There is, perhaps, no logic that has not been advanced to explain the despicable living condition nonprivileged Nigerians find themselves in today. It is needless fingering the numerous pundits explaining away the crossroads, when it is clear that the mess is the handiwork of leaders, especially those who piloted the affairs of Nigeria between 1999 to date, that thought of nothing else except enjoying petrodollars with members of their families and cronies, without thinking of the well being of the nation-state and the entire citizenry.
They never imagined oil price will crash someday; and they never factored the diversification of the economy into their reveling. With the financial crunch that has virtually crippled most states in the country and exposed the rump of their nonviability, governors have been battling to wriggle out of the mess through the privatization of everything in sight.
While Democracy Day was in full steam last May 29, the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth (ERA/FoEN) group implored Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State not to concession water infrastructure in the state, meaning that Ambode’s government wants to abdicate its responsibility to provide potable water for Lagosians.
Most parts of Lagos have not seen public water for close to eight months now. Yet the Government of Lagos State is angling to privatise water supply, a natural resource God provided for mankind that needs just the commitment of a responsible government to treat and provide free of charge or for a little fee to the people. In no time, the air Nigerians breathe would be privatised as well.
Sadly, those preaching sermons on the way out of the current Nigerian mess are the same people harping on patience and sacrifice by Nigerians, qualities that are non-existent in their calculations in and out of power; as well as rendering economic paradigms they feel would steer the nation out of the rot they left behind. It would have been better if the current generation of leaders in power understand it – the extent of rot Nigeria’s contemporary leadership has left behind – leaders most of whom benefitted from sound educational policies at home that earned them scholarships abroad.
Leaders most of whom climbed to the top and have remained there directly and indirectly at the expense of state funds and the blood of Nigerians. Leaders who preach sacrifice from Nigerian citizens but are not ready to sacrifice a thing in order to satiate their profligate lifestyles.
Last Thursday, this newspaper flashed on its front page the majestic and contemptuous photograph of the Secretary to the Oyo State Government, Mr. Olalekan Ali, fully protected by policemen recruited and paid by the Nigerian State, as he walked past members of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) protesting the botched ‘Oyo State Stakeholders Conference on the Privatisation of Secondary Schools’.
The meeting sought to address issues generated by the state government’s intention to abdicate its duty to make education reachable to ordinary Oyo State children. In the same Oyo State, the government, last year, withdrew its gesture of paying the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) registration fees for students of the state any longer, and imposed an annual Education Development Levy of N3,000 on each student with effect from the 2015/2016 Academic Session. From that same state, four years ago, was the report that a Speaker of the House of Assembly and wives of other members of the House were in London for an eight-day jamboree for a purported ‘husband support training’ that gulped about N50 million in state funds.
From Ebonyi and many other states about that period were reports that all manner of taxes were being introduced by state governments. Many states were also tinkering with the idea of concessioning public schools and hospitals to the private sector in the name of Public Private Sector Partnership (PPP). Governors of the country’s 36 states have said the payment of N18, 000 minimum wage to workers was no longer sustainable.
Their argument was that the minimum wage bill was more tolerable when oil sold for $126 per barrel than now that the price of oil has plummeted. But their prodigal lifestyle has not changed one bit. The nation’s leadership must come to terms with the fact that citizens surrendered their rights and freedoms to the state in return for state provision of their security and welfare.
It is a social responsibility imperative for any responsible state. A government that abdicates it responsibility to the governed should be prepared for the worst response in terms of civil disobedience, restiveness and insurgence from its oppressed citizens.
