That Nigeria, with proven gas reserves of 192 trillion standards cubic feet (scf) and appreciable endowment in quality coal and other resources, including foreign reserves in excess of $50 billion , cannot generate enough electricity to meet local demand, is a real shame. The political class should consider itself as unproductive and a liability to the country. It is indeed regrettable that basic infrastructure and internal security, the key ingredients for productivity, economic performance and socio-political stability, are in their worst states, and that the seeming hopelessness as to solution, is such as would compel true patriots to openly express their anxieties. Government has done practically little, from 1999 to date, to address these issues and provide the necessary environment for citizens and corporate organisations to be positively engaged in one enterprise or another. Top government functionaries have been very unhelpful when they constantly indulge in unremitting sloganeering or willfully play down the gravity of the crises plaguing the nation. Just how much longer the Nigerian governing elite would persist in willful miss-government and perversion of democratic norms remains uncertain; yet one thing is sure: disenchantment has peaked among the people of this country and the clouds are thickening. Since 1999, Nigerians have unequivocally expressed their resentment at the several anti-people policies and criminal manipulation of the electoral process which undermines the capacity of the citizens to effectively influence political developments and governance through the ballot box. To say therefore that, given the escalating wave of insecurity in the country, Nigeria is not by any means better than any of the war-torn countries amounts to begging the issue. If political unrest, turmoil, violence, conflicts and dislocations are the criteria that qualify citizens of a given country to seek asylum elsewhere as Nigerians are currently doing in large numbers, then there is a revolution in the land. It is shameful that more than fourteen years into a so-called democratic dispensation things are so bad that Nigerians are desperate to abandon their fatherland even to some less endowed countries. What is apparent is that Nigerians have lost faith in their government. Due largely to leadership failure, as government has proved utterly incapable of redemptive action, it is understandable that Nigerians are craving for change. But it is a revolution deferred, writ large!
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 04:20:18 +0000
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