut, pepper, corn, etc, harvested within a local community and taken to the market?

Let us look inwards at our naira to control our domestic economy.  During the regime of President Olusegun obasanjo, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, who was then Central Bank Governor,  advised the government on the need to withdraw higher denominations like N1000, N500, N200, and N100 and allow N20 naira to be the highest  denomination in Nigeria. But he was stopped by the National Assembly. I believe that if the  naira had been redenominated and coins re-introduced as a legal tender, this would have kick-started the dwindling economy and checkmated inflation in the system.

The government should play its constitutional role of price control mechanism. Rents, electricity bills, water rates, etc, should be reduced. In my elementary school, we learnt that government provides certain essential infrastructural facilities which if left in the hands of private individuals will be expensive to provide and will be costly for the citizens to pay for.  Those are capital projects such as bridges, electricity, roads, schools, hospitals, etc.  Government provides such facilities  not to make profit but to meet the needs of its citizens. So, government should look carefully at privatized establishments and control their rates. For example, governments had built and equipped power distribution channels, but they were given out through privatization. Instead of increment of 60 percent, consumers are now paying for over 300 percent increment, even when power supply is not regular. Even if it is regular, it is very high. How can the low income earners afford it?

Government should control price by also reducing tax on certain products to meet the yearnings of the citizens. Efforts should be intensified on tax collection on landed properties; cars, etc. Toll gates on federal roads should be awarded to qualified contractors who have the requisite equipment to maintain the roads. Government should go back to Operation Feed the Nation (OFN). Once there is large production yearly, it will improve the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) because through agriculture, Nigeria can make great gains. Government cannot continue to collect certain taxes that do not affect the lives of the people positively. It is said that the Sabbath was made for men, and that men were not made for the Sabbath.

It is high time Nigeria had a re-think by tackling greed among members of the political class, and by controlling inflation in our system. This will make Nigerians quite proud to call the country home. The time for change has really come, it is now or never.

• Abah is a student of Benue State University, Makurdi.