Nigeria, Still Push-And-Start At 60

 By UbongAbasi Ise

Generations that born in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s were growing up shouting “NEPA” whenever the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) supplied electricity to households.  Today, there is no difference. Children still shout “NEPA” even when the agency, altogether with its appellation, were long scrapped in 2013. The cheering of NEPA is a barge of shame.  It is, in fact, a huge disgrace on the leadership to still have Nigerian children in 2020 screaming NEPA to celebrate a supply of electricity that would only last from minutes to few hours. In 2020, the anachronistic method of estimated billing is still shamelessly in use, forcing people to pay for darkness they never bargain for. This becomes a monumental pity for a country that clock 60 in an era of digital economy.

By continuing to shout NEPA after an interval of darkness, it simply means Nigeria is still oscillating in stagnation by making one step forward and one step backward. In this 21st century in which constant power is the soul of digitally-oriented economy, Nigeria is still reeling in its own made darkness, operating the crude and crook methods of the ‘90s that made the country forward never, and backward ever. Because of the epileptic power supply, some productive and industrious citizens of this country have moved their investments along with employment opportunities to other countries where the supply of electricity is constant. They manufacture their products abroad and bring them back home to sell at a higher price which would help them recoup extra costs. But far away from home, the risk is even higher. We could remember how Nigerians in Ghana helplessly watched their investments destroyed by rampaging Ghanaians. We could still remember our compatriots who lose both their lives and businesses to the xenophobic South Africans in 2019. It is a colossal regret that a once touted giant of the continent is now becoming the sick-man of Africa. Nigerians have become endangered species away from home owing to the depleting strength and poor diplomatic posture of their government. Today, Nigeria is like a grossly irresponsible 60-year old drunkard who marries many wives and gets many children whom he can’t take care of, leaving them to scatter everywhere scavenging for survival.

At 60, Nigerians are poorly protected. Global Terrorism Index 2020 places Nigeria as the third most terrorized country in the world outdone only by Afghanistan and Iraq. A country that is incapable of protecting its citizens does not worth pomp and glory associating with the anniversary celebration.

At 60, Nigeria is still not having a common voice guided by national pride and patriotism. Some ethnic groups seemed to be more Nigerian than others, hence the continued rise in ethno-religious suspicion. Every initiative and proposed law is suspected to materialize with ethnic and religious undercurrents. For example the Southerners and middle-belters today feel the new CAMA would expose the Christian institutions to the manipulation of Muslim North; the National Water Resources Bill if passed, is suspected to make accessibility to bodies of water including 3km radius from the epicenter of the water difficult for the indigenes of the communities living mostly in the Middle-belt and the South after the Federal Government might have taken over the waterways and hand them to the northern pastoralists. We could also recall recently how a governor of a northern state was disinvited to an annual conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the northern lawyers kicked and commenced a process of forming their own association.  This is an indicator to explain how divided the country is and how the citizens are redirecting patriotism to ethnic nationalism.

Nigerians are not yet enjoyed a good taste of democracy. The profound difference between Nigeria’s black-market democracy and the military rule is that the leaders rule in civilian garb instead of army uniform. They handle Nigerians like animals. Looking at almost all the top leaders since 1999, they seem to treat Nigerians like animals they are dealing with. The man from Ota was treating Nigerians the same way he has been treating those chickens at Ota farm. Otuoke man, a Ph.D holder in Zoology, was managing the country like zoo animals he was trained to keep. Now we have a Daura man, a cattle owner, who is wielding a big stick to drive us to direction only God can predict.

Today, Nigerian government is still gambling with the truth about the increase in suffering of its citizens amidst pandemic. The leaders refuse to say that they went cap in hand to IMF and World Bank begging for loan of $3.4 billion to ostensibly support Covid-19 containment effort. These Bretton Wood institutions indicated that Nigeria has inefficiencies in resources allocation and then directed our leadership to reallocate resources to more critical sector, thus leading to a demand for the removal of subsidy as well as end to the supplementation of electricity tariff shortfall that are said to have been acting as waste of resources. Our leaders do not openly tell us that it is the conditionalities of these financial institutions directing the government to remove fuel subsidy and allow the electricity tariff hike that throw the people into the current hardship.

We hail thee Nigeria at 60, but this is not a right time for celebration, it is time to strategize for a 24/7 electricity powered by cutting-edge technology which would encourage our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora to come back home to do business.

It is not time to celebrate because we never know who the terrorists might hack to death tomorrow; let’s reserve our cerebration to when the last vestiges of terrorism would be stamped out in the country.

 ©The Rights Journal