February 2015 Election in Nigeria - Significance to the Existence of the Nation as a Super Power in Africa
By Akinbode Adedeji
Nigerians will go to the polls next month
(February 14, 2015), and whoever emerges between the incumbent president
Goodluck Jonathan and a former military dictator, Gen. Mohammad Buhari has been predicted would
determine the continuous existence of the nation called Nigeria. Opinion on
what this two main candidates can deliver defers. But a common call is that
Nigeria needs effective leadership that can transform its potentials into
substantial development that will position the country as a regional power it supposed
to be. It is generally agreed that the present state of insecurity, youth
unemployment, infrastructural decay, anti-corruption position are the main
issues to be addressed by the candidates in the coming election. There is fear
in certain quarters that the aftermath of the election could spell doom
irrespective of who wins between the two main candidates. Northerners
might not take it easy if Buhari loses nor while the south-south people be
agreeable to losing the presidency without allowing their kinsman to use 8
years like previous presidents from other regions. The hope is that the peace
pact negotiated by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and former Commonwealth
Secretary-General, Emeka Anyaoku would be adhered to. This coming election has
been said to be a defining moment for Nigeria, a nation with so much promise at
independence, which unfortunately has not lived up to it.
Nigeria from Independence has played many
leadership roles in Africa. From championing the cause of sister African
countries from the jaw of colonialism, to helping to eradicate apartheid in
South Africa, leading the effort to restore peace in West Africa sub-region
with the formation and support of ECOMOG, leading several initiatives within
Organization of African Unity (OAU) to now African Union (AU). Nigeria is the
largest economy in Africa, and one in every five sub-Saharan African
("black") man is a Nigerian. The nation is blessed vast resources, the
most important being human resources apart from petroleum.
Nigeria as a nation has shown so much
promise from independence but has been plagued by several crises. Some of which
include corruption, division along the ethnic and religious lines, a civil war
fought for about 3 years, military rule, bad leadership and the current
terrorist attack by the dreaded group called Boko Haram that has taken large
territories in the North Eastern part of the country. The present state of
infrastructural development is not in any way comparable to the amount of
resources the nation has had access to since independence. Successive
government has been plagued with corruption. Public officers and political
leaders steal the nation’s resources with impunity. Nigeria has not justified
the blessing of petroleum being the largest producer of same in Africa and the
8th largest producer in the world. Today, Nigeria imports petroleum
products, which is a shame because the nation produces the most petroleum in
Africa and boast of 4 refineries, none of which is in a good functional state
to sustain local consumption. The country has been importing petroleum products
in the last decade in large quantity, and in spite of huge amount invested to
revitalize the refineries, it has failed because the cabal profiting from petroleum
products importation have truncated all effort to ensure local refining. A
multibillion dollar fraud uncovered in this sector recently has not been fully prosecuted
and no one is yet to go to jail for defrauding the nation of close to one third
of its budgetary amount in one year. This has further encouraged the culture of
corruption with impunity. Despite huge resources from petroleum, Nigeria
remains indebted to various foreign lending bodies.
Since the advent of petroleum, agriculture
which use to be the main stay of Nigeria's economy has been neglected. Nigeria
use to be largest exporter of high quality cocoa to the West, the nation has
dropped behind to third position. The groundnut pyramids have disappeared in
the north, cotton sacks are no longer seen and the palm oil which use to be the
pride of farmers in eastern Nigeria are no longer produced in sufficient
quantity for export. Malaysia that came to learn how to grow palm tree from Nigeria
about 40 years ago has overtaken Nigeria in palm produce production, and
Nigeria today import palm products from Malaysia.
The educational sector too has suffered a
lot since independence. Most of Nigerian universities (mostly government owned)
are burdened with obsolete equipment and poor/ no student housing, and
recreational facilities are non-existent in most government run colleges.
Laboratories are filled with archaic equipment and teaching facilities have not
been upgraded in some for more than 35 years. Buildings are not properly
maintained, and where student housing is available, it is either students are
battling with over-crowding or poor facilities like toilets, water and power
supply among many other problems.
Youth unemployment is horribly high. The
young ones finish without the hope of gainful employment. Lots of Nigerian
youths have been drawn into fraud because of lack of job opportunities. Well
trained Nigerian professionals leave in droves every years. The best of Nigeria
brains are outside. While the country trains, other benefit. This is not
sustainable, and the nation cannot progress this way.
Power supply has never been this worse in
spite of billions of dollars spent by successive governments to revive the
sector. Many companies have shifted their base to neighbouring African
countries where they will spend less on power supply. This has led to loss
of tens of thousands of jobs and revenue for government.
Another major problem is terrorism. The dreaded Islamic
fundamentalist group called Boko Haram (meaning western education is a taboo)
has been killing, maiming, kidnaping and raping women in the name of religion
in the past 4 years. Their onslaught stemmed from the killing of their founding
leader, Yusuf by the police while in detention. The group as since grown from a
small group of Islamic fundamentalist to a full blown terrorist organization
with international recognition. Unfortunately, the present Nigerian government
has not been able to curtail the activities of the dangerous group because of
corruption. Fund released for the prosecution of the war have been alleged to
have grown wings, while poor foot soldiers are sent to their death with archaic
weaponry against the modern fire power of Boko Haram. More than 22,000
Nigerians both Muslims and Christians have been killed since this terror campaign
began. The most unfortunate one was the abduction of over 200 school girls
while sitting for their final exam in a small town called Chibok in Borno State
Nigeria. Till today, most of these girls have not been rescued, leaving
families devastated. These terrorist attacks have exposed the weakness and
corruption in Nigerian arm forces, and it seem the present government has no
solution to the problem other than to use the avenue to continue to siphon money
and use a bad situation to score political points by finger pointing.
The present government like its preceding
ones, has not done much to alleviate the suffering of ordinary Nigerians. In
fact, it is dim the worst government in terms of development indices when you
compare the amount of resources the government has had access to, since
inception six years ago, to the level of development seen so far. The level of
insecurity is escalating and agitation for change has never been stronger.
The forthcoming election is very crucial. It might define where
Nigeria goes from here as a nation. The country has made more enemies for
itself than ever before, losing confidence of US government and not been able
to maintain good relationship with the other polarizing countries such as south of Africa.
The current low prices of petroleum is an indirect effort by US government to
punish rogue governments like Nigeria, using its major ally in the oil business,
Saudi-Arabia to flood the market with petroleum, so as to drop petroleum price.
Since September 2014, petroleum price has fallen from about $108 to below $50. US
has completely stopped buying Nigerian oil. Few years ago, US was Nigeria’s
biggest customer. Nigerian economy is in a very bad state, the naira is so
badly devalued to compensate for loss of revenue from petroleum sale, and the
spate of violence in North Eastern part of Nigeria has gone up since the beginning
of 2015. Electorates are aware of these problems, and opposing parties and
candidates are peddling allegations of incompetence and bad record. Nigerians
need to get it right at the polls this time, else the nation is in big trouble.
The fate of the electorate is in organization of free and fair election by the
independent electoral commission, INEC. Those who prefer Buhari above the
incumbent, Jonathan should beware that if Buhari wins he would not be able to
fix the problems of Nigeria that has been brewing in the last 54 plus years in
one day. His success at the poll would not translate automatically to sudden
improvement in the lot of Nigerians overnight. Either Buhari or Jonathan needs
patriotic Nigerians to serve, and truly serve in their government for the
nation to move forward. The importance of having a competent, capable, strong,
honest, sincere and resourceful leader cannot be over emphasized in creating
the Nigeria of everybody’s dream. However, the president and his cabinet do not
have magic wand to solve all the problems overnight irrespective of who wins. If
all Nigerians share the vision of a better country and become fully engaged by joining
hands, not sitting down when it is time to vote and not keeping quiet when their
leaders misbehave and not joining them in looting their beloved country, it
will become a reality and the vision of a true, strong and united Nigeria will
be realized. It is a long stretch, it is a marathon and not a 100 meter dash.
Will Nigeria truly take its place in Africa or continue to be the sleeping
giant? February 14, 2015 could be the day for a turning around. Everyone needs
to participate, go out and vote for candidates of your choice. Long live Nigeria!
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