Agonies of an Optimist – 2

Femi Akintunde-Johnson

Perhaps the current administration is trying to save the nation from going down under the weight of criminality and cynicism, the crude clarity of current facts makes for a frightening read.

  Here: “Youth Unemployment Rate in Nigeria averaged 25.87 percent from 2014 until 2020, reaching an all time high of 53.40 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020 and a record low of 11.70 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014” – data sourced from Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics by tradingeconomics.com. 

  It gets more distressing as it appears that the government could predict the unfortunate downward spiral, but apparently inept to contain or moderate it. Read this: “One in three Nigerians able and willing to work had no jobs in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

The bureau reported that Nigeria’s unemployment rate rose to 33.3 per cent, translating to some 23.2 million people, the highest in at least 13 years and the second-highest rate in the world…

Unemployment rate in the country has more than quadrupled since 2016 when the economy slipped into a recession. A second recession occurred in 2020.

The federal government in its Economic Sustainability Plan had predicted that the rate of unemployment would rise to 33.6 per cent at the end of 2020 IF URGENT STEPS WERE NOT TAKEN” – my emphasis – (PremiumTimes). 

  Now with more than half of our youth jobless and frustrated in a critical election cycle, it does not take much introspection to imagine the sort of plucky stacks of dynamite our political leaders are sitting over. The youth have serious resentment against the managers of the current economy, and by extension, the ruling political party. While we cannot speak with authority that the Buhari administration cannot achieve any magical turnaround, and somehow whittle the soaring economic hardship and unemployment within half a year, when the trajectory of the rut has sporadically surged upward from 2014, unabated; it would make sense that the government urgently jack up its social intervention programmes across and among all strata of the country so as to forestall widespread public disorder or total collapse into chaos.

  Our leaders must make haste at this misty dawn, for the sake of a fairly peaceable country. Our children are frustrated, demotivated, and angry. They look around and hardly see any heroes or heroines to give wings to their imaginations. All they see are traders and whorers of corruption and wickedness, roiling in abject opulence and glutinous acquisitions of illogical wealth.

  The Nigerian youth have been thoroughly disappointed and disillusioned as people they had hoped would stand strong against forces of oppression and corruption have largely transfused into the same tribe of the corrupt. So they resort to the only available weapons at their disposal: they abuse, curse and lacerate any voice or vision that somehow represents a shadow of their “enemies”. Their anger and vituperations have no limit or peg – they lash out, and harangue any contrary voice or vision from any source assumed to share features or semblance of the older, decaying vestiges of their misfortune.

  Consequently, we have begun to lose our long-held and cherished fabric of hierarchical order of discipline, communality and civilisation. When children no longer respect or revere their fathers; when mothers no longer swell the hearts of their children; when soldiers no longer see worthy commanders to storm the parapets with… the glory of that society, the posterity of that nation is grossly endangered. Urgent, curative and intensive care and concourses are needed today to re-evaluate, re-affirm and re-negotiate the foundation and future of our co-habitation and unity.

  Fortunately, there are many optimists who believe in the capacity and flexibility of Nigerians to weather these dangerous storms, and somehow find a safe landing that would largely survive the supposed calamities. We are many who believe, or more precisely, hope, that though the Nigerian ship may suffer buffeting on all sides, it shall nonetheless berth in a glorious shoreline littered with goodies and game.

  A note of warning though: optimism is not exactly a side effect of pragmatism. Both see the same picture, but make different interpretations. Let the Nigerian politicians leave optimism to hard-knuckled nationalists, patriots and folks nourished by Nigeria of the decades preceding and immediately after the independence. Our politricians (people who take politics as a full time profession) should be pragmatic – you cannot eat your cake, and still expect it to survive in your ‘show-glass’. Do not assume that the currency of the moment would soon calm down – “it’s a matter of time…or cash”! 

  The overwhelming number of the Nigerian youth whom your colleagues lampoon as structureless, tweetzines, cyber-thugs, online voters without PVCs…may surprise the arrogant apple cart drivers, and tumble the rule book regimented over those years of electoral abracadabra – or they may fail. Do not be so full of your self-deception and conceit to assume what happened in Zimbabwe and Kenya cannot happen in Nigeria. Read the times… information moves faster than the wind nowadays…and emotions and actions now transcend cultural and national boundaries. 

  My worry at the arrogant and delusional politicians who believe mass movements can hardly translate to national paradigm shifts based on some shifty data and old-fashioned shenanigans, is this: whether the unexpected happens, or the usual holds sway, there is potential for civil unrest and likelihood of massive geo-political disruptions. If a popular but ungrounded candidate wins, against the run of play, the inner-wheel structural challenges will sorely test the sinews of this nation, and subject our politics and public institutions to gross attacks from traditionalists, “peace-makers” and international do-gooders.

  Conversely, if either of the older establishment folks wins, he will be affronted by the sheer disdain, cynical distrust and undivided narcissism of the youth movement. A wise one will make efforts to persuade and ingratiate them, but their fury and aggravated injury that their failure was orchestrated by the old brigade would make rapprochement unsuccessful, and a lightning rod for more disruptions. Whereas, a brash but ultimately foolish approach to go martial and legalistic would provoke even more reprehensible reactions, and possibly conflagration – a good excuse for the itchy fingers to intervene “for the sake of the indivisible unity, progress and prosperity… of our only country, Nigeria”.

  Therein lie the agonies of the optimist – these times need the wisdom of the ancients who welded the original ideals and tenets of democracy. These times need the capacity of the intelligentsia whose hunger is to chisel a system of renewable governance structure fit and able to absorb the shocks and shivers of a diverse and developing country in a hurry to fulfill the aspirations and ambitions of its citizens. These moments need Nigerians who understand that a peaceful nation is a tolerant nation; a successful nation is a responsible nation; a prosperous nation is an organised nation. Whatever is your hope or optimism for the future or greater good of Nigeria, make up your mind today to scrutinise the pedigrees, programmes and postulations of the presidential candidates you have been offered, then vote, and convince others (not coerce nor conscript) to share your vision, and their votes with you. May Nigeria survive, and outwit her troublers.