BY AFOLABI GAMBARI
Unemployment may be on the increase. However, there is a conscious effort to reverse the trend appreciably in the near future. Likewise there is hope to turnaround the insecurity towards finding a sustainable solution to the Boko Haram insurgence, banditry, kidnapping and allied criminal activities happening in many States of the Federation-north and south, east and west.
Nevertheless, when will the sustainable solution come?
If there is one country in the world today that is direly in need of good governance, such should be Nigeria. If not for anything, at least the world looks up to Nigeria to provide leadership due to its vast potentials in human and material resources as well as the solid foundation that the country’s founding fathers laid at independence, which resonated around the world.
Yet, why is good governance looking like rocket science everyday?
Hardly do many Nigerians reckon with the rather rare privilege provided by the various social media with a view to maximizing the platforms to highlight their country to the world positively. From observation spanning since May 2015, Nigerians have demonstrated on the social media that, contrary to what the world thinks, the platform has nothing much to offer.
When Punch newspaper captured on its cover page of June 25, 2019 this headline, “Herdsmen attack 11 Plateau villages, kill 86, torch 50 houses”, it was not that the nation had just witnessed the first of such carnage and arson. It has been sporadic and usually heartbreaking as hitherto peaceful communities have become theatres of wanton destruction of lives and property.
Let’s take another topical problem. African leaders have responded to the crisis of illegal migration which they have been variously described as “embarrassing” at different for a; but the reactions have been self-serving and unwholesome as they have been at best feeble and ineffective, if not altogether way off the mark. Little wonder the problem has persisted. It would indeed appear as though African leaders have ceded the right to address the crisis to their European counterparts.
Every country’s sanity revolves around food, security and shelter for its citizens. That Nigeria tethers on all these suggests dire straits as evident in the fact that the country is always at sea in determining which to tackle head-on among these three key sectors as well as the others requiring adequate attention.
Will this confusion ever end?
On a few occasions, President Muhammadu Buhari said he would jail those he called looters and thieves in government. Perhaps, only a few Nigerians now believe the President’s pledge. After all, his government has had opportunities to arrest, prosecute and jail economic and financial crimes offenders. The question is till date, how many offenders been rounded up put on trial and sent to jail? Or could it be that it is the President that is fighting corruption alone? Can we say that his body language and countenance against corruption are instilling fears of those who otherwise would have help themselves with public funds in any manner?
It is imperative to seek reasons on why government has either paid lip service to the child malnutrition that has ravaged the country, leaving over 2.5million children in great risk, especially as it puts the collective future of Nigeria in a precarious situation. Does this dreadful situation worry government?
Ignorance on the side of xenophobic South Africans met with the same ignorance on the side of Nigerians who went on looting and arson spree last week in reaction to the former’s attack on Africans in South Africa. In addition, Nigerians who called for the ‘nationalisation’ of South Africa’s assets on one side are as ignorant as the South Africans who tell foreigners to leave their country in an age where everyone needs the other and all countries have since ceased to be islands to themselves.
Where is the wisdom in one group doing what it condemned the other group of doing?
Afolabi Gambari, Journalist, Environmentalist, Social Commentator writes from Lagos, Nigeria
Tel: +2348064651922, +2348116706849
BY AFOLABI GAMBARI
Unemployment may be on the increase. However, there is a conscious effort to reverse the trend appreciably in the near future. Likewise there is hope to turnaround the insecurity towards finding a sustainable solution to the Boko Haram insurgence, banditry, kidnapping and allied criminal activities happening in many States of the Federation-north and south, east and west.
Nevertheless, when will the sustainable solution come?
If there is one country in the world today that is direly in need of good governance, such should be Nigeria. If not for anything, at least the world looks up to Nigeria to provide leadership due to its vast potentials in human and material resources as well as the solid foundation that the country’s founding fathers laid at independence, which resonated around the world.
Yet, why is good governance looking like rocket science everyday?
Hardly do many Nigerians reckon with the rather rare privilege provided by the various social media with a view to maximizing the platforms to highlight their country to the world positively. From observation spanning since May 2015, Nigerians have demonstrated on the social media that, contrary to what the world thinks, the platform has nothing much to offer.
When Punch newspaper captured on its cover page of June 25, 2019 this headline, “Herdsmen attack 11 Plateau villages, kill 86, torch 50 houses”, it was not that the nation had just witnessed the first of such carnage and arson. It has been sporadic and usually heartbreaking as hitherto peaceful communities have become theatres of wanton destruction of lives and property.
Let’s take another topical problem. African leaders have responded to the crisis of illegal migration which they have been variously described as “embarrassing” at different for a; but the reactions have been self-serving and unwholesome as they have been at best feeble and ineffective, if not altogether way off the mark. Little wonder the problem has persisted. It would indeed appear as though African leaders have ceded the right to address the crisis to their European counterparts.
Every country’s sanity revolves around food, security and shelter for its citizens. That Nigeria tethers on all these suggests dire straits as evident in the fact that the country is always at sea in determining which to tackle head-on among these three key sectors as well as the others requiring adequate attention.
Will this confusion ever end?
On a few occasions, President Muhammadu Buhari said he would jail those he called looters and thieves in government. Perhaps, only a few Nigerians now believe the President’s pledge. After all, his government has had opportunities to arrest, prosecute and jail economic and financial crimes offenders. The question is till date, how many offenders been rounded up put on trial and sent to jail? Or could it be that it is the President that is fighting corruption alone? Can we say that his body language and countenance against corruption are instilling fears of those who otherwise would have help themselves with public funds in any manner?
It is imperative to seek reasons on why government has either paid lip service to the child malnutrition that has ravaged the country, leaving over 2.5million children in great risk, especially as it puts the collective future of Nigeria in a precarious situation. Does this dreadful situation worry government?
Ignorance on the side of xenophobic South Africans met with the same ignorance on the side of Nigerians who went on looting and arson spree last week in reaction to the former’s attack on Africans in South Africa. In addition, Nigerians who called for the ‘nationalisation’ of South Africa’s assets on one side are as ignorant as the South Africans who tell foreigners to leave their country in an age where everyone needs the other and all countries have since ceased to be islands to themselves. Where is the wisdom in one group doing what it condemned the other group of doing?
Afolabi Gambari, Journalist, Environmentalist, Social Commentator writes from Lagos, Nigeria Tel: +2348064651922, +2348116706849