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Nigeria In One Minute

The trouble with Nigeria

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Chinua Achebe,,that literary giant, first attempted to explain the trouble with Nigeria. After looking very critically at the contending forces, the challenges and the very real sordid situations that pervaded that era, he came up with the conclusion that the trouble with Nigeria is the failure of leadership.

For me nothing better explains the present cluelessness that continues to waft around policy making and execution. Our woes are even more compounded with the recession we have found ourselves in. The Minister of Finance has told us that we are technically in recession, and this does not come to a keen watcher of the Nigerian debacle as a shock. What with the thousands who are loosing their jobs daily, the myriad of people who are daily going without food, the collapse of industry and the massive fall of the middle class which was created by the Obasanjo regime with the opening up of the economy .

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Today, more than ever before, we need a leadership with very clear and focussed approach to the issues that face our economy. A leadership that can rise above the parsimonious condition that comes with ethnicity in building a robust team that would face the challenges squarely. This is very far from the ethnic-driven selection of helmsmen who have only but shown that they remain true only to the narrow prisms of tribal manifestations in the carrying out of their duties.

This situation further compounds our issues as in choosing helms men, capacity and ability is sacrificed on the throne of ethnicity. For how do you explain the composition and abrogation of appointments heavily tilting towards one side of the country. It is like one part of the nation must be compensated no matter what.

We would have not been mindful of all of this after all we are all Nigerians, but the parlous situation of the Nigerian situation especially as it affects our economy, our political cohesion and other social economic manifestation makes one worry as to how, for heaven’s sake, we would be able to wade through these stormy times with less than capable helmsmen steering our national boat.

We all came out to vote for change. Yes, the election was won massively by votes from one end of the country but we all screamed change from the Sahara desert to the Niger delta. The country belongs to us all and this must be shown in the sharing of appointments if geographical spread is the main criteria for appointments. But get me right, if capacity and experience is the main category, I do not care if all members of the Federal Executive Council is from Uyo as long as they can deliver.

My tears are for what we have seen so far from this government and the continued slide into economic infamy culminating in the IMF position on our negative growth rate and the Minister’ admission that we are technically in a recession.

Now is the time to bring out our best hands, now is the time to seek for international help. 170million lives depend on this .

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