By Ashiat Meikudi
Our nation is greeted with daily vices and trepidation, where cats have stopped meowing, horses no longer neigh and in fact mooing becomes difficult for cows. Sheeps find it hard to bleat, bulls see bellowing as herculean, ducks quack no more, donkeys have long abandoned braying, geese have forgotten how to cackle, chickens can’t cluck again and peacocks no longer fancy screaming.
We anticipate the arrival of a savior to repair our staggering ship, from year to year, decade to decade and a century dovetailing into the next, yet our curiosity remains.
Our cries as Nigerians lie in not appreciating the beautification and buoyant blessing of our nation. We have everything in making a rich and affluent nation: gold, crude oil, butment, limestone among others. Sadly, we are also blessed with clueless leaders who have no flow of humanity.
After Nigeria took the reins of her affairs and stopped being a British colony in 1960, agriculture was the backbone of the country’s economy but had now shifted to oil exploration. Meanwhile, as a nation of self-delusion, the dependence on oil revenue to finance national development has made Nigeria’s economy highly susceptible to oil price volatility.
The decline in oil revenues in 2015 made the Nigerian government seek economic diversification and has identified agriculture as one of key options. There has also been significant progress in the Telecoms industry which seems to carry the weight of employment in Nigeria.
A report from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that Nigeria’s economy grew 1.81 percent in the third quarter of 2018. Under review, the country recorded an average daily oil production of 1.94 million barrels per day, lower than the average daily output of 2.2 million barrels per day. The oil sector contributed 9.38 percent to real GDP in the third quarter of 2018, while the non-oil sector added 90.62 percent. The non-oil sector grew by 2.32% during the third quarter, driven mainly by the Telecoms industry, in addition to agriculture, manufacturing, Trade, transportation and storage, as well as professional, scientific and technical Services. Despite the rhetoric on economic diversification, crude oil still accounts for an 81.1 percent share in Nigeria’s total exports.
Our cries as Nigerians lie on the feeble competence of our leaders to curtail the insecurity leprosy. Today, you walk with one eye in front and glimpse at the back with the other. To sleep at one’s home comes with a shriek of being attacked or kidnapped.
The system of government is not necessarily the problem but the objects that operate the system. Democracy curtails autocracy, thereby letting the will of the people represent them.
I believe Nigeria found the perfect system of government that suits her garment of diversity, but as Yoruba sayings, “kokoro ti nje efo inu efo nii gbe” , meaning;the insect that eats vegetables live inside it. But it is only neocolonialism that has eaten deep into the system.
Lastly, Our cries lie on the peril of fate we resorted ourselves to. We sit down bemoaning over the ruination of our nation. All we do is desperation to leave Nigeria just for any other nation in the globe which has taken the form of anxious, nerve-wracking pursuit of self-preservation and this is colloquially captured in the Yoruba word “Japa”. Which means “to run, flee, or escape” from danger. Instead of sitting and thinking on how to toss our country’s misfortune and end the daily storm, we’re dying to the Nation.
I believe that, as hopeless as the country may seem today, Nigeria is not absolutely beyond redemption. Critical, yes, but not entirely hopeless. But every single day of continued negligence brings the country ever closer to the brink of the abyss. To halt the scourge is to let unity prevail, any form of diversity; tribalism, nepotism should be ignored. For ‘Togetherness is more powerful than Individuality’.