STOP THE EXCUSE, NIGERIANS ARE TIRED

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. This clearly enunciates the Nigerian challenge: hypocrisy has become a national symbol and an excuse for everything.

The nation as we speak is fighting to stay alive with high inflation and a potential risk of a stagflation, very low economic growth, low human development index and general insecurity. Despite all of this, it is sad some Nigerians still choose to play politics. I was shocked when a spokesperson of government recently defended the second system collapse in one year in Nigeria.

It was akin to a student defending failure by saying he did better than others. I think this need to be economical with the truth makes us look stupid in the end. I repeat Nigeria is blessed with enormous potential but we need to harness the resources we have and we must shun corruption.

As of today we don’t have a working refinery and when you calculate all the monies we have spent on subsidies you wonder how we think. We all envisaged that the global headwinds occasioned by Covid will bite harder in 2022 but we didn’t prepare for it. Every sector as we speak is in a maelstrom – from the university to the aviation sector.

Our great country has become a joke in the eyes of the world. This is not the time to give excuses. It is the time the leadership should accept failure and find remediation. The solutions are within reach, we must support small businesses to drive growth, we must remove subsidies, we must build refineries and we must truly introspect on our long term monetarism and see how different economic schools of thought can help us.

We can also bolster our military and regain our pride of place in Africa. We must drive innovation by supporting stem and Nigerians must vote in good leaders. It is essential.

Rufai Oseni, rufaioseni@gmail.com