How will history judge Nigeria’s leaders? History will judge them harshly for inaction, for sycophancy, for malfeasance, for causing the death of hope in a nation that’s mourning an ignoble tradition.
The dearth of political leadership continues to impact the daily overall social condition for both the rich and poor in Nigeria. The five years of President Mohammadu Buhari’s administration and the past few months of the coronavirus pandemic have exposed just how much a nation’s administrative capacity and a person’s infection hinges on both class and leadership.
Though people of all incomes are at risk of being affected economically, it also brings to light the devastating impact on people, the absence of effective government response could engender. The deficiency of authentic voices in Nigeria governance and political discourse compels Nigerians — of all ethnic and religious stripes — to depend on the dominant, crass if-you-can’t-beat-them-join-them themed pedestrian reflections for insights in both civil rights and responsibilities and governance as well as accountability matters.
Consequently, the full import of concerted, well-organized citizen empowerment measures and overall progressive development vision that such authentic reflections might offer is lost on the final recipients—the Nigerian populace.
No reliable employment data as measure of how the government is doing; even data on basic indices of development and overall people’s wellbeing.
Why is that so? The reason is not far-fetched; Nigeria’s post-independence political discourse carries with them perennial ethnoreligious sensibilities that often are not accessible to the non-perception “eye.” Almost devoid of essential, empathic nationalistic sensitivity, these unimaginative interpretations, therefore, hardly prove liberating for the common Nigerian.
But will the political environment change in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic? I doubt it.
Here is why: unfortunately: the status quo will return sooner than the dust settles after the pandemic. The reality of the situation in Nigeria is that the vast majority don’t have jobs. The low-income workers who still have jobs, meanwhile, will continue to survive through engagement in other sources of income to supplement a government-mandated minimum monthly salary that varies by state. The political conversation and reports of “so called” democracy dividend is largely framed in banal exhortations of this or that government program or, as is typical, the flagging off construction of a new asphalt-paved road. No reliable employment data as measure of how the government is doing; even data on basic indices of development and overall people’s wellbeing.
The political conversation and reports of “so called” democracy dividend is largely framed in banal exhortations of this or that government program or, as is typical, the flagging off construction of a new asphalt-paved road.
Meanwhile, Nigerians face some of the greatest hard times ahead –massive unemployment, grossly inadequate power supply, poor healthcare management, rudderless political leadership, and overall insecurity. The private sector –businesses, traders, industrialists –are about the only place Nigerians still hinge hope for real progress. Government, on the other hand –both federal and state, still are privileged sites of public largess dispensed by greedy and corrupt politicians as political patronage. A vision (recorded by social media) and seen throughout a vast nation of an estimated 200 million people.
My inboxes are filled up with video clips or pictures of outcries from Nigerian citizens, workers at big government parastatals, offices, markets, hospitals, and private companies who say their employers are not protecting or taking care of them.
Our problems continue and the debate about solution rages. Among Nigeria’s diaspora, there is nothing more convulsive than groping with the problems confronting their ancestral land. Never a people to be wanting in boldness or lacking in argumentation, many level-headed Nigerians have even been caught suggesting maybe the colonial past was better than the independent present. Finding a lasting solution to their country’s development problems is like groping towards elusive concepts; no solution or pontification belies those who will be as angered by their own helplessness as by their country’s hopelessness.
The international community — G20 finance ministers, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank plan to offer necessary assistance when they meet for online spring conferences. The Guardian UK reports that “More than 80 poor and middle-income countries have already written to the IMF seeking urgent financial help. So far, additional loans have been made available to governments desperately needing to boost healthcare capacity.”
Nigerians must not sit and wait for the international community to come to their rescue. Good if and when the help eventually arrives. But the hope of a country like shouldn’t be hinged on foreign assistance. Nigeria, through concerted actions, must change the awful situation they find themselves under. With increased consciousness of incarnating the social activism lucked within the social agency of a people, the historic roles of cultural agents — women as well as men — can no longer be ignored.
Nigeria sits at the precipices of yet another test of a nation’s character and must embrace rational political reforms that will engender progressive social changes beyond platitudes. The coronavirus jolt, and it’s a monumental jolt, whose challenges if tackled with collective resolve and leadership might offer hope for the future. Nigeria’s vast resources –both human and natural, need to be deployed (with measured support of the international community) in her attempt to build social institutions that reconcile her diversity while protecting basic human rights and freedom.
A popular Igbo adage asserts that Ta bu gbo; loosely translated, it says that “today is yesterday which awaits our action, for a better future.”
Much as the crippling challenges occasioned by coronavirus crisis formed the crux of the deliberations Nigerians should have, this crisis could not have been more appropriate as we anticipate a bold national action to flow from the aftermath of the coronavirus.
The vast social media landscape is replete with opinions and commentaries about what will become of political leadership now that the individual many Nigerians considered the de facto president is no more.
This week saw the death —from complications resulting from coronavirus infection — of Mallam Abba Kyari the enigmatic and highly influential Chief of Staff to President Mohammadu Buhari. The vast social media landscape is replete with opinions and commentaries about what will become of political leadership now that the individual many Nigerians considered the de facto president is no more. This dominant sentiment exposes the vast abyss that’s political leadership in Nigeria.
Unfortunately, and as the coronavirus crisis continue to unfold, there has thus far been an inexcusable absence of national leadership in Nigeria. Those politicians who occupy federal and state leadership positions bear the brunt of the blame for a lackluster response to a devastating global pandemic.
How will history judge Nigeria’s leaders? History will judge them harshly for inaction, for sycophancy, for malfeasance, for causing the death of hope in a nation that’s mourning an ignoble tradition.
♦ Professor Chris Chinwe Ulasi, Ph.D. is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News.
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