by Hf Dauda MoiSoro
How do you define a Nation where Schools have become prime reserves for hostages; emptied by Kidnappers confident that they will receive their ransom demand in full. Watched by security forces incapable of any bravery and unconcerned about the suffering of our children?
Can you explain why (almost) every Nigerian is suspicious that there are connivers within the security services, who have abandoned their duties and become beneficiaries of the unconscionable endeavour of using our children as bargaining chips.
How do you define a Nation where every critical business survives only on the amount of government patronage it can buy or the connection it possesses with the powers that be. Or can you explain why we have businesses without any plan or ethics, where pricing of goods and services is determined by the wishes of the product manufacturers, the shopkeepers, or the services providers.
We have a capitalist economy that does not respect market forces! Instead, it is operated by the conspiratorial activities of the industry merchants, who gleefully force prices on Nigerians that are unaffordable within any legitimate income level.
Ours is land plagued by the disappearance of the most critical industries due to numerous obstacles in the path of all businesses while the government is busy removing every subsidy imaginable so that it can attract foreign investors, by killing local investors.
Now we have become a Nation cheering foreigners for making promises ‘they will invest millions of dollars’ when we have ‘billions of dollars buried in the ground’, either through vacant real estate developments, or via cash hidden in houses and some sitting dormant in our banks because the bankers find value only in collecting deposits instead of disbursing loans for ‘nation building’.
How do you explain a Nation that is afraid of breaking into small tribal pieces, but always threatening that breaking is the best course of action for all?
How do you explain a Nation that is individually lawless, each citizen a classic model of irresponsible behavior, but always pointing fingers at their leaders as the worst human beings?
How do you explain a Nation that is driving around in N200 million Naira vehicles and flying around in Hundreds of million dollar jets, but cannot provide chairs and tables for their children in a classroom that has, no ceilings, no windows and without doors?
The national journey is like a river. It runs from the underdeveloped, through the developing, to a developed country. It is usually very dark, murky, insecure, full of terrors and littered with rapids of penury.
The West, especially their agents at the IMF and the World Bank, see Nigeria as ill-equipped intellectually, unprepared materially, or industrially to navigate our way to a developed nation.
They perpetually tell us they know what is best for us! They are always wrong. We need just One leader to shame them. One leader who devote singular focus to the cause of Nigeria. One leader who will not be swayed by the injustices of the past or the partial exigencies of personality politics. Not to be swayed by his tribe, his corrupt allegiances, or his religious sentiments. Not be swayed by any cabal, or his region or greed or politics! A leader who is not swayed by anything and everything except that which is absolutely best for Nigeria!!
Do we have such today or must we wait for the future to deliver such a leader!?
Remember what General Murtala said – “Africa has come of age…It should no longer take orders from any country, however powerful…For too long has it been presumed that the African needs outside ‘experts’ to tell him who are his friends and who are his enemies…we can decide for ourselves…we know our own interests and how to protect those interests…’’
Murtala saw what is good for Africa and boldly told the world. He made the most important foreign policy speech any Nigerian leader had ever made, and Nigerians were walking Ten feet tall. Africans listened and took their destiny in own hands. It is the reason why Southern Africa is free; and most likely the reason Murtala did live past Dimka’s bullet!
We need a leader who can see Nigeria in clear terms, boldly tell the world that we know what is good for us, remove the constant meddling by the IMF, The World Bank, Bretton woods, and similar exploitation agencies, so that NIGERIA can create a path and navigate the rivers of development and wealth for our people and our Nation.
We have every reason to believe that President TINUBU is capable of making Nigeria great if he consistently reviews and reshape policies that are working and dispense those that are failing with vigor!
Meanwhile, we have an unprecedented budget fraud. The National Assembly has appropriated N370 billion on running costs, ambiguous and duplicated projects in the 2024 Budget. This not counting the hundreds of billions of naira they padded into ministries, departments and agencies, but this is what they have budgeted for their welfare and the operation of the National Assembly. In the N370 billion NASS budget, the lawmakers duplicated projects and created new, unnecessary projects that increased the budget from N170billion in 2023 to N370 billion this year.
Yet we are told the government must remove electricity tariff or Nigerian will fall into darkness in three months. Here is additional N200 billion shared between 469 individuals, so that the govt can raise our electricity tariff from 70 to 225 naira per kwh! It is shameful. And it must be corrected.
Nigerians and our leaders see the Western world as our friends and partners. But the West see us as potential challengers on the African continent, and they are busy building far reaching networks of subversion against Nigeria, which includes but not limited to eavesdropping on govt communications, financial espionage on leading Nigerians, support and funding of subversive groups and insurgents, sponsoring of divisive propaganda among the disparate groups in Nigeria and the use of visa blackmail to induce and coerce high ranking Nigerians into acting in favour of Western interests.
It is a camouflaged policy of containment. And nobody can blame them for protecting their own interests. What Nigerian leaders must understand is to match their wits by thwarting their activities and act simultaneously to protect our own interests. A Nation becomes great by fighting the negative forces arrayed against it and building the forces of positive development. But first, we must understand who is who!
The Nigerian President of today is more powerful than the military Dictator of the past and even of the future. But the president needs to understand when to negotiate, when to be forceful and when to compromise. The times of being forceful on endemic corruption and gluttonous waste is now! The time for compromise and negotiation is also now. He must mitigate the brutal suffering currently visited on most Nigerians. The President will enjoy the support of most Nigerians if they are convinced that he is singularly focused on what is best for Nigerians, without policies that manufacture undue pain and agony!
A change of course on many new policies is exceedingly overdue. Is the President listening? I believe he is.
Hf Dauda MoiSoro.
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