Unknown to the individuals who at present run Nigeria, the nation as presently constituted resides on borrowed time and if the construction isn’t tinkered with, it’s going to solely be a matter of time earlier than it cataclysmically implodes. Alarms have repeatedly sounded and have solely been greeted with deaf ears, nonetheless, this pretense can solely be sustained for some time and that is one thing the current crop of Nigerian leaders should be made to return to phrases with.
Africa’s most populous nation – Nigeria is an amalgam of many ethnic teams forcefully or deceptively joined collectively for the executive comfort of the imperialist Britain over a century in the past, exactly in 1914. This ill-fated marriage was perpetrated with out the consent of the disparate, ideologically numerous teams that make up the nation right this moment.
Regardless of this apparent structural defect, the wedding has been sustained with the nation managing to outlive. The perceived beneficiaries of the wedding have regularly made efforts to insist on the nation’s indivisibility whereas deaf ears, dismissing important voices and promoting empty rhetorics when points surrounding the flawed debate are thrown up for critical discussions.
As anticipated, the nation which has didn’t ideologically soften into assembly factors has needed to grapple with the signs of the unreal issues which the British created. Probably the most distinguished of those signs are unhealthy management, corruption, nepotism, and cronyism.
On account of these signs, Nigeria has had to make sure lengthy years of unhealthy governance which has in flip ensured that the nation is riddled with infrastructural decay, insecurity, money owed, poor academic requirements, and ineffective healthcare techniques amongst others.
Regardless of her highly effective endowments with a number of pure sources which many different international locations desperately crave, Nigerians are presently experiencing distress and debilitating poverty. The ineptitude of those that have risen by way of the anomalous system to deal with management positions within the nation has solely managed to make issues worse for the confused citizenry.
Whereas different international locations of the world are toasts of buyers because of good governance and infrastructural improvement, Nigeria has remained in a state of comatose, and shunned by buyers because of misrule which was foisted on the nation by the flawed system.
Whatever the excuses that successive leaders in Nigeria have provided for this abysmally insulting failure, the reality any right-thinking human being who really understands Nigeria will arrive at is that the issues of the nation are extra structural and institutional than they’re of personnel. These structural and institutional issues stem from its start defects– the way in which it was ‘cobbled collectively’– and its flawed governance construction which might by no means give good governance a pedestal to face on.
The reality is that the one resolution that can provide Nigeria a lifeline is a political restructuring that may introduce fairness, justice, and steadiness into the Nigerian lexicon.
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As issues stand right this moment, Nigeria is merely a geographic expression that has wobbled a lot that it’s now a dysfunctional society that’s now so deeply divided that it now has schismatic tendencies. With out restructuring the nation will stay on a treadmill, caught perpetually in poverty and fragility traps! To be succinct, Nigeria is sitting on a ticking time bomb.
One of many issues that has held Nigeria down is her structure. At present, Nigeria operates the 1999 structure which is nothing however a fraud designed to empower sure teams on the expense of the opposite Nigerian teams and entities. It’s a doc created by the navy to make sure that the place of the Fulani Oligarchy is perpetually maintained within the Nigerian polity. For the nation to breathe, that fraudulent structure needs to be abolished and utterly discarded.
As issues stand right this moment, any Nigerian citizen who has any dint of conscience is meant to be severely involved with how unhealthy issues are getting with any passing day. It’s symptomatic of the truth that all isn’t nicely with the polity. There’s discontent and palpable worry within the land that nobody can clarify.
Each previous of the nation is at present agitating for one factor or the opposite. Within the South East, there’s a raging feeling of marginalisation which is fueling palpable anger. Within the Niger Delta, it’s a feeling of exploitation and frustration. The South West is watching the physique language of the unnecessarily agitated North. The center belt is battling herdsmen and resisting ethnic cleaning. Amongst varied ethnic teams, there’s recrimination and mutual suspicion. There’s palpable stress and the polity is heated up with infinite agitations and youth restiveness. All these are issues which have been given life by the flawed construction known as Nigeria.
The Nigerian plenty are right this moment hungry, dispirited, upset, and disillusioned. The abrupt elimination of gasoline subsidy has despatched Nigerians into troubled waters and the economic system is now sitting on the precipice.
The individuals who run Nigeria presently should get themselves to grasp that if the nation should stay one united entity, then the premise of the union should be correctly negotiated and the fitting time to do this is now and never tomorrow, as a result of tomorrow is likely to be too late.
Opposite to the views held by most Nigerian leaders, the unity of the nation is negotiable. The nation must be restructured to face an opportunity of avoiding disintegration and that’s the sincere reality. Nigerians don’t have any enterprise dwelling like a slave in a rustic they name theirs right now and age. Nigerians shouldn’t have a rustic the place law-abiding residents are handled like slaves, the place anarchists prance round with ethnic vanity, and the place mediocrity is most popular to meritocracy. Nigerians can not proceed to stay like hostages and aliens within the nation they name their very own. It’s an aberration.
It has been repeatedly introduced to Nigerians that there’s energy in variety however, sadly, that variety is what has develop into the worst issue that has hamstrung the little developmental course of and made it virtually unimaginable for the fitting management to emerge.
Many individuals who’ve mentioned the problem of restructuring have had views which can be divergent. There are some who’re at present campaigning for a return to the 1963 Structure which they consider is essentially the most federalist ever.
Restructuring, to some, is to return to regionalism. Many assume it’s fiscal federalism, state police, or disintegration. Nonetheless, restructuring has develop into inevitable as a result of the present construction isn’t working and can certainly by no means work no matter who’s President. Nigerians should be made to grasp this as a way to correctly situate their issues and itemise options.
Lots of Nigeria’s present leaders don’t even genuinely consider in restructuring they usually don’t even perceive the which means. For a lot of politicians exterior the orbit of energy who wish to get again to energy, restructuring is a solution to routinely conjure up the phrase because the elixir that may treatment all of Nigeria’s ills, as the driving force behind their participation in politics, and as a very powerful marketing campaign promise that any seeker of excessive political workplace could make. The presence of politicians like this within the Nigerian system is the explanation the nation is but to be restructured.
To any extent further, there are two choices for Nigeria, one is to reset and return to default which is restructuring, or to disintegrate merely. Nonetheless, no matter what occurs, it’s sure that Nigeria can’t be steady or prosper with out restructuring which entails having a permanent political settlement that will probably be in favour of the plenty and never some corrupt felony elites. The current system is unsustainable and it’ll solely be a matter of time earlier than it crumbles like a pack of playing cards. Nigerian politicians should perceive that they’re working out of time.
