Logic can never be ignored in politics if positive results must be achieved by the Country, failure to apply logic and logical reasoning enable poor decisions that make people susceptible to poor judgement as being witnessed presently in the society. Logic is the art of reasoning and thinking in conformity with the limitations and incapacities of human misunderstanding. You can’t throw logic to the winds and expect proper appraisal of situations, especially when external influence indirectly control the economy of the nation. If the assertion that readers and leaders is correct, it then implied that Nigeria was a nation envied globally at the era when educated folks were mostly readers, which equally implies that the major challenges of this Country today was birthed by poor reading ability among majority of educated folks in this generation, this to a great extent has affected quality of reasoning required in genuine nation building. According to Roger Bacon, reasoning draws a conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience. Aristotle further explained that the duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or system to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument or follow a long chain of reasoning.
Causes of poverty are attributed to changing trends in the economy of a Country going by global standard, associated with high rate of unemployment, job loss and lack of basic needs by the people. Considering our enormous resources in Nigeria, the Country ought to be self-independent but due to lack of ideology for National Development and building of National Interest, sense of tribalism and racial affinity promoted federal character and quota system at the expense of merit and competence, which has denied the Country people from seeing ourselves as one. Admitting that Nigerians are poor, the blame for poverty or disorderliness in the polity is a shared blame among all tiers and arms of government in Nigeria, as a matter of fact, the residual blame goes to the State Government as the allocation to Local Governments pass through the State Governors same way the budgetary allocation to State Assemblies and Judiciaries pass through them. Aside basic economic regulations and supervision of security agencies, under federalism, the State Governors takes appropriate charge of governance at the grass root level then why passing the bulk of blame on the President.
Indeed there is a federation account where monthly allocations are distributed according to specific model and designs, when the State Governors are seriously exhibiting fraudulent practices in the utilisation of the funds and other intervention funds not to mention the internally generated revenues, the complicity of residents of States that applaud their dubious Governors that failed to provide for basic amenities but pass the bulk of blame on the President speak volume of hypocricy in our society and main reason why the one star rogue is taking the lead. Majority of former Governors were indicted by Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission and Security Agencies for abuse of office, misappropriation of funds and executive recklessness. Though many of them still occupy sensitive positions due to the weakness of prosecutions or lack of political will to secure committals against them, due to their acquisition of followership and paid agents that protect them and makes their prosecution pick semblance with persecution. In the advance Countries we are trying to emulate, any politician or citizen with a baggage of corruption allegations rarely get appointed or elected into political offices and those Countries have controlled numbers of political parties. At the last count, Nigeria has 91 Political Parties of which majority among them lack acceptability to win seats in House of Assemblies Elections but disturb our political space with so much mischief at the expense of national growth.
There are many rogues among the political leaders across the divides but one star rogue is the current Senate President Bukola Saraki whose inordinate ambition served the basement for the frustration of the present administration in the anti-corruption crusade. He and his cronies have rubbished our judicial system through different unmerited acquittals for series of obvious financial crimes and abuse of office. Much information are available in the public domain on the poor state of infrastructures and poor welfare of residents of Kwara State under the leadership of Senator Bukola Saraki who is the delight of notable crafty politicians surrounding his perilous ambition to emerge as the President of Nigeria, but confidential source revealed that the residence of Senator Bukola Saraki earlier constructed for him by the Kwara State Government was purportedly put on sale and the fund remitted to Senator Bukola Saraki, how he still maintained ownership of the house is a question for unsuspecting members of the public in love with the star rogue.
American President – Donald Trump in the use of grandiloquence referred to President Muhammadu Buhari as lifeless and some mischievous Nigerians found a delectable campaign motivation in the fallacy, a global report classified Nigeria as the world headquarters of poverty, the opposition found a campaign slogan to cajole the unsuspecting populace to oppose continuity of a President under whose reign the global report was declared. Going by rhetoric and logic, Nigerian President visited his American counterpart recently and in the evaluation of the bilateral discussions on market and trade among the duo, Nigeria President considered the option of a better deal with the China President – Yuan Naira deal to develop our economy which has opened further Chinese investment in Nigeria. If poverty is an expression of lack of basic needs, then Americans must be very poor for the trade proposals being discussed with Nigeria and other Countries. America sponsored wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and so on, to hijack the control of oil in the middle east and indirectly foisted leadership on several other Countries in Africa and Asia to expand their grip as world power.
So long as peculiar needs of the people differfrom communities to communities and the wishes and aspirations of the people differ accordingly. We can’t have a global measure for poverty, our lacks are not similar, so the yardstick for measuring poverty can never be the same. Before the advent of civilisation, hunger was basically alien to Nigerians, social amenities and education were our major challenges, now that basic amenities are addressed to a reasonable extent, instead of total concentration of ensuring quality health, education, portable water and sincerity in governance, our competition with Countries that battled with our current fate over 80years ago and succeed created our major crisis today. Had Nigerians understood that hasting to meet up with development in advanced Countries might hinder our space for development, issue causing anxieties in the society would have been easily resolved. Democracy is the most decent form of government that guarantees growth and development in accordance to the wishes, yearnings and aspirations of the people, but a situation where the conduct of vast population among the people promotes crimes and economic sabotage, democracy becomes endangered as it no longer protects the supremacy of government to curb crimes and guarantee growth and development of the people. As at May 29, 1999, records shows that exchange rate was around #30 to $1 and as at May 29, 2015, it rose to #234 to $1. A bag of 50kg of rice was #800 in 1999 and #8,000 in 2015 while most of the agencies and companies that sustained the economic growth prior to 1999 such as NITEL, NEPA, Nigeria Railway Corporation, NEPA, Machine Tools, Steel Rolling, Textile and many others were either privatized or went moribund before 2015. Nigerians mostly tolerated the government in power that facilitated the ruin of the economy through looting, abuse of abuse and promotion of crimes through neglect of welfare of security agencies.
This generation tilt more towards extreme colloquial manner in communication, colloquial has strangely affected literal expressions to a degree where our literary works no longer conform to quality thoughts and actions, which were the focus for a brighter and great nation the first generation of political leaders anticipated in the struggle for an independent Nigeria. Some thirty five years ago, rarely would you had a conversation with people educated to an equivalent of today’s secondary school leaver without respecting their excellent communication skills with big vocabularies? Educated folks above 60 years of age today mostly possess good command of English Language compare to educated folks below 40 years of age today. According to Abraham Lincoln “a capacity and taste for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others”, in real essence, reading broadens horizon, sharpen perspectives and improve understanding. The fact that colloquial has override good communications, slangs have replaced idiomatic expressions and wishful thinking has replaced truism, that fact is responsible for judgement inimical to growth and development of Nigeria. The best of brains seems helpless in the compelling tasks to ensure morality becomes the ultimate determinant of people’s actions and inactions.
Young Nigerians seems to have been brainwashed to a degree where morality no longer appeal to many in the cause of their livelihood as seen in the unimaginable rate of crimes of all kinds in our societies. Alas, individuals frown at attitudes of others unfavourable to their expectations, but care less when their actions place others at great disadvantages. In the regular search for daily bread, most people fend for themselves trespassing on others resources, because of inalienable rights we hold supreme, ignoring the pointers of inequalities guaranteed by restrictions from individual’s possession to others. We are all citizens of a country where blanket letterings provides responsibilities of government to the people and guarantee citizens’ rights and privileges but the people fails to be law abiding or connive with law breakers to escape prosecution, the government is already placed in a jeopardy. What we witness in Nigeria today is a conflict between forces in love with absolute freedom to behave without caution or irrationally in the cause of leadership over the governed even at the expense of their welfares and those seeking a departure from absolute freedom to an era where probity and accountability will prevail in the society.
High powered campaign machinations have been devised by the Peoples’ Democratic Party to dislodge the ruling party from government in 2019 with the return of the rogue star and his crafty allies back to their fold, playing on the psyche of the people hoping for immediate turnaround of the economy. Though our Statistics is inaccurate in Nigeria, but a simple summation of minimum of two hundred thousand corps members’ turnout and average of four hundred thousand graduates, average of five hundred thousand National and Ordinary Diploma Certificate Holders and over one million five hundred thousand secondary school leavers every year in a Country with far lesser provision for white collar jobs and fewer viable private sector employment, which implies that the remedy towards solving unemployment challenges is boost of entrepreneurship, advancement of small and medium scale enterprises. The major hindrance against entrepreneurship and small and medium scale enterprises in Nigeria is not finance per se but pride and ego among majority of educated folks that view certificate acquisition as status above trade and small businesses, they rate it as peasantry, undeserving and non-classical for their graduate status and meant for uneducated or lesser educated folks.
When everyone want to live big without starting low, it spell doom for the Country, with over 91 political parties and indescribable volumes of aspirants for elective offices, one can only indulge President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure he emerged for a second term in office no matter it takes to avoid a situation where the one star rogue and his ilk to gain opportunity to derail the templates already placed on ground for returning sanity to the polity. It is an open knowledge that majority of the abandoned projects inherited from the inglorious rule of the Peoples’ Democratic Party are mostly near completion and trust is returning to governance at the Federal Government level under President Muhammadu Buhari with the implementation of Treasury Single Account, Improved Internally Generated Revenue, Economic Diversification through agriculture and mining, accountability and effective service delivery already yielding desired results in transport and works sector of the economy. In the past, the use of the word CIA agents among top political office holders was prominent and conscious Nigerians understood the implications to the growth and development of Nigeria. Now that we are no longer conscious of what it means to be under the indirect rules of world powers through indigenous CIA agents, one star rogue should be investigated with the recent polishing of his image by western media and local paid agents.
Whenever the image of a Country’s leadership is consistently disparaged by the western press and local civil society organizations are well mobilized to protest every attempt of government to curb indiscipline among political office holders, the educated folks should reason beyond sentimental interest and affinity, there must be serious conflict between the rule of law and national security, the most annoying situation is that no advance country toy with national security and the only item that has ensure sanity in their clime is national security above the rule of law, when the situation arises.
Comrade AbdulRahman Agboola
Former President, National Youth Council of Nigeria
E-mail: waledgreatking@yahoo.com
