Elder statesmen have warned that Nigeria is at the brink of collapse if no concrete step is made at redirecting the affairs of the nation towards the path of steady growth and development.
The senior citizens who served in various positions in the first and second republics and some new breed politicians were of the view that the country was almost turning into a failed state, particularly, under the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
See also: Nigeria At 57: Withdraw Support From APC, Wike Tells Nigerians
Those who spoke their minds on the state of affairs in the country in separate interviews with Sunday INDEPENDENT included, Pa Reuben Fasonranti, leader of Pan-Yoruba Socio-Political Group, Afenifere, Chief Richard Akinjide, former Minister of Education in the First Republic and later Attorney General and Minister of Justice under the Shehu Shagari administration in the Second Republic, Dr Junaid Mohammed, Second Republic member of parliament, Chief Martins Onovo, former Presidential candidate of the National Conscience Party (NCP) in the last election and Mr Debo Adeniran, Executive Director, Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership (CACOL).
Also, Professor Jerry Gana, former Minister of Information; Professor Anya O. Anya, a chattered biologist including Ms Annkio Briggs, a renowned environmentalist shared similar views on the state of the nation.
They opined that the country’s leaders since independence have failed to live up to expectations of the citizens, which accounted for the present unfavourable condition the country has found itself.
Essentially, they blamed the inability of the country to achieve its potentials as a well-endowed and prosperous nation on the incursion of the military into governance, saying the military incursion has been the bane of stunted and under development of the country.
Chief Akinjide said there were hopes at independence that Nigeria would achieve greatness within a short time, but lamented that their vision and dreams for a great nation has been dashed by poor leadership and military incursion into power.
He said: “Our expectations then were very high. We had a dream of Nigeria that would move from Third World country to First World country, a country where everything would be working as expected. But all these have not been achieved. The hope of those of us that were so enthusiastic at independence has been dashed, the expectations of the founding fathers of Nigeria, those of us who fought directly or indirectly for independence, have not been met. The country has failed to work as expected. We are just praying to God that we should move forward as the USA, China, North and South Korea and other developed European countries.”
He described the 57 years of independent Nigeria as lacking any good thing to celebrate, as the nation has been stagnant and static.
He blamed the situation in the country on poor leadership; particularly military incursion into power, saying the country must enthrone its affairs in the hands of capable leaders to achieve its full potentials.
“The major reason for our backwardness is leadership deficit, particularly the military intervention. Unless we remain democratic, we cannot make any progress. Our universities are going backward and not forward. There are now many universities not accompanied by progress. We have not been able to develop our infrastructures; the airports, seaports, roads, rails, education, and health are still backward,” he stressed.
Akinjide further stressed that the only thing that is “certain in the country now is uncertainty” with its future, stressing, “If I must be frank with you, the future is blink unless the lingering problem of leadership is properly addressed. I have serious doubt that we will remain a coherent and united country. Those who don’t know in many cases are ruling over those who know, those who are backward are putting back those who are moving forward.”
He continued, “I do not exonerate myself from the leadership crisis. I entered into the parliament before the independence, and I was in the parliament at independence. I have been in the federal cabinet twice. The first time as the Minister for Education and later as the Attorney General and Minister for Justice. In each of the two cases, the military overthrew our governments, for no just cause. The military has no business in government. If you want to do politics, surrender your military uniform and come into politics.
“It was unfortunate that the guns purchased with tax payers’ money, given to the soldiers to defend the territorial integrity of the country, were used by the military to seize power and roll back the development of Nigeria.”
He criticised the Buhari administration as very slow, saying the President has failed to fulfill his election promises to Nigerians, even after about two and half years in office.
Fasonranti, though, noted that the country has made appreciable progress in the area of physical development, however maintained that things were gradually fallen apart in the country.
According to him, the only way out of the present situation is for the country to elect good leaders. “We need dedicated leaders, leaders who have made up their minds to create a virile nation, not people who are running after money. I think that’s our problem.”
He continued: “The way out is for God to bring out some leaders who are focused, who want to serve this country and make it march on. At the moment, everybody is for himself. Even, the legislatures are only concerned about money. We don’t even know how much they are earning.”
He also advocated a return to parliamentary system of governance as against the present arrangement of a presidential system of government, which is largely expensive. “I will even advocate that we go back to the parliamentary system where a party will choose the leader of government and the leader of government will choose his own ministers or commissioners that will be responsible to him. At the moment, everything has somehow scattered. I prefer a parliamentary system.”
The Afenifere leader maintained that the country is long overdue for restructuring for it to continue to exist as a united nation.
He said: “Restructuring is overdue. We will like to do what we are able to do in our own state as before. For instance, we should have state police. Centralised policing is too unwieldy. It does not make for efficiency.
“If you want to speculate for minerals, you should be able to do it in your state. But now, it is a federal affair. The states should be allowed to develop their ports. Power is too much in the hands of the centre and that is why we don’t have efficient running of the country. So, let’s devolve powers and responsibilities and then let everybody be for himself. It doesn’t mean the country will break up. But, it will allow us to take care of what we have in our local areas.
“The centre should handle external affairs and defence. Those are the things the centre can look after. But, if we are talking of exploitation of minerals, we should be able to do it in our local areas. The states should be able to have their own police and give them instructions, not to refer things to Abuja. If you refer things to Abuja, by the time you get result, things will have gone haywire. That is why we are saying let us devolve.
“Restructuring doesn’t mean breaking up the country. My idea of it is devolution of powers and responsibilities from the centre to the federating units. A lot of people seem to have embraced restructuring. That is the trend now. It may take some time to materialise, but people seem to have accepted it. People like Chief Bola Tinubu, people like Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, people like Alhaji Atiku Abubakar seem to have accepted it. Even people, who were reluctant to accept in the past, seem to have embraced it now. They are holding meetings and they want to agree. Let’s have a system that will allow the country to move forward. As a country, we are not moving fast enough.”
Mohammed said Nigeria does not have reason to be poor, saying the country was poor because of poor leadership.
He also opposed a return to parliamentary system of government pointing out that the country has gone past the idea and should not be an issue to be discussed.
Onovo lamented that nothing concrete could be said to have been achieved in the last 57 years of independence, pointing out that “It is unfortunate that we have not made expected developmental progress and our prospects do not look bright under this current Federal government.”
He noted that the founding fathers of the country had a great dream at independence. “The dreams of our founding fathers were very clearly developed, published and celebrated. They were dreams of Integrity, Justice, Unity, Peace, Patriotism and Progress. Many have abandoned the dreams. Today, the country is dysfunctional. Many are promoting the opposite of the dreams. They prefer deceit to integrity, marginalisation to justice, division to unity, python dance to peace, neo-colonialism to patriotism, retrogression to progression. We got it wrong when we started perverting public morality in the mid-eighties. Since then, we continued in our retrogression until Chief Olusegun Obasanjo tried to reverse the trend from 1999 when he became President and Commander-in-Chief.”
Onovo noted that the country is sharply divided along religious and ethnic lines, pointing out that the disunity was another index that confirmed that the country is on the path of retrogression.
Though he supported calls for the restructuring of the country, he pointed out that it should not be the priority, saying the priority should be good governance.
He said: “We should have understood by now that the structure is not the primary problem. We must agree with the late Prof. Achebe, that, the primary problem is the prodigal and corrupt leadership that seizes political power illegitimately and then abuses political power particularly by looting and wasting public resources.”
Adeniran said “Nigeria is currently blemished by a bleak history and even worse a bleak future because the current circumstances provide no glimpse of hope and no idea of a better tomorrow.” He attributed the situation to “the tenacious grip on political power by a political class that has largely been self-serving, parasitic, greedy and incurably corrupt since the colonialists left the reins of power to them.”
He continued, “The general overview is that the country has been in perpetual motion, but with little progressive positive movement in terms of nation building and socio-economic and political advancement. The repeated starts and failures far outweigh the gains.”
On way out of the present mess, he said: “We believe that the much advocated Sovereign National Conference (SNC) is the beginning of true nationhood; the alternative is to keep an unstable geographical expression pretentiously described as country, but lacks the socio-moral and political capacity to run under a common constitution since it was constituted under a defective and illegitimate arrangement.
“To achieve an SNC though requires a people in defiance and willing to overhaul the system politically and economically in the equation called ‘Nigeria’ which has persistently been described as a ‘lopsided’ arrangement and ‘marriage of convenience’ in some quarters.”
He added, “The truth is that no matter how Nigeria is restructured, the fundamental issue will remain about the social emancipation of the vast majority of the people. Any form of restructuring that is not achieved side by side with the social emancipation of the component units of Nigeria will amount to naught. Such achievement will make no significant difference in national life and the lives of majority of the people who would still remain oppressed and exploited in any arrangement that emerges from ‘restructuring’ designed and controlled by the present ruling class i.e. the representatives of the political and economic status quo.”
Prof Gana and Prof Anya O. Anya echoed the call for a return to true federalism and good governance, anchored on fairness, justice and equity, saying the only alternative is an invitation to more agitations, chaos and possible breakup of the country, even if it be against the will of the people.
Gana maintained that the unitary constitution foisted on Nigerians by the military has stifled its growth and development, stressing that it is time government take a second look at the 2014 National Conference document with a view to ensuring its implementation.
See also: Nigeria At 57: CAN Appeals For Unity, Peace
He reechoed call for unbundling of the Nigeria police and creation of state police service pointing out that evil is local.
The former federal minister of information said powers must devolve to the state and local government areas to tackle the nation’s myraids of problems, including decaying infrastructure, road and housing, power generation, as well as resuscitate the ailing education system.
Also, Ms Annkio Briggs regretted that the dream of building a great black nation is fast eluding the country due to what she said is a preponderance of “inadequate, lazy, incapable, greedy and corrupt leadership.”
She maintained that after 100 years of unjust and unfair sojourn, the different ethnic nationalities must sit down and discuss their future together, adding “we cannot claim to be one Nigeria if we refuse to sit down and map out a way forward together “.
She said: “If we are fighting corruption, let us fight it collectively; there thieves, criminals, jobless, uneducated everywhere in every state in a every region of the country.
“The constitution that highly favour one people and disfavour another people is a wicked constitution. Let us accept that the past one hundred years have failed us, let us find another part way that works for us today, tomorrow.”
The post Akinjide, Fasoranti, Mohammed, Others Rue Nigeria’s Poor Leadership Since Independence appeared first on Independent News Nigeria.
Source: Daily Independent
We appreciate you for reading our post, but we think it will be better you like our facebook fanpage and also follow us on twitter below.