The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, aptly captured the prevailing public mood in a security alert he issued on Friday, September 26, 2021 in Abuja, preparatory to the celebration of the country’s 61st independence anniversary.
The Minister, in a brief three-paragraph statement, had alerted the general public to the heightened insecurity around the country and urged residents of the Federal Capital Territory and its environs not to panic and to go about their legitimate business.
“Residents are enjoined to report suspicious persons and movements to the security agencies through the following numbers: 09-6305396, 08031230631, 08032003557 and 122,” Mohammed had said.
As realistic as it was, especially coming from the government’s chief spokesperson, who had on different occasions told his countrymen and women that terrorists operating within the country had been technically defeated or neutralised and rendered incapable of inflicting maximum damage, Mohammed’s statement was an open admission of the magnitude of Nigeria’s biggest challenge at the moment.
The statement foreshadows the Federal Government’s preoccupation with insecurity – a sorry business for the giant of Africa, indeed.
The implication of the worsening insecurity in the country on food security, business, travel, livelihood, unemployment and mutual ethnic distrust, is already in the public domain and calls for more dialogue.
Suffice it to add that making a point of insecurity on the occasion of Nigeria’s independence anniversary shows that government needs to do more to uphold one of its primary constitutional duties, which is to secure the country from marauding terrorists, kidnappers and insurgents and to create a safe haven for Nigerians to work, live and sleep without any form of worry.
We got to this point because the Nigerian economy has been import- dependent for many years, a situation that resulted in low demand for the naira and a subsequent fall in its value.
This has led to a continuous rise in the prices of goods and services, to the detriment of many Nigerians who have had to cope with a falling standard of living, especially those with fixed incomes.
The impact on manufacturers and small scale businesses that experienced a fall in aggregate demand, leading to unemployment, can best be imagined. The two recessions that the country has witnessed in succession tell the whole story. What this picture simply paints is that the desired policy reforms are yet to pull Nigeria out of the woods.
Even so, we think that in the midst of uncertainty, there is still cause for celebration. For one, our dogged commitment to democratisation for 22 unbroken years, particularly with the sustenance of the broken jinx of a civilian to civilian handover of power, is commendable despite the crises bedeviling the country on many fronts.
Moreover, the renewed commitment of the military high command to take the battle to terrorists is yielding results with the reported surrender of many of the outlaws, elimination of their hideouts, detection and arrests of their informants.
As a way forward, we think the ongoing constitutional amendment and electoral reform should provide a window of opportunity for our lawmakers and policy formulators to think of the country and their compatriots first before their egoistic, selfish desires, as it is currently playing out at the National Assembly where matters of election and electoral reforms with all its attendant consequences for inclusion and good governance are being treated with levity.
For example, crisis-ridden Kaduna State has twice conducted local government election through e-voting and transmission of results, yet Nigeria’s senior lawmakers are fishing for excuses to frustrate the Independent National Electoral Commission from performing its constitutional duty in spite of the commission’s readiness to replicate the Kaduna experience nationwide.
While congratulating Nigerians for their resilience and patriotism in the face of continuous failure of the ruling elite to devise and support a national agenda on good governance that would deliver sustained growth and development, we wish to remind our leaders that a multi-ethnic and diverse country like ours need sustained political engineering with a committed, disciplined and visionary leadership to override divisive forces.
The thinking that a 61 year-old country is still young, in comparison with older democracies that took 200 years to mature, should be discarded. This reasoning is insincere because countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea, which gained independence about the same period as Nigeria, have since joined the league of developed nations.
If anything, the clamour for separation and secession in many parts of the country should indicate to those still thinking in that manner that it’s time for the country’s managers to involve the people in governance and pursue policy reforms that build institutions and make the rule of law, as well as due process, the cornerstone of every aim and objective of government. Policies, infrastructure and governments are made for the people’s pleasure, not for their fancy.
On that note, we wish all dogged and resourceful Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora a happy 61st independence anniversary celebration.
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