Without no doubt, none of the developed countries of the world today had achieved their great success on a platter of gold, these countries have attained their developmental height through different trials at different stages of their national life. They have surmounted problems, achieved conquest from war and freedom from oppression. It is a fact in the history of a country that the road to prosperity is a rough road in which conscious and fundamental steps are to be taken in order to achieve their set goals. In his article in the Daily Times Newspaper of January 1st, 1964 titled: 'may your road be rough'. The renowned educationalist, Tai Solarin wrote ' I found,by hard experience, that all that is noble and laudable was to achieved only through difficulties and trials and dangers. There are no other roads.' Indeed,there is no other way for a country to develop, surmount their problems and free themselves from the shackles of oppression other than this rough road.

The trajectory of our country to be part of the developed countries of the world have been hit with various problems. It unfortunate that Nigeria in her 56years existence as an independent state and 102years as an amalgamated territory, is still being drifted by humongous problems that are synonymous with failed state like Somalia. Insecurity, corruption, religious intolerance, tribalism, unemployment, decay infrastructures and economy recession are the known problems troubling the stability of the country. And unfortunately, the country is even more divided than ever before with divisive elements becoming more popular. The citizens have resorted to hope, hope that things will work out. The question that readily comes to mind is when would this be? The successive administrators appeared to be clueless as to how to rescue the country from imminent collapse.

While the conundrum continues as to how to save the country,numerous solutions have been proffers by stakeholders in the Nigeria stake. While some have suggested political revolution,others reasoned towards restructuring.
Those who argued for political revolution must have seen a hopeless Nigeria governed by selfish rulers who only thinks about their inordinate interest and that of their unborn children. They amassed so much wealth at the expense of their people. They have deliberately impoverished their people,while justifying their demagoguery with stomach infrastructures. The call for political revolution however might sound crazy and a sheer political masturbatory,but it remains a statement of fact that revolution is the only way to obliterate generations of these greedy politicians. Coincidentally, almost all the developed countries of the world had gone through one form of revolution or the other. History reminds us, the Chinese revolution, Russian revolution of 1917, French revolution, English revolution(otherwise known as the glorious revolution), American revolution and not to talk about FLT LT Rawlings revolution in Ghana and the Arab spring to mention but a few. The people in these countries revolted to change the status-quo in their countries, resultantly of which they handed over a celebrated and prosperous nations to their children. The good thing about revolution is that people always win. However, there is no need for the political elites to worry about revolution. The people are quite stoical, they want change but not ready to pay the price,the youthful population would rather remain tacit than to demonstrate temerity against the authority of the state. Paradoxically, revolution would be injudicious at this stage of our national life. This is because,it would take another decades to rebuild the country.

The call for restructuring have become more pronounced than ever before. infact, it appears that, it only the political elites that are quite  indispose to the idea. Restructuring however is a nebulous term,if not well define might lose it relevance, It major proponents had progressed in error by not being realistic in their agitations. Restructuring would conjectural solve the multi-facet problems bedevilling the country as well as eradicate sinecurist practice of states coming to Abuja to share the national revenue and go back to their respective states to do what they like with it. This profane practice made the state to rely solely on Federal Government for their survival. This have caused unequal development in the states of the federation, and this might be unconnected wth the inability of some states to pay workers' salaries. This feeding bottle federalism have given all the economic and political power to the centrifugal authority. The president becomes too powerful with little or no check on his power. And the successive administration have taken advantage of the lacuna in the country's constitution to misrule their people and also demonstrate tyrannical tendencies in the discharge of their duties. We have seen a Speaker of House of Representatives being prevented from gaining entrance to the National Assembly complex, we have seen how a Governor of a state was harassed and blocked from gaining access to the state governor's house by federal authority, we have seen how the seat of power becomes an amoral institution, justifying all forms of barbaric and convoluted nonsense. The call for restructuring would make the President lose this kind of power, the centrifugal would now depends on the centripetal for survival which negate the current practice. Political restructuring could also return the country back to the era of regionalism, but the call for creation of more states contradicts the regionalist ideology and also will the state institution be ready, an willing to collapse itself into region. Recall also that statism was introduced in 1967 by the military authority to neutralised the growing influence of the regions as well as allays fear of domination of the minority groups. The simple reason why the political elites will never support restructuring is that, the current system ways of doing things suit them well. The Governors are also known to be very powerful. Infact, they mostly decides who represent their states at both national and state assemblies. In this wise, asking the political leaders to support the call for restructuring is like a robbed victim asking the armed robbers to hands the gun over to him.

Undoubtedly, the positive to take from restructuring outweighed the negative, however it remains a statement of fact that leadership is the major problem in the country. Even in the presence of restructuring, it would still be difficult for the country to develop because the country's inherited capitalism is a seed for periodic crisis. The country is in the hands of capitalists who controls the major ventures in the country. These capitalists controls the demands and supplies, they regulate the prices of their products through sabotage and conspiracy, they financed the political ambition of political aspirants in return for favourable economy policies. And these capitalist would go to any length to protect their interest.

It is very regrettable that the country have not had leaders with strong political will to transform the ways of doing things, rather what we have are accidental leaders who are forced into governance to maintain status quo. Since Nigeria got her independent,past presidents never dreamt of becoming president. Sheu Shagiri, chief Olusegun Obasanjo, late Umar Yar'adua and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan are all political testimony to this assertion. How then can an accidental leader bring about a desirable change?

It is even unfortunate that the present administration have not demonstrated strong political will to radically transform the system. The president arguably have assembled worst cabinet members in decades with preponderance of celebrated politician as against the former practice of star-studded technocrats (although with little or no achievement in office). Already,there have been calls for sack or re-assign some of these cabinet members. It took the president over four months to appoint his chief of staff and SSG and over eight months to inaugurate his ministers. The recent appointment of an eighty-two years Pa Durojaiye as the chairman of a 21st century's organization like NCC says it all. The Buharist couldn't have imagined that the president is still maintaining eleven presidential jets, that billions of naira are still appropriated for trivia things at the state house (Aso rock villa). How can one fathom the fact that padding in House of Representative is not a crime, that the politics of clientenism and patrimonalism would be so pronounced to a point that people are speculating northern agenda. The president is perceived by some people to be proselytising while also creating more enemies for himself with his inchoate decisions. No institution can survive without a strong political leader just like a good constitution is inconsequential without a good jurist.

Forgot revolution and restructuring,what Nigeria needs now is a strong leader that can build strong institutions and systems. A leader who will demonstrate nationalistic tendency in his appointments, a leader that will reflect true frugality and shed the toga of prodigality, a leader that will demonstrate pragmatism and dynamicism rather than being esoterica, a leader that would put an end to the pusiallanimous practice of our feeding bottle federalism. The strength of any organisation, be it sovereign or non-sovereign lies with the people operating it. Thous, there is an urgent need for the President to assemble technocrats who are perspicuous and well seasoned to work with, in respective of who they are and where they come from. By the way, the Bank of England is headed by a Canadian.

Poverty is fighting us back, unemployment is fighting us back, corruption is fighting us back, divisive politics we played is fighting back and if these are not curb, it would amount to an unmitigated disaster for the country. President Muhammad Buhari must understand that, he represent the only surviving hope of his generation and his failure would not reflects the failure of him and his party alone but also,a total waste of investment on a wasteful generation.

The present rough road creates more opportunities than problems. Opportunity to write a new history of our national life, an opportunity to tell the world that our strength lies in our diversities, opportunity to right our wrongs. William Shakespeare wrote; 'There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound up in sorrows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves or lose our ventures.' Nigerians,it time we take advantage of this rough road now before it sinks us.


Abolaji Adeniran is a student of political science, writes from Abeokuta in Ogun state