By Meikudi Ashiat
Nigeria’s problem has never been the absence of solutions to its problems, it has always been the absence of the will to implement the solutions that can mitigate its problems.
Nigeria is blessed with clueless leaders where those in the realm of controlling the nation’s affairs have feeble competence to curtail the insecurity and leprosy despite the daily dropping of lives.
In Nigeria today ‘You walk with one eye front and a glimpse at back with the other. To sleep at one’s home comes with a shriek of being attacked or kidnapped. ‘Nowhere as peaceful as home’ but that’s an ancient cliché, the abode is now a hostage of bandits, kidnappers, terrorists, and the like; Àwon apani lékún jayé’ (those living in joy destroying others…).
Our nation is greeted with daily fear and trepidation. What we have is a nation of inflammatory storms on means of survival and daily dropping of lives. Nigerians are battling with the predicament of insurgency, poverty, and a spike in daily consumption.
The World Bank claimed that Nigeria’s poverty rate, rose from 40 percent in 2018 to 46 percent this year, as the number of poor people increased from 79 million to 104 million.
According to the report, more people have fallen below the poverty line due to sluggish growth and rising inflation.
Sluggish growth and rising inflation have increased poverty from 40 percent in 2018 to 46 percent in 2023, pushing an additional 24 million people below the national poverty line.
Here we are now stuck in agony, depression, and security threatened. North to south, the road to the farm and the pathway to the stream are strewn with terror of bandits, kidnappers, armed robbery, and terrorists. Kidnapping for ransom has taken afront the ravenous threat in the country.
Who is not afraid to venture out anywhere today? People can’t work; the poverty queue lengthens; the oedipus cycle remains unbroken yet the flame remains glowing.
Education has been made herculean for Nigerians. To describe Nigeria’s educational system as sick is a gross understatement. At all levels, the system that is entrusted to produce the next generation of scientists and engineers to help Nigeria compete in the global stage, is in a critical condition, hanging precariously on life support.
I believe that as hopeless as Nigeria may seem today, it is not absolutely beyond redemption.
Critical, yes, but not entirely hopeless. But every single day of continued neglect, and negligence brings her ever closer to the brink of the abyss.