IN 1999, after retiring soldiers he believed were politically, Obasanjo preached the gospel of professionalism in the Nigerian Army to the remaining soldiers in the barracks, advising those who wished to practise politics to voluntarily resign from the army. The overall result is the longest period of civil rule in Nigeria (25 years) which has endured till today.
If Obasanjo’s government was a Greek play, his hamartia, or tragic flaw, would be his ambition and attempt to solve too many problems of Nigeria within eight years. In addition to the other three problems mentioned earlier, he also picked up and solved the GSM problem. But tragically, he threw $16 billion into the power sector without any appreciable result.
The truth is, no one government can solve all the problems of a country, not even all the key problems. But every government should be able to solve one or two key problems.
It is a sign of dearth of ideas and incompetence for a government to budget multiple billions of naira to feed school children on holidays when there is no electricity, and people, including the school children, are being kidnapped and sometimes murdered. That amounts to escapism – an avoidance of the real problems.
An administration that lacks ideas and competence is usually seen rolling out long lists of nondescript and nebulous agenda that make evaluation of its achievements difficult.
In Nigeria today, power supply is a major problem. Insecurity of lives and property, corruption, consumption without production, restructuring, etc., are other critical areas that require immediate attention. If this present government can pick just one, let us say, electric power supply, and fix the problem, Nigerians will be happy and adjudge the administration as successful, even if it did nothing else.
How can N10 billion be voted for the National Assembly car parks and recreation centre in a country where many public schools have no roofs over the heads of students and no seats in the overcrowded classrooms? A look at our annual budgets in the past 20 years will show how frivolous those who manage our affairs are, their penchants for burying their heads in the sand like ostriches and engaging in white elephant projects designed to distract people from holding them accountable for their failures in solving the country’s major problems.
Government must stop playing to the gallery if it is serious in building and bequeathing to the younger generation a country all of us can be proud of.
){kind=link}
0 Comments