The advent of the present democratic dispensation in 1999 ushered in renewed hope and belief in the greatness of Nigeria as a nation after years of military dictatorship. Democracy for Nigerians was a Promise and Dream of a prosperous society; a thriving and resilient economy, a productive nation powered by decently educated population. It was the dream of a united, peaceful and politically stable society bustling with life and dynamic socio-economic activities for the good of all Nigerians. It was a dream of a democratic Nigeria as a beacon of light and hope in Africa and in the comity of Nations
However, 24 years of our democratic journey has brought us to a point we all now know as “Here”, a harsh reality of our everyday existence.
You hardly can find a Nigerian today who is satisfied with present day Nigeria. Ask the Nigerian on the street, what you hear and see is sighing and gloom. Before we begin to ask how we got Here, let us see what Here looks like. Here has become an embarrassing domain of global Poverty: The recent Nigerian Bureau of Statistics report of 133million Nigerian representing 63% of the population that are multidimensionally poor. This is outrageous and unacceptable in a country with enormous human and material resources. Here, has become a deadly jungle of terror and terrorism, where bandits, kidnappers, unknown gunmen hold sway, unleashing mayhem and destruction on individuals and communities, school children captured at will from their schools by marauders and held in captivity, with the government whose duty it is to protect them shamelessly feeble.
Parents helpless, forced to pay huge ransom for their release.
Here, is where there has been a sustained assault on our territorial integrity by wretched fellows in the bush, making a mockery of our military capability, and, a population in dismay at why the might of our military seem unable to crush them.
How did we get Here, where, looting the oil revenue graduated to Elite Oil Theft. Where the once world’s 6th largest oil producer is no more a reliable oil producing partner. Inconceivable that oil production dipped to below one million barrels per day from a height of 2.4 million barrels a day some years back, now hovering just above one million barrels per day. After destroying the main stay of our economy, and refusing to diversify, we have now become a borrowing and beggarly nation with the World Bank April 2023 Macro Poverty Report stating that Nigeria spent 96.3 percent of revenue on debt servicing in 2022, up from 83.2% in 2021 with virtually no resources to finance our own development. This is untenable and suicidal to our Nation’s fiscal health. Run -away inflation is eroding the purchasing power of households, pushing more Nigerians into poverty. Manufacturers are bemoaning the policies of government, near total absence of power supply. high exchange rate of the naira, and inflation among others bedeviling the manufacturing sector.
Our democracy is flawed. Not the system itself but our practice of democracy that is intently and inherently reckless. The Cambridge Dictionary gives an apt definition of reckless; doing something dangerous and not worrying about its risks and possible results. This is what 24 years of democratic rule has brought us. Democracy has become a contraption in the hands of the political elite using elections which largely are void of credibility, for access to State resources, eroding the middle class, widening the social divide and creating a wide gulf between them and the people, grossly out of touch and oblivious to the grinding hardship the people they are meant to serve are going through. Here, where under our democracy Nigeria has produced unemployment at 40.6percent according to the International Consulting group KPMG, up from single digits at the onset of democratic rule, with youth unemployment at 50.40 percent.(NBS)that’s about 80million unemployment Nigerian youths. What more can be a ticking time – bomb?According to UNESCO data, we have 20 million out-of-school children, the highest in the world, public tertiary institutions have been closed for months on end, chronic infrastructural deficit, low human development index and conditions not favouring productivity have all impacted negatively to nation building.
This is where 24 years of our democracy has brought us.
Experts at creating divisions for their personal interests, our unity is experiencing deep fissures . We have never been this divided along ethno- religious lines.
How did we really get Here? We didn’t get Here all of sudden. The administration of Mohammadu Buhari alone did not bring us Here. What we all now see as a mess did not start with APC regime, though many would, and rightly so, remark that the ineptitude of Buhari’s APC regime worsened our woes and plunged us into backwardness and a debt profile unimaginable hitherto.
Long before 1999, there was a known general affinity with sharp practices, but not taken seriously by refusing to consider, that the consequences of such affinity to misconduct in the public sphere can destroy us as a people. So after the return to democratic rule people who had very little or nothing in terms of material wealth became overnight moneybags through their access to public funds either through election, appointments, or as cronies and associates used as conduits just for the purpose of syphoning public funds. Nigerians watched in utter hopelessness as their share of our commonwealth was been shared among these political elites, at the same time paying themselves so much for the too little or almost nothing they are doing in the name of governance. What was a general predisposition to sharp practices became elite failure across board, laying the foundation for what is visible today as structural corruption in the public sector. So we have been witnesses to dysfunctional State institutions due to culture of corruption that has pervaded public governance. Such preponderance has taken a toll on the nation.
What brought us Here is political Elite failure to do the right thing for purposeful leadership; people in authority misusing, abusing, misappropriating public funds with impunity and entrenching nepotism and cronyism which was elevated under Buhari’s regime. They have connived and colluded, taking turns to rob Nigeria of her precious best. Their mantra being “everyman for himself”.
This is how our journey of 24 years of irresponsible democratic rule has brought us Here. The captains of this voyage at the various tier of government all across the land have mismanaged our Ship and have left us on our own. Unfortunately for Nigeria, these public sector governance actors are not been seen or treated as the culprits for the ruin that has virtually truncating our destiny as a nation. They are still around, starring in commanding roles on the stage called Nigeria.
Now that another Captain is taking over the Ship, what is our fate in this journey? Will the new Captain tow the path of “business as usual”or are we going to have a recalibration for a better direction and better Nigeria? Will the entrenched culture of corruption in Nigeria’s Public Governance Space give way to decent democratic culture? We wont hazard a guess, we can only hope that this new Journey offers all of us another opportunity to save us from this ill-fated journey called democracy in the form it has been practiced in the last twenty four years.
We at Sahel Standard congratulate our new President and Vice president and all Governors and deputy governors. We wish them and their Team, the fortitude to put the people of Nigeria First.
