If well-educated, competent, and patriotic political leaders take over the reins of energy in any respect tiers of presidency, Nigeria will return to her pristine state, and halcyon days. At the moment, which was within the first republic, simply earlier than the Nigeria-Biafra civil warfare erupted, Nigeria was on the trajectory of financial prosperity and technological development. Didn’t we now have the groundnut pyramid within the northern area; the cocoa plantation within the western area; and palm oil produce within the jap area through the first republic?
At the moment, the standard of training obtainable in our faculties was excessive; and our premier college, which was at Ibadan, was a Mecca for international college students, who sought high quality training. And the exemplary and commendable political management, which was supplied to the individuals of western area within the first republic by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, has remained the unmatchable praxis for political management in our political annals, until now.
However sadly, through the years, the state of issues in Nigeria has modified from good to unhealthy. The simmering ethnic rivalry in addition to hatred, which had existed in Nigeria for a very long time, got here to the fore within the Nineteen Sixties and partly brought about the Nigeria – Biafra fratricidal civil warfare. The warfare pitted the Igbo individuals in opposition to the remainder of Nigeria.
The warfare brought about the ruination of our economic system, the destruction of our infrastructure, and the lack of 1,000,000 lives. And it deepened the ethnic hatred, which has existed among the many individuals(s) of Nigeria. So, now, thousands and thousands of Nigerians from many various ethnic backgrounds view each other with suspicion and deep resentment.
However can a rustic that’s hobbled by disunity notice her potentialities and obtain her manifest future? This can be a rhetorical query that wants no reply. All people- together with infants in diapers – know that disunity is a disincentive to nationwide growth. If the individuals of a rustic can’t attain consensus on a nationwide matter as a result of they’re disunited, nationwide growth will probably be put in abeyance in that nation.
Solely an informed, visionary, patriotic, and competent nationwide chief, who has a pan Nigerian imaginative and prescient, can unite all the various pursuits and other people(s) of Nigeria, and put our nation on the trail of irreversible financial prosperity and technological development. However accountable, accountable, humane, purposeful, and visionary political management has continued⁸ for electing our political leaders are flawed and susceptible to manipulation. There’s a systemic rot in our political tradition. Vote-buying, voters’ suppression, and the politicians’ misuse and abuse of state powers to realize political energy have been woven into our political tradition.
So because the inception of the fourth republic in 1999, electoral litigation has turn into a characteristic of our democracy. The judiciary has been deciding winners of presidential, governorship, state assemblies, and nationwide meeting elections. That our judiciary is corrupt; and that it’s an appendage of the manager arm of presidency is an undeniable fact. So the elements of our despicable variant of political tradition and corrupt judiciary have all the time thrown up third eleven politicians as our political leaders. And now, Nigeria and Nigerians are the more serious for it.
The unhealthy results of many years of inept, profligate, corrupt, and rudderless political management are evident to us. For instance, Nigeria has perennial power disaster, which stifles the expansion of our indigenous industries. Is there not infrastructural rot in addition to deficit in Nigeria, what with most of our roads being in deplorable situation? And most public faculties within the nation are worse than pigsties. Not solely are their roofs blown off, but additionally their partitions are tumbledown.
In order our instructional system is in a shambles, our faculties can’t equip the scholars with the information and expertise with which they’ll navigate their methods on the planet. The infestation of our universities with the issues of cultism, sex-for-grade, and shopping for of grades have made our ivory towers to not be the bastions of scholarship, anymore.
Consequently, thousands and thousands of Nigerian college graduates lack numeracy and literacy expertise, which may allow them to search out jobs. They pound the pavement every day looking for the elusive white and blue collar jobs. The unhappy reality is that the successive political governments, which we now have had in Nigeria, have didn’t revivify and diversify our economic system to create job alternatives for thousands and thousands of job seekers in Nigeria. Nigeria, as a rustic, alternates between financial recession and financial restoration, which has diminished thousands and thousands of Nigerians to sub-humans.
Consequently, these unemployed, disgruntled, disillusioned, and hopeless Nigerians represent the pool from which the Boko Haram insurgents and terrorists recruit their foot troopers. They might invade government-owned faculties and abduct tons of of faculty kids for ransom. For the reason that kidnapping of the Chibok College kids occurred in 2014, the kidnapping of faculty kids for ransom has turn into a recurring decimal in Nigeria, and a part of our nationwide life.
Nevertheless, many Nigerians are nonetheless hopeful that Nigeria is just not previous redemption. We are able to nonetheless have a brand new Nigeria that’s economically affluent, technologically developed, and actually united if we rethink our evil methods and begin to do the fitting issues.
First, our present structure ought to be discarded, and a brand new one written to replicate our new political realities, clear up the issue of our spiritual and ethnic diversities, and make Nigeria a very federal nation -state.
Chiedu Uche Okoye,
Uruowulu-Obosi
Anambra State
