The Nigerian situation is becoming more pathetic as the days go by. Contrary to the dreams, hopes, and aspirations that Nigerians had at independence, 62 years after, the country at its very best is nothing short of a falling state that is on the brink of complete failure if nothing drastic is done to save it.
The fate of the average Nigerian is increasingly becoming uncertain with the turn of every new day. Nigerians are literally roasting at the moment under very harsh realities yet they are supposed to be citizens of a country so richly blessed with natural and human resources. Petrol now sells for N400 per liter in most rural communities, this is a commodity that used to sell for less than N170 just two months ago. A bottle of groundnut is now N1,200, it was N400 months ago. In the midst of all this, the Minimum wage has been stagnated and real income has sharply declined. The general living standards of Nigerians is on a sloppy fall and is not showing any signs of recovery. Simply put, Nigerians are living in real poverty with many of them becoming despondent, tired, exhausted, angry, and frustrated as the days go by.
Insecurity in Nigeria has consistently continued to grow geometrically such that just like Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen, Central African Republic, and Myanmar, the country is on the verge of becoming a full-fledged failed state. It is without a doubt that Nigeria can no longer guarantee the safety of its citizens. Every part of the country is typically unsafe. To add to this, Nigeria has a weak rule of law that is further worsened by a clueless anti-people constitution that retards more than it can ever grow. The uncertainty in Nigeria has made sure that foreign investors are scared stiff coming to Nigeria. Foreign investors already in Nigeria are contemplating quitting or gradually divesting. ‘Japa’ has become an anthem as many young Nigerians are fleeing the country in droves on a daily basis as if to say they were escaping from some prison.
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The policies of the country’s apex bank – the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) which is controlled by a certain cabal through Godwin Emefiele is erratic as much as it constitute a barrier to investment in Nigeria. Aside from the poor formulation of policies at the apex bank, Nigeria’s borders are really porous. Almost on a daily basis, Boko Haram insurgents, bandits, and all sorts of gunmen are infiltrating Nigeria through her porous borders without much hassle and the whole place is becoming some sort of a war zone.
As of today, Nigeria is harbouring different forms of internal insurrection across the country with agitations threatening the corporate existence of a country that once held so much promise. It is sad to come to terms with the fact that people now fear and respect non-state actors in Nigeria more than they respect Nigerian police officers. The situation is better imagined than experienced and sadly, it is worsening with every tick of the clock. Of a truth, Nigeria has never come face-to-face with disintegration before in her history.
All over Nigeria, the helplessness in the land is palpable. People are afraid to go out or to travel by certain means; they are as afraid to be on the streets as they are to be in their homes; they are as afraid to attract attention to themselves as they are to be in a crowd.
Any sincere person who has managed to take a deep introspection of the geographical expression called Nigeria will easily agree with the reality that the country is at the thin edge of the precipice. As things stand today, Nigeria cannot move forward. Well, there is no forward—or future— to go to considering the mistrust and division the present President Muhammadu Buhari-led government has managed to engineer. So what’s the way forward?
Nigeria needs a hard reset. The only way to keep the Nigerian ball rolling is to engineer a powerful reset on its governance structure, orientation, and style, and by this, the only way out of the conundrum is a complete restructuring of Nigeria!
Granted that Nigeria wouldn’t have been in existence but for Fedrick Lugfard’s experiment at administrative convenience, however, the founding leaders in Nigeria discovered how faulty the foundation of the marriage was and hence proposed a certain structure that managed to keep the tensed union sane. Today, Nigeria has drifted far away from that structure as it now operates a government in Abuja which is essentially run by the Fulani Oligarchy. The truth is that without dismantling this structure, Nigeria will remain in a deep mess and not even a change in President can guarantee anything close to sanity.
Nigeria needs a major reset and this cannot be overemphasised. In the next 50 years or less, it has been projected that Nigeria will become the most populated country on the face of the planet. Common sense will tell anyone who cares to listen that Nigeria cannot go on that journey with this present foundation. It is impossible to build a hundred storey building on the foundation of a bungalow and that is a fact. There is no way Nigeria will have that kind of high-density human population arguing every day about the injustices and imbalances in the system without it imploding. Nigeria must be restructured to stand a chance.
Nigeria, as currently constituted, has reached the end of every wiggle room. The country is facing and dealing with a number of problems it is dealing with because the country is at a melting point. At this point, action is demanded. Silence and pretending that all is well, or that the situation will resolve itself have sadly become outdated and can no longer work. The time is ripe for Nigerians to sit with each other at a round table and tell themselves the truth, eyeball-to-eyeball without any fear or equivocation. The present system is unsustainable.
Anytime anyone raises any conversations about the need to restructure Nigeria, there is often this sudden feeling of apprehension from several quarters in the country. The North for instance often sees it as a move to starve them of oil proceeds and by implication, a plot to impoverish them. This baseless thought has ensured that the region has perpetually remained in opposition to any move to restructure Nigeria. What they have failed to recognize is that in the United States for example, with a $3.0 trillion Gross State Product (GSP) as of last year, the State of California is the largest in the United States and if it were a sovereign nation, it would rank as the world’s fifth-largest economy, ahead of the United Kingdom and India. Interestingly, its economy is larger than that of Texas with all its oil reserves.
These forces against a restructuring of Nigeria will have to be made to understand that innovation and free enterprise took California notches higher than so many countries can ever dream of. Unlike Nigeria, California takes education seriously. Having built its economy around Stanford University, Silicon Valley was birthed. Silicon Valley in turn has managed to develop Google, Facebook, Apple, Netflix, eBay, Cisco, Lockheed, Hewlett Packard (HP), Oracle, Tesla, and many more multibillion-dollar companies. The yearly budget of these companies is bigger than that of many countries.
A restructured Nigeria is the only way to save Nigeria. Insecurity, poverty, unemployment, hunger, etc given the nature of the socio-political realities of Nigeria can only be fought at the sub-national level and not by an over-burdened Abuja that is gasping for air under intense pressure. Nigeria needs a reset and if this reset does not happen in a matter of months, the world must start making plans to accept Nigerian refugees following a catastrophic implosion. It is now or never.
