May 29: Nigerians set agenda for Buhari, NASS members

Today marks another milestone in the political history of Nigeria as May 29 has, since the return to democratic rule in 1999, come to be celebrated as Democracy Day, marking a beginning of another tenure for political office holders at the federal and states levels.

It is a day office holders do an assessment of their performances in previous years as well as projecting into the future.

The President Muhammadu Buhari – led All Progressives Congress (APC) administration, no doubt, would be heading into the second year of its second tenure at the federal level and expectedly, make policy statements to project programmes, and activities aimed at improving upon achievements made so far.

The Buhari administration has, at every given occasion, laid bare its scorecard, reeling out successes recorded in governance since 2015. 

While some sections of the public applaud the government, others opined that the government should be able to do better in fulfilling its electioneering promises.

In the journey of another 365 days in office, Nigerians are full of expectations, and would not hesitate in setting priorities for President Buhari, the 36 states governors as well as legislators at all levels of government.

In their opinion, the three major priority areas of governance need to be critically considered. They are economy, security and infrastructure development, pointing out that it is obvious that the present administration has not done enough in these critical sectors and sub – sectors under them.

Nigerians, who spoke with our correspondent on Thursday, said they would want the government to be more pro- active in turning around the nation’s economy which, to say the least, is on the brink.

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All indices of economic growth are in bad shape, they stated. 

They would want the government at the centre to stem the rising rate of inflation coupled with soaring unemployment, and continued loss of jobs to the already saturated labour market.

Government, it is expected, should open up the economy by further strengthening small and medium scale enterprises to ease the burden on the formal sector of the economy.

Though much has been said about government’s plans to diversify the economy having realised that the potential revenue from the monolithic mainstay of the economy, which is oil, is no longer sustainable, the government in the next one year needs to be seen as walking the talk.

Aggressive investment drive is needed in the solid mineral sector, potentials in tourism need to be fully harnessed, and the entertainment industry should be given more support to grow, while raw talents and ingenuity in ICT should be turned into a new Silicon Valley.

The Central Bank of Nigeria’s huge investment in expansion of local production capacity of agricultural programmes need to be replicated by other financial institutions and corporate bodies.

All these, if rigorously pursued, can pull millions of able bodied Nigerians out of the unemployment market and stabilise the economy, increase revenue base and improve foreign earnings.

However, power is a major infrastructural factor that can aid the actualisation of the above economic reformation initiatives.

The Buhari administration is expected to sincerely implement reformation blueprint for the power sector, else, many industries, factories and business will continue leaving the country with the attendant job loss, while interested investors would be dissuaded to come.

Nigerians would desire that the government give priority attention to health and education which are essential factors for human capital development.

The global COVID -19 pandemic has really exposed the deficit in government’s investment in healthcare facilities. Much needs to be done.

No matter government’s efforts in other sectors, if it fails to address the fearful spate of increase in crime rate, insecurity and loss of lives, all its efforts would amount to nothing.

Nigerians have never experienced the level of insecurity that has pervaded almost every geopolitical zones in the last five years. It ranges from Boko Haram insurgency in the north-east, banditry in the north-west, kidnapping, and robbery in the south-west, south-east and south -south and herders/farmers clashes in the north-central.

Government needs to rejig the security architecture of the country and reshape the command structure of security agencies.

State governments are expected to think out of the box in their revenue generation drive, to avoid total dependence on allocation from the centre.

Legislators especially at the National Assembly, are expected to be the bastion of hope for the citizenry. They should turn out people – oriented laws, instead of being seen as a rubber stamp and appendage of the executive.