The situation in Nigeria is unfolding into very ominous signs of a possible “melt down” of state institutions under President Muhammadu Buhari.
We are tempted to ask:
Can the centre hold as Things Fall Apart?
1) The health institution suffered a virus attack and haemorrhage, by the mass “exodus” of Nigerian doctors and medical personnel.
Armed with their certificates which Nigeria seems to have little regard for since 1999, such health personnel grab their rubber slippers as economic refugees and leave to anywhere but home.
Dr Chris Ngige as minister of Labour was reported as saying that Nigeria could do without them. Only an uncaring and self- centred political class in any administration, could say it would do without its qualified citizens who give meaning and social value to the system.
It is even more callous and a sign of gross incompetence when the institution charged to produce and protect the interest of health workers so that they can serve Nigeria, is denied reasonable incentives to keep such personnel within their country to do a good job.
Not long after the health institution was infected, the rot in the education institution came to the surface. Our universities were forced to stay on strike for as long as anyone could be bothered to count. Our politicians would easily tell you it was only for eight months!
No one seriously interrogated the multiplier effect and business impact of a university sub-sector that is “de-energized” even for one day only. The Federal Government just carried on as a great achiever.
2). Add those to a different reality. It seems the Nigerian Judiciary is back everyday in the public arena. The institution does not seem to be helping itself much, to make citizens see its rulings as helping to strengthen the rule of law and democracy.
There is more.
Even the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, whose business should be clearly a non-partisan function, is now being adversely politicised.
I hear your question: What institution would be next? How would that affect relationships as citizens, business groups and communities in society, when we are left to fend for ourselves anyhow we can?
What would local or international investors make of the business environment in a nation that turns ordinary change of currency into a guerrilla warfare against politicians and at the same time, starts a Fire Brigade crisis for banks and any citizen who holds the Naira?
To be clear, any right thinking Nigerian would support any positive initiative to protect the electoral process from vote buying.
But in typical fashion of incompetence that is one of the features of the Feudal System in Nigeria, the beautiful idea to recover Naira captured by politicians is turning into a hunter’s trap for more innocent Nigerians.
3) The situation would seem to suggest that the Feudal System that runs Nigeria, has grown to ignore every “red line” that protects public interest.
Its predictable muscle- flexing continues to create factions, especially in the All Progressives Congress, APC and the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP which are foremost “agent provocateurs” of the same system. In every election cycle, the competing factions in our political parties seem to show the attrition tendencies of the system.
Significantly, in the Feudal System in Nigeria the attrition tendency is usually “intra party” and not “inter party”. In other words, between election cycles in the past 23 years , Nigerian politicians tend to fight more within their parties than with members of other parties.
From 2003 we can see a possible trend that politicians who organize themselves into factions, tend to engage in a zero -sum struggle for political power.
For instance, in 2000-2006, we saw this tendency manifest in pitched battles between President Olusegun Obasanjo and his PDP majority in the National Assembly. It led to serial casualties in the headship of the Senate.
In 2011 it led President Goodluck Jonathan to read a riot act in that famous speech that we cannot forget.
Remember what he reportedly said to PDP governors…that as the Captain of the ship, “if I go down, all of us will go down together?” The message got home and they all chose not to go down together.
Also in 2011, the attrition tendency of the Feudal System in our political parties could be said to have led to the emergence of ACN (Action Congress of Nigeria) through an alliance that was strange because it was irreversible.
And in 2015 the Feudal System’s attrition capacity struck PDP and gave birth to n-PDP which became the maternity ward that gave birth to a midnight baby called APC. The matrons that gave birth to that baby, told Nigerians that the new baby would like Paul of the biblical New Testament, become a “born again” version of PDP.
Alas! The record of its eight years of holding political power as the Federal Government, has shown that APC left East-West Road in Niger Delta in a worse state than PDP did for 15 years.
APC left the pump price of fuel in a crisis state from N87 per litre where the PDP kept it under President Jonathan.
APC’s 2015 promise to build a refinery each year, has evaporated with Nigeria’s surprise harmattan wind in 2023.
APC degraded the Naira more than three times: from N200 to $1(US dollar) in 2014 to a new rate of N750 to $1 in 2023.
Indeed, it can be said that the party converted the Naira from an active factor in the foreign currency exchange market to a mere sweeping broom in any market at all.
No concern for Nigeria’s reputation!
But even worse is the fact that in 2023 the Naira to “buy and sell” has been taken away from ordinary citizens. Mark you, it is the dynamics of “buy and sell” transactions in local markets that sustain over 75 per cent of Nigerians who are excluded from the mainstream economy.
Their exclusion from the mainstream economy by the Feudal System, unintentionally increased communal solidarity, relationship values and identity issues in our local communities. Now it is attacking the level of transactions and survival strategies which give hope to our local communities and insulates them from ceaseless looting by politicians and their urban-driven abuse of political positions.
Today, APC factions are showing that the silence after its presidential primaries, was not really a sign of peace in the party. This current intra party fight is because the Feudal System invests all state revenue and opportunities on a few members of the political elite and their cronies.
It is so under each administration at state government and federal levels. Yet apart from the Obi-Datti ticket’s manifesto, no other campaign candidate or platform is talking about cutting back on the oppressive weight of state power and the inventive for looting of public wealth by a few.
Where we are is that the Feudal System is now crossing “red lines” that should guarantee some degree of public safety and survival.
By its internal logic, it has no regard for the fact that Nigerians are exposed to increased suffering due to wrong policies or mismanagement of policies by, first the PDP (from 1999-2014,) and then an APC Federal Government (from 2015-2023).
State governments are no less culpable.
Governors have time and resources to support political campaigns but have no time to set up machineries in local governments to save the poor and elderly from being crushed by this bulldozer, which our new Naira programme has become.
According to a report by Lagos Business School (LBS) on the state of the economy published this February, over 70 per cent of Nigerians are squeezed into an informal economy.
Curiously, the LBS report went dumb by not stating that it is happening because of the lack of incentives or lack of a credible national plan for “democratizing” inclusion in the mainstream economy.
It should be very clear to every Nigerian that the LBS report is very conservative or too economical with the truth. After all, out of 774 LGAs in Nigeria, only about 25 per cent can boast of functioning banking services!
And since 1999, no state or federal government administration has made it a crucial goal to encourage economic activities that will grow banks in the local government areas. So, since the Feudal System already enjoys sucking the blood of innocents, it cannot be concerned about the suffering of the masses that it will kill anyway!
Now you can understand why there is no genuine apology or manifest repentance by our politicians. Nigerian citizens are simply endangered.
4).Here are some points worthy of attention even as the ball rolls:
(a) By the CBN law, can President Buhari “DIRECT” ( emphasis according to the broadcast transcript) the CBN on what to do?
(b). If the same CBN dodged the responsibility of upholding the Supreme Court decision under cover of the law, why should it now obey the president’s directive?
(c) Who is addressing the anguish of impoverished citizens in LGAs where no banking services exist and thus denies them of any access to credit or currency swap?
(d) Pray, how many offending politicians have been searched and funds recovered since the Naira swap programme began?
(e) Is there any compensation mechanism for innocent victims of this good Naira Swap programme?
Thank you,
Amaopusenibo Bobo Sofiri Brown.
