Nigeria at 52

As October 1st draws near, Nigerians are faced with the challenge of celebrating our independence. Since 1960, celebrating our independence with 24hour festivities has never really been the norm because October 1st has always been a time of sober reflection. More often than not, we find ourselves comparing our Nation to other countries about our age. The vast difference technologically and otherwise usually sends Nigerians into the spiral of blame games. Rather than logical self examinations to find the root of our challenges so as to proffer practical solutions, we look for whom to blame but can anyone blame us really for doing that?

At our 50th national celebration, Nigerians adorned themselves in the national colours – green white green- ran through the streets and celebrated the beginning of a new era where democracy meant we would get involved in government decision making, where things would start anew and get better for the masses. After the untimely passing of President Umaru Yar'Adua on 5th of May 2010, his successor, Goodluck Jonathan stepped up to the plate intermittently till his official election on the 16th of April 2011. For once our presidential election was free and fair; people had hope that an un-ambitious president would do more in our favour. But in the past two years, things have not become the fairy tale Nigerians hoped for.

Imagine being greeted on 2012 New Years’ day with the news of fuel scarcity because the government had removed the fuel subsidy claiming it could no longer afford to subsidize fuel if it had to save our economy in the years to come. The life of the masses became more expensive and difficult causing protests all over the nation. Officials came on television telling the people for months how it would be in their best interest and by April this year, a compromise which was still higher than the masses would have wanted was reached. A few months later, we were told there had been a scam and the money to be reserved (1.6trillion or so) was no longer available and the culprits were being investigated.

Another move that got the Nigerian public displeased was the seemingly forceful cashless society scheme. The plan was to reduce the amount of money spent printing currency notes. With so much wrong in the country, the last thing on Nigerians’ mind is to walk around with no visible cash in hand. Imagine going to an ATM machine with your card in a store and finding out the network is down. Does that mean you don’t get to buy what you need because your bank’s network is faulty? It’s one thing to deal with the embarrassment, it’s quite another to walk away from a purchase empty handed because there was no POS machine or functional ATM network to purchase you needs. Nigerians were not having that. So the matter of how feasible it would be to practice the scheme remained debatable.

Also, imagine how insulted the Nigerian populace felt when we were told (after our currency was renovated to polymer to cut cost and going cashless was less expensive) that the Central Bank of Nigeria wanted to introduce a new currency (the N5000 note), redesign currency notes (N50 - N1000) and convert lower denominations (N5 - N20) to coins. knowing that doing so would cost the country over N40billion, the common man was left wondering how that was a less wasteful economic plan. The worst part was the government has now made it its style to approve policies and plans without asking the opinion of the people or trying to sensitize the people before implementation. Then we hear the present administration feels they are the most criticized by the Nigerian people. Why won’t they be when the people had so much hope in them and so far nothing has changed? Bottom line, our systems are still faulty and majority of the motivation to improve the nation are born from personal money making schemes.

Infrastructure has still not improved and with the recent climate changes, Riverine settlements like Lekki in Lagos State, Markurdi in Benue State and Lokoja in Kogi state are now dealing with intense flooding issues. By-pass roads that have been neglected have now become potential death traps. Death toll this year has been uprising. Not to forget the amount of property damage caused by Boko Haram, Niger Delta militants, violent riots and aviation mishaps. Amidst all these chaos, the House of Reps recently were asking for N7 million increase in their pay packet. Why on earth would they feel the need to say so when the president tried to cut the expenses of the Executive arm of government to show the masses its commitment to selfless national development? It’s like our leaders have not known the nature of the people they are ruling. What Lord Lugard deduced during his analysis of Nigeria in 1912 – 1916, our leaders still grapple with till date.

All our leaders have to do is go back in time and learn the act of self-examination/analysis of a people from a man (Lord Lugard) who knew how to get the diverse cultures of people to work towards one goal of national unity. We, Nigerians, need to know what can work for us and how to harness the best out of what we already have. Lord Lugard’s analysis can be seen from his book, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa which was published in 1926. There he talked about the strategies needed to govern the African people as at that time. These days Africans have evolved especially Nigerians and it’s too bad our leaders are still just as he described centuries ago. Here’s an excerpt that (emphasis: I believe) still rings true about all who get into power in Nigeria: they lack, “....self control, discipline, and foresight ... full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity (my emphasis: honesty). His thoughts are concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future or grief for the past. He lacks the power of organization, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business. He loves the display of power, but fails to realize its responsibility...”

There has been a bit of good news in our history as a people despite our many challenges. For once, our government has tried to show its ability to visualize the future needs of the people and is currently working towards it; needs such as stable power supply, repairing of our national image, enhancement of tourism, reformations in the banking and aviation sectors just to mention a few. Another good thing about Nigerians that can see us through all our challenges till we become better is our dependence on religion. Irrespective of religious preferences, we tend to commit our nation into the hands of a Deity we believe can help. That is why October 1st has always been a day dedicated to National prayers by every religion in the country. As our challenges evolve as a people, so do our prayer points and recently, the reality that everyone needs to act one way or the other to make Nigeria great has become a daily truth.

We, the children, who were called the leaders of tomorrow, are today aware of the national transformation needed to lead our country to greater heights. At age 52, Nigeria has become a more mature nation who does away with wishful thinking and tackles the reality of the challenges ahead. It is our prayer that as we grow nationally, we would look beyond our selfish interests and do what’s best for the future our people. Happy Independence Day Nigeria!