EDITORIAL: Nigeria at 60 (II)

Ravaged by internecine conflicts and insurgencies alongside outright clamours for secession by various ethno-political groupings still, the question is: Has Nigeria crossed the Rubicon?

While some may answer that question positively, many believe in Nigeria’s proven resilience and hold that we can overcome the present challenges if our leaders choose this course.

The same panacea of “true federalism” and respect for individual rights is all that is needed to get us out of the woods.

But this time, textual statements of the Constitution will not do. There must be demonstrated commitment to federalism.

A starting point will be a return to the spirit and language of the safeguards of the Constitution as they relate to human rights of citizens as well as the deferral character principle which aims at assuring evenness in the representation of the different peoples of Nigeria in government.

To this end, the president must show leadership by revisiting lopsided appointments made since his coming into office.

There is no gainsaying that trust cannot be built among diverse people when it appears that certain ethnicities and religion are favoured over others.

Distrust is further fuelled when this trend in official action coincides with the emergence of terrorists and other criminals whose defined agenda is the pursuit of the domination of ethnicities.

It is not sufficient for government to enter denials or simply ignore the expressed concerns.

Government, especially at the federal level, can only allay fears by acting positively.

The drumbeats of war do not disappear by ignoring them. Nigeria must revisit its federal arrangement to manage and harness its diversity better.

With the military incursion into government, their command and control structure facilitated the gradual centralizing of government with Nigeria existing as a federal state more in name than in substance.

Even with return to civilian democracy, the unitarist culture of government is entrenched.

It is the common reality of most Nigerians, which many of those who find their way into government either as civil servants or politicians, treat as their bounden duty to preserve.

Recent trends in lawmaking reveal that the National Assembly is still disposed to overcentralisation rather than decentralisation of powers which the people are clamouring for. Certainly, this is not the way to go.

Nigeria is not so broken down that it cannot be fixed neither do Nigerians want to part ways simply because they do not like themselves.

Nigerians can live well with themselves if the diversities they represent are valued and well managed.

The different ethnic and religious groups only come to perceive “the other” as the enemy because of the dire struggle for survival.

When more than 70 per cent of the population live below poverty line with daily survival largely dependent on struggles for crumbs that fall from the table of the political and economic elites, the failure of governments to deliver good governance is responsible for the different clamours for restructuring or a break-up.

Appraising ourselves on this occasion of 60 years of independence offers both the government and “We, the People” another opportunity for reflection on how to genuinely start to re-fix the problem of bad governance.

This is not the time for government to simply point at laudable strategy documents or programme interventions nor is this the time to decry the people’s impatience.

The pain of the day-to-day grind of living for most Nigerians is intense making them vulnerable to propaganda.

An increasing number of people are falling through the cracks. In turn, this is not the time to heap all the blame on government.

In the past 60 years, we as Nigerians have provided our own leaders from amongst us. Surely, we need to reflect and ask ourselves, why do we produce the type of leaders we have had over the last 60 years?

In this regard, it is also time to hold the custodians of our cultural and religious mores to account. Their teachings shape our ethos.

At a time of many questions about our ethos, they need to ask themselves questions about their role thus far. But the story of Nigeria at 60 is not all woes as the country has come a long way since then.

The indices of development reflect significant improvements. Life expectancy which was 36.98 in 1960 now stands at 54.81.

The total road network which was about 65,704 kilometres out of which the trunk ‘A’ roads were about 8,000 kilometres in 1960 now stand at 195,000 km of road network although only about 60,000 km are paved.

From only one university and a couple of polytechnics at independence, Nigeria now has around 150 private and public universities.

Admittedly, it is not yet uhuru as the country remains significantly far off the mark on all development indices. On the international scene, Nigeria started from its early years to play a major role in global affairs.

It was a major player in the establishment of the regional Organisation of African Unity (OAU), offering leadership to bring down apartheid in Southern Africa.

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It also contributed to dousing the tensions of the Cold War era by its role in the non-aligned movement.

Its role in leading the ECOMOG response to the wars that ravaged West Africa when the world was yet quibbling will never be forgotten.

However, if Nigeria is to continue to hold its pride of place among the comity of nations, it must fix itself at home urgently.

True, there is no quick fix to Nigeria’s problem but if we are committed, we can “Keep Nigeria one” still and this is a task that must be done.