IS NIGERIA ON THE RIGHT PATH WITH THIS GOVERNMENT IN POWER.
The primary responsibility of any government is the security. And welfare of It's citizens. Having said that, I don't think this government has lived up to its responsibilities. This conclusion was arrived at after taking into consideration some of the under-listed observations.
*SECURITY: Nigeria has never been divided across ethno-religious line like the way it is presently. The igbo-christain in the north cannot live peacefully without the fear of being attacked by the hausa-muslim and also the hausa-muslim cannot live peacefully in the east without the fear of being attacked by the igbo-christain. It even goes beyond this that even the hausa-christain cannot live in peace with the hausa-muslim. Still on the security of the country, Boko haram is now the deadliest terrorist group in the world by the global index. This is thesame group that the government said were technically defeated, later they said they have been degraded and decimated and now they have approved the sum of 1 billion dollars to fight them. We also have rampaging herdsmen killing innocent people across the country. Just yesterday, 2 clergymen(catholic priests) were killed alongside their parishioners in Benue state and the story is thesame in Zamfara,Kogi,Na
sarawa,Delta and other parts of the country. The sanctity of life has been lost under this government.
*EDUCATION: This is the bedrock on which any society grows but in Nigeria it is not given the desired attention it requires. According to the UN, a country is suppose to allocate atleast 26% of its total annual budget for education. But in the 2017 budget, a paltry sum of just a little above 360 billion naira was allocated to education and this is far below the UN stipulated 26%.
*CORRUPTION: This was one of the high points on which this government ride to power in 2015(fight against corruption). But today what we see is a lopsided fight against corruption which more or less can be seen as vendetta. It is only cases involving members of the opposition that has been probed,investigated and charged to court. Issues involving members of the ruling party are treated with so much laxity that is if they are even treated at all. The petitions against Amaechi and Fashola using hefty sum(scores of millions of naira) to hold dinner and build website respectively. We also have petitions against Abba Kyari, the chief of staff to the president. The case of Babachir Laval(former SGF) who used over 200 million naira for grass cutting in IDP camps. He was only sacked after months of pressure. The present SGF Boss Mustapha came out not too long ago to say his office spent about 60 million naira to maintain the government website. The corruption perception index released by transparency International some months ago confirmed this fact. Nigeria dropped from 136 to 148 in the world.
*INFLATION: Under this same administration, inflation rate skyrocketed from single digit to double digits(from about 9% to about 18%). Though I am happy It's been on the downward trend in recent months(kudos to the government) but what made it skyrocket in the first place was bad economic policies. The economic team weren't able to steady the ship of the economy in the midst of the global oil price fall.(I am not surprise though when the economic team is headed by a professor of law)
*POWER: I remember when Fashola was still the governor of Lagos state, he said it shouldn't take any serious government more than 6 months to fix Nigeria's power problem but now under Fashola as minister of power, has Nigeria power situation improved? The answer to that is an emphatic NO. Infact we are worse off now than we used to be. It is under his watch that the unthinkable happened. Nigeria power generation and transmission fell to 0 megawatt and this has happened a couple of times more under his watch as minister of power. This has not happened in decades but it happened under this government.
*UNEMPLOYMENT: Since inception of this government, milliona of people have lost their jobs. With the latest report given by Nigeria Bureau of Statistics(NBS) Nigeria unemployment rate stands at 18.8%. Take that percentage of 200 million people. Then we now talk of those underemployed. We see that a huge part of this country's population is either unemployed or underemployed and this poses great danger to the country because when such huge part of a contry's population is not gainfully employed, it can lead to civil unrest which can in turn lead to civ war.
*RULE OF LAW: This government has no respect for the rule of law. Few examples I want to cite include the case of El zakzaky who has been in DSS custody for 2 years without being released or charged to court and this is after he has been granted bail by the court. Thesame was the case of Nnamdi Kanu until finally he was released reluctantly. His case had to even reach the ECOWAS court. Not too long ago, a journalist was arrested by the DSS and was kept in custody for days without been charged to court. Even if I am not a lawyer, atleast I know a person should not be kept in custody for more than 48 hours without being charged to court(for civil offences).
*FUEL: Before this government came into power, the price of fuel(PMS) was #89 per litre but subsidy was finally and totally removed under this administration and now fuel is being sold at #145 per litre. This same government when they were still opposition stood vehemently against the removal of subsidy when it was attempted by the previous administration. The promise the government gave after removing subsidy was that our refineries will start working and new ones built but today I doubt if any refinery is working at optimal capacity not to talk of new ones being built. The worst is that now we hear the government is paying more on subsidy now that subsidy has been removed compared to when we had subsidy on fuel. How is that possible
*ECONOMY: Before 2015, Nigeria was the biggest economy in Africa and also fastest growing economy in Africa but today we are neither of the two. South Africa is the biggest economy in Africa while Ethiopia is the fastest growing economy in Africa. This is surely due to bad economic policies.
*AGRICULTURE: I must first and foremost give credence and appreciate the effort being put into agricultural development by this government but why I included this point is that the government should not take all the glory as the foundation and great part of the building was done by the previous administration. Big kudos to Akinwumi Adesina(the then minister of agriculture and now president of Africa Development Bank). The rice revolution was started by him and even bridging the gap on the distribution of subsidised fertilizers from government to the farmers directly.
*SECURITY AGENCIES: Our security agencies have now become so political like never before. The DSS is the hand tool of the federal government and this is not suppose to be so. The security agencies ought to be apolitical,neutral and fair to all and sundry not minding who is involved but the reverse is the case now.
This post is sequel to my earlier post challenging PMB's fanatics to an issue based debate. Feel free to challenge me on any issue above. Objective contributions as well as criticisms are welcome.
This post is done from an apolitical mindset. I belong to no political party. I am just a concerned Nigerian who want the progress of this nation.
I am Ugwumba Uchenna Ugbala