Setting Agenda for Next President
Segun James writes on expectations of Nigerians from whoever emerges nation’s President in 2023
On May 29, 2023, when the newly inaugurated President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria settles down behind the presidential desk at the Aso Rock Villa in Abuja, he will be confronted with a daunting basket of problems that will be of no envy to anyone.
On top of the list, is trying to unify a country now polarized along ethnic and religious lines, and an economy that has gone into recession three times in the last seven years. It would be a formidable task for one man to undertake.
Whosoever that man will be, he would try to defuse the explosive political environment that has created unprecedented levels of animosity among the various ethnic nationalities and religious groupings.
Politics in Nigeria is undergoing one of the most disruptive transformations in the last two decades: technology is transforming the information highway. It now determines the way we communicate, associate, and the way we live our lives. This is exemplified by the way social media is being used to influence people.
We are now at a time where we apocalyptically view the new political year grimly and look back at the old exhaustingly, watching our nation fail. This is the situation of the polity in Nigeria today. This is the way the people see the country.
During the 4th Republic, elections in the country had been messy–filled with bombast, innuendo, partisanship, and mudslinging. Granted, democracy is not a practice for the faint-hearted – candidate and voters alike, but this year stands out as it is particularly divisive. Yet despite the turbulent environment, the nation cannot afford to lose sight of the crisis that awaits the next administration.
Angry insurgents rarely prosper in Nigeria’s politics. The country’s voting system is brutal on small political parties, making them forever irrelevant and not a viable alternative to the two big leaguers of All Progressive Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Despite these circumstances, both foreseen and unexpected, the nation has witnessed commendable progress in the electoral process, a situation that has rekindled the people’s belief that their vote counts. It therefore in 2023 needs strong, purposeful leadership. This fact shouldn’t be lost on the electorate as they support their candidates for the election. Regardless of which party controls the government or which candidate wins, it will be time for proper government work to commence in earnest.
After nearly eight years at the helm of Africa’s biggest democracy and economic powerhouse, President Muhammadu Buhari will be expected to hand over the rein of political powers to his successor. He would have successively completed constitutional two terms.
Yes, Nigeria has the largest economy in Africa, but it has been shrinking in recent years while supposed reform packages embarked upon by the government have all failed. To understand the stakes for next year’s election is to look critically at issues affecting the polity.
Politics
Nigeria’s political situation is, to say the least, difficult and exasperating. The problem? Bad policies and it is not about to go away anytime soon. With leaders occupying themselves with issues about ethnicity and religion, they do not seem to realize that now is the time to put the politics of the nation on the table. Over the past few years, the forces favouring openness in politics have been gaining ground. Greater public access to information aided by new communication technology is altering the polity.
Economy
For many years, Nigeria has been seen as a land of opportunity, economically. Its large population is a potential opportunity for growth. In a world economy, as troubled as today’s, it is surprising that Nigeria is not bankrupt like Sri Lanka. The rate of growth is negative. The high pace of growth that it enjoyed 10 years ago has disappeared. The national currency, the Naira has slumped. Whether Nigeria can return to a path of growth depends on its politicians, particularly the next president -and, in the end, the voters. The omens, frankly, are not good.
While Nigeria boasts of the biggest economy in Africa, the disparity between the rich and the poor has become the widest the nation has ever seen, and this is a time bomb that must not be allowed to explode as the nation moves toward the election. Today, Nigeria has the highest rate of poverty in the world. In the last few years, not only do Nigerians spend more time in bumper-to-bumper traffic, they commute longer and spend more on transportation. More Nigerians are homeless and housing is no longer affordable.
Economic diversification is a challenge for all developing countries, and more so for small economies like Nigeria which are very vulnerable to vagaries and exogenous shocks, whether economic, financial, or political. Whoever becomes the next President must be someone who has economic knowledge. Someone who can perform a miracle and prevent a national collapse.
Insurgency
Two critical obstacles stand in the way of the country addressing and combatting the threat of insurgency – Ethnicity and Religion. Of the bloodiest conflicts in Africa in the last 20 years, one, in particular, has been smoldering for at least 15 years, the Boko Haram conflict, and it is happening right here in Nigeria.
The scale of slaughter within a single country and the frequency with which the country is being bathed in the blood is hard for the world to comprehend, given that the country is not at war, civil, or with any other nation.
Over five decades after the end of the Nigerian Civil War, sectarian violence and drums of war are beginning to beat across the country. In the Southeast, the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) has taken to violence and murder as a weapon of coercion.
In the Southwest, a group known as the Yoruba Nation has been calling for the breakup of Nigeria; while in the creeks and rivers of the Niger Delta, there’s the silence of the graveyard as the people wait to cause economic sabotage on oil facility, the main sustainer of Nigeria’s economy.
That this insurgency has gone this far must be looked into by the next government as the Muhammadu Buhari government has been unable to contain it over the last seven years.
Law and Order
At most times, Nigeria’s police seem rotten to the core – riddled with corruption, crime, dirty tricks, political machinations, and even murder. In 2020, the people, especially the youth rose up against police brutality. It resulted in killings, disruptions and arson as never before seen in the country.
An untold number of residential burglaries go unreported because homeowners know the police won’t investigate such crimes or pursue the thieves. Elected officials at both the state and local government levels have gone soft on crime leaving the people to provide their security.
Roads and Infrastructures
62 years after independence, Nigeria is still struggling to make a deliberate investment in infrastructure and an enabling environment that rewards ability that could deliver substantial results.
The highways are deplorable because the flow of traffic is much more than the roads can handle and internal roads are deteriorating due to lack of maintenance.
But surprisingly, the country, especially Lagos state and the federal government have done a lot in rail development. However, this is not enough given the rising demographic situation in the country. Other infrastructure facilities such as pipe-borne water, hospitals and affordable housing are lagging behind.
Power
The electrical power framework is a mess. The country provides less power than this government met in 2015. Maintenance and modernization of the electrical grid-power stations, transformers, and transmission lines have virtually collapsed, with no hope in sight.
Ethnicity and Religion
The drums of inter-ethnic war are beating once again in the country and it is steaming towards an apocalyptic disruption. Today’s hardliners are ascendant on all sides. Bellicose rhetoric has returned and they are tightening their grips on the home front and lashing out at opponents.
Like many places, Nigeria remains deeply divided on the questions of ethnicity and religion. In recent times, matters relating to both issues have gained momentum.
This is caused by misunderstandings. The first is understanding the diversities that make up the over 250 ethnic nationalities. The second obstacle is a deeper and more difficult one. It is the threat that may adversely affect the conduct of the general election. The increasing abandonment of issues affecting the nation for religious intolerance has been baffling since the presidential candidate of the APC selected a fellow Muslim as his running mate. The fact that the political parties have ideological leanings has been sacrificed on the altar of religious bigotry.
Healthcare
There is a growing healthcare crisis in the country. Drug abuse and mental illness are on the rise. This is aside the rise in the death of many people resulting from all kinds of curable ailments including malaria, typhoid, cholera, High Blood Pressure and diabetes, among others. The central mystery in Nigeria’s healthcare crisis is a simple question: why are the country’s health facilities not working? Like many simple questions, it leads to complex answers. Especially when the President and other political leaders rather go abroad than patronize the medical facilities they provided for the people.
Crime
The years of terrorism have had its numbing effect on Nigeria. Most of the yearly over 200 attacks the country suffered in the last seven years have had a profound effect on the nation’s body polity.
Drugs, extortion, kidnapping, piracy, and people smuggling are now the most lucrative businesses thriving among Nigerian youth. Also growing on the sideline is the highly sophisticated and organized oil theft, known locally as oil bunkering. In 2019, over 4,000,000 barrels of oil were stolen and smuggled out of the country by thieves. They do it in conjunction with international smuggling rings that come into the Nigerian waterways in large ships, load stolen crude, and simply disappear into the night in the presence of Nigerian security agencies and officials of the oil industry.
