Looking Ahead Into 2021

The Christmas and New Year holidays are here again and Nigerians must go through the motion one way or the other. These are the realities of a pedantic world that runs in a certain way, regardless of the state of everyone, as life happens to all.

If Nigerians will find it in their hearts to forgive Year 2020 for inflicting on them the first wave of coronavirus, and the second, the lockdown, looting of palliatives in government warehouses, riots that followed peaceful #EndSARS “sòrò sókè” protests, widespread insecurity, and a second recession in five years, they will enter 2021 with brave hearts and optimism.

This is the appropriate attitude that Nigerians, and indeed the rest of the world, must adopt to “endure” the Christmas celebration that is approaching in a few days and the New Year that will soon follow it.

The 2020 Budget pretty much collapsed because its major revenue component, income from sale of crude oil, tanked. The quantity sold and the price it was sold compromised the integrity of the budget.

Everyone can only hope that the 2021 Budget that is going to be mostly remedial, should ease Nigerians out of the funk that the failed 2020 Budget and the unfortunate events of 2020 wrought on Nigerians. The price of crude oil is mercifully inching up these days, though it dropped by three per cent two days ago.

The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria argue that the economy cannot endure another economic lockdown, as government operatives have begun to hint at it with their report of an imminent second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

Prof Oyèwolé Tomori, Nigeria’s leading virologist, should be leading the science community into discussions with the Presidential Council of Economic Advisers, business leaders, military top brass and leading state actors, to evolve a workable plan to keep Nigerians safe while guaranteeing their economic wellbeing.

But the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), has a major role to play in the incoming year. And it shouldn’t be that of filing his nails and wondering what he would have done to move the nation forward.

He needs to restore the confidence of the people in the state, by returning peace and security to the nation. He needs to initiate economic policies that will actualise his stated promise to take 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.

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Apart from Section 14 of Nigeria’s Constitution that requires government to secure the territorial integrity of Nigeria and promote the economic well-being of Nigerians, the three-point manifesto of the two presidential campaigns of Buhari included security of the nation, economic progress and war against corruption.

If the President would only concentrate on achieving those three, his place in history would be assured. He could be great, like the greatest Englishman that ever lived, avuncular Winston Churchill, and Lee Kwan Yew, the man credited to have singlehandedly lifted Singapore from the Third World to the league of countries of the First World.

And, coming home, he would be among the legendary transformational Nigerian leaders, like Obafemi Awolowo, whose singular policy of free education turned the fortunes of Western Nigeria around, and Ahmadu Bello, whose northernisation policy put Northern Nigeria into reckoning in Nigerian politics.

Both significantly affected the people they led. And of Awolowo, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Head of State of the defunct Republic of Biafra, avers, “He will remain immortal in the area of his influence.”

But going by the lacklustre performance of the regime of Buhari on practically all scores, the people of Nigeria must seize the initiative, not in the manner of seizing the state, but by compelling the fumbling political elite, who seem to be out of their depth, to address the urgent concerns of security and the economy, by running the country aright.

By the way, those senators suggesting that the National Assembly should halt work on the 2021 Budget Bill to compel the President to listen to their suggestions on how to secure the nation merely confirm that they have no spunk.

If the senators are not merely grandstanding, they should make good their threat, albeit coming to invoke Section 143 of the Constitution that empowers them to remove the President from office.

Indeed, the more evidently patronising of their rank, keep saying they are in support of the President, in the fashion of blind cheerleaders, who are confused as to what the team they are rooting for ought to do to win the game. Anyway, both the Senate and the House of Representatives have passed the N13.5tn 2021 budget.

The current class of state actors in the three branches –that is, the legislative, executive and judiciary– of the three tiers of government –the federal, state and local— do not impress anyone with their narcissistic, self-serving, styles of governance.

Oby Ezekwesili, a former Minister of Education, and co-convener of #BringBackOurGirls, observes that the political class of Nigeria is both selfish and insensitive to the plight of their less fortunate compatriots.

Significant estates of the Nigerian realm –the traditional rulers, the religious leaders, the professional, civil servants, the military, the workers, the media and civil society groups– must briskly step up to the political and economic spaces, to compel the realisation of their legitimate ambitions.

All must realise that their high office of citizens of Nigeria confers on them the authority to chart the course of their lives, and choose the leaders that will actualise their dreams. Three urgent tasks ahead of 2021 are to exit the coronavirus pandemic, turn the recession around and secure Nigerian lives and property.

The Nigerian people must be strategic and intentional in choosing those who will lead them into 2023 and beyond. As motivational experts would say, the future of Nigeria begins now. To rework the slogan used to mobilise Nigerians during the tragic Civil War, “To keep Nigeria safe and wealthy is a task that must be done.”

And yes, all shades of opinion in Nigeria must join in the conversation for restructuring of the political and economic structure of the nation. Those who play the ostrich, pretending that they do not know the meaning of restructuring, need to face the reality of the time. Things cannot remain the same.

The way to Nigeria’s political and economic emancipation is through stronger more autonomous and economically viable states, fiscal federalism, state police, and generally bringing governance closer to the people. As Tip O’Neil, the late Speaker of America’s House of Representatives, said, “All politics is local.”

As Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde insists, “What we need at this stage is to secure our people and restructure Nigeria. It does not matter who is the President… In a restructured Nigeria, every corner of the country will feel the impact of the government. That’s what we need.”

Now, if you thought that the vacant leadership and failure of governance is peculiar to President Buhari, you need to cast your mind back, to audit the performances of Nigeria’s Presidents, Heads of State and Prime Minister.

They woefully failed to steer the nation forward. The 100 million Nigerians currently below the poverty line are creatures of President Buhari’s regime as those before him. He too has only come to pass through the motion without direction.

Source: Punch