by Sam Nda-Isaiah
That the Nigerian state under President
Jonathan has failed is no longer controvertible. That is one
transformation that President Jonathan has achieved with a distinction
and history will forever remember him for that. But can the nation still
be rescued? Yes, it certainly can. And this will take nothing other
than observing the simple and basic rules of governance. Can President
Jonathan rescue the country? Most unlikely!
But the president can do it if he
chooses to. It’s just that he is too far gone to turn back now. But here
are a few tips for whatever they may be worth:
• The first thing the president must do
is to arrest the extreme corruption that has so far defined his
government and crippled the Nigerian state. Corruption, especially the
very insane type that we have seen in Jonathan’s government, would kill
any country; and that is precisely what has happened to Nigeria now.
Though oil still sells at more than $100 per barrel and the country is
supposed to be producing more than two million barrels every blessed
day, Nigeria has depended on its reserves even to be able to pay state
governments their due allocations. This is terrible and it is evil.
Budgets for security cannot be implemented because revenues made by the
federal government do not get into the coffers of the state. They are
hijacked at checkpoints by fronts of known top government officials. And
when the Central Bank governor tried to blow the whistle, Jonathan
looked for an excuse to suspend him and shut him up. If Jonathan does
not change his attitude towards corruption, Nigeria will only sink
further into failure with dire consequences. And this is not talking
about the crude that is daily stolen by oil thieves for which President
Jonathan’s government has been too weak to tackle.
• The president must understand that his
most important job as president is ensuring the security of his people;
therefore, the police, the military and other security agencies must be
given their due budgets to perform their jobs effectively. This is not a
joke, and the president must take this admonition very seriously. In a
situation where the police have, on average, received only 10 per cent
of their budgets since the coming of Jonathan, and the military are not
well armed in a new world order defined by terrorism, then, it should be
obvious why the country has been weakened and has become a failed state
under President Jonathan. The president must also know that the nature
of crime has changed; therefore we cannot continue to use old methods to
fight today’s crimes. The art of crime has changed. Crime is now
defined by terrorism and technology. Security personnel need new
training and there is a need for new investments in crime busting
technology. And this is as simple as ABC: these technologies can be
bought off the shelf.
• The incidence of poverty in Nigeria, a
nation considered Africa’s biggest economy, is scandalous and very
dangerous. More than 120 million of the 174 million Nigerians are
desperately poor; 54 per cent of the nation’s youths are unemployed; 48
million Nigerians are jobless and 1.8 million get added to this figure
annually. President Jonathan is either not aware of these figures or, if
he is aware, he certainly doesn’t give a damn. The only way to solve
this problem is for the Nigerian president to start giving a damn.
Nothing can be done about this unless the president tackles the extreme
and uncontrolled stealing in his government, because the only way to
create jobs is massive investment in the economy especially in the
nation’s infrastructure. A nation’s most important resource is its
youths. President Jonathan needs to become aware of this quickly. The
president must also create very bold policies that will cause the
flourishing of millions of small businesses since jobs for the kind of
numbers we are hearing are not available.
• President Jonathan’s government needs
to start punishing crime from today. That is the only deterrent against
the kind of disorder we see these days. Thieves, murderers, kidnappers
ply their trade freely because they know they will not be caught and,
even if caught, nothing will happen to them. That is certainly not how
to run a country. Every crime must be punished so as to send a clear
message. There is a lot more to say but I have a strong feeling I am
only wasting my time – the president is just not interested. As long as
the nation’s revenues are stolen from source and do not get into the
federation account as happens at the moment, nothing can be done to stem
the nation’s dangerous slide. Unfortunately for all of us, no matter
how bad things are today, they could still get much worse. And that is
quite scary. That is why rescuing Nigeria should now be everybody’s
business.
EARSHOT:
Jonathan Shared Bribes To Delegates?
I probably didn’t hear the president
properly when he addressed people in Kano during a campaign rally – even
though INEC has declared that it is illegal to start campaigning now. I
thought I heard the president accusing Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso of
refusing to share the money he gave him to delegates during the 2011 PDP
presidential primary. So the president shared bribes during the 2011
elections? Where did he get the money from? Could that be where the
stolen N2 trillion “subsidy money” went into? The only institution
statutorily permitted to probe the president is the National Assembly.
Will Nigerians trust them to do what they are elected for in the first
place? All eyes should now be on the National Assembly on this matter.
This country needs to be saved from impunity.
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