It is too simplistic to point to today’s oil glut or foreign exchange scarcity as our problem. Of course, there are many other countries that had gone through recession. America did. United Kingdom did. But, while the bad times lasted, the citizens of those countries never saw it that they had existential problems. They just said, “We are in a recession; we shall get out of it!”
You see, when Nigeria had the dollars raining down from crude oil exports, many of the people who should be developing our economy were not doing it. They were busy enjoying the free money that oil brought. Today we are all paying dearly for their sins, cluelessness, wickedness and corrupt practices that became the trademark of our country.
Nigeria’s problem is caused by all of us. On an individual level, we all have Nigeria-killer microchips embedded in us. For some, it is the ethnic bias or religious bigotry. And for others, it is pure greed. In all, the individual comes first in consideration before the nation.
One of the reasons why Nigerians across the nation was furious with PDP and kicked Jonathan Good luck out was the wasted 16 years of disaster, retrogress, economic woes and fraud, corruption and looting that we witnessed on a large scale. In the Jonathan era, corruption was the order of the day. When you steal and loot the national treasury, you will be given national honour, that is the well done job for being smart enough to defraud your country. Now we are in a new era and the political terrain appeared to be different from the past. Lawlessness, corruption, crime, indiscipline, wastages are being tackled with all seriousness. Now the real victims of the old systems that have not avail us are crying more than the bereaved, that those who messed up yesterday and being prosecuted today are seen to be persecuted and witch hunt, that is a tragedy of a nation.
There is no problem without solution, we have a government for the first in our history who is ready to do the needful. Then if this government must succeed, it has to be firm on its decision to salvage and clear the mess of the past. Change is always difficult to effect, yet we must not just in to criticism when it comes to anti corruption. Let the wailer cry till eternity, looters must be made to face the music and vomit all they have looted. Without recovery of our stolen wealth from all the yam eaters who ate our yams without restrictions, there is no economic recovery and no way forward.
The budget mafias and evil servants in various ministries who were involved in the budget paddling must be made to face the wrath of the law. This is the practice that have been going on in this country since 2001 and now that the new order says no to it, there must be scapegoats to prevent others from continue in the same old order.
We must redefine our national policies and strategy to meet our current challenges and chat a new path for the future and the new Nigeria we are yearning for. Government must work round the clock to strengthen our institutions. One the bane of our nation is the failure and decline of our institutions. Let us begin to build strong institutions, the strong and formidable institutions will produce strong men and women.
Righteousness, integrity, uprightness, honesty, diligence, discipline, exalt any nation, but sin, corruption, budget paddling, looting, dishonesty, lying propaganda, violence, wastages and disunity are reproach to any nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment