NIGERIA AT 62: BEYOND THE ANNIVERSARY BLUES
Ayo Olukotun
Tomorrow, October 1, 2022, is Nigeria's 62nd anniversary commemorating the lowering of the Union Jack, the symbol of colonialism on October 1, 1960. Interestingly, it coincides this year with the commencement of political campaigns which was flagged off by the political parties and contestants on Wednesday, 28th of September. Beyond that, it would seem that many Nigerians for obvious reasons don't see much to celebrate. For example, my colleague at Olabisi Onabanjo University and The PUNCH columnist, Professor Sheriffdeen Tella, titled his reflections last Monday with a joyless "Nothing to Celebrate". Indices of that perspective are all around us. There is, for instance, the fact that the country is going heavily a-borrowing in order to fund the 2023 budget, inflationary upswing, even though a worldwide occurrence, is over 20 percent in our country, raising question marks about the prospects of survival for 80-90% of Nigerians. That is not all. Interest rate has just been increased by the Central Bank of Nigeria while foodstuffs, in particular, are increasingly priced out of the reach of the poor.
On the security front, the military and the police swung to action recently after the Federal Capital Territory came under siege, with terrorists directly threatening the life of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) and some members of the Presidential Brigade of Guards were killed in an ambush. It remains to be seen whether the new offensive will be far-reaching enough to allow the impending elections to hold in an atmosphere of sanctity. Only a few days ago, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, raised concerns about the threat posed to the elections by social media, raging insecurity and the conduct and character of the politicians suggesting that insecurity constitutes a particular peril to orderly and peaceful voting.
It is well known that for close to seven months now public universities have been shut down as a result of the elongated strike which began as a warning strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities. Every attempt so far to resolve the impasse has ended in fiasco with the lecturers accusing the government of playing the ostrich and continuously dribbling them. This means that students and their parents have been pushed to the very limits by what would seem to be official decoys in which government pretends to be finding solutions while not offering anything material or substantive. Bear in mind that our universities compete with universities around the globe which have not been shut down for two days in the last two centuries. How then is Nigeria expected to compete or to prioritize innovation which is at the heart of technological and scientific development?
Yet another dimension of the nation's travails is the fact that a surging number of our young men and women are saying bye to Nigeria through overseas travel to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Their argument is captured in the popular refrain that they have only one life to live and they cannot afford to squander it in the uncertainty and official tardiness characteristic of governance in Nigeria. To evoke Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka's expression, the youth are saying that while they can still help matters they are not prepared to be part of what the writer called "the wasted generation". Official response to this phenomenon is either to sidestep it or to argue that some Nigerians hitherto living abroad are also returning home, though they are silent about the numbers of the returnees.
Mark you, this was a country that began with great hopes of being a bright spot on the so-called dark continent, uniting the Black race and constituting a role model for the liberation of black peoples across the globe. To be sure, governance and focused leadership have never been our high points with one mediocre regime succeeding another, promising much delivering little. But matters would appear to have degenerated rapidly in the last decade, especially with the onset of mass killings by armed terrorists which have migrated from across the Sahel in the West African region as well as from the Northeastern part of Nigeria. History will tell why for a sizeable chunk of time we appeared to allow these people settle down among us, spreading mayhem and death from one state to another and losing precious time as the country appeared to watch them arm themselves, growing into the life-threatening monster that they became.
For many years, successive governments occupied what Professor Julius Ihonvbere once called "the irrelevant state"; but that state allowed space for citizens to go about their lawful business. Given the genre of insecurity that still prevails, farmers have been scared off their farms, causing a dip in food production; businessmen and others find it difficult to commute for fear of being captured by bandits earning mouthwatering sums from their despicable occupation, meaning that the challenges have been raised to an existential level. It is not time yet to assess the performance of the departing government which has a few months to go. Preliminarily however, it cannot be said that it is barren of achievements but it cannot be argued either that it decisively intervened in the problems and issues that touch Nigerians most.
One of these problems concerns the devolution of power and the decentralization of security institutions in the shape of state police. The manifesto which the government came up with included state police, but in its wisdom it did not implement that policy, despite a constitutional review exercise which fought shy of that important agenda. Of course, it is not only Buhari, but previous governments that failed to restructure the nation or to implement state police. No government, so far, has been that imaginative or far-sighted. Sadly, however, the chickens have come home to roost as state governors of northern extraction met recently to demand state police, citing the overwhelming nature of insecurity in that part of the country. In other words, what our leaders have denied with the right hand, common sense is placing on the front burner with the left hand. Is it not time that we think through these problems and advance cogent solutions that will stand the test of time?
The foregoing issues and repeated failures to address them is the reason why many are not celebrating or rejoicing. We must go beyond the prevailing blues, however, to at least dream, if not actively work, towards a better future than the marooned present. We can do this by citing the examples of Nigerians in the diaspora who continue to excel when they found themselves in a better organized polity and society. We can also draw inspiration from the golden moments of our history illustrated by the productive regionalism of the First Republic when federating units had the leeway and relative autonomy to run welfare states, to orchestrate cocoa, groundnut and palm oil booms; to build world-class universities in their regions, to imaginatively attempt the fostering of industrial enterprises and to run developmental states years before that term gained popular currency.
So beyond the blues, we can conceive again of a reborn Nigeria which will recapture and bring into existence the dreams of greatness which the country once had.
In spite of all, we wish everyone a happy 62nd anniversary.
Professor Ayo Olukotun is a director at the Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona Institute for Governance Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.
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