Deep Thought with Othman

The year 2023 is an election and a special year for the country, and indeed the whole of Africa. Nigerians will have another democratic opportunity to elect leaders who will govern the nation at the states and federal levels.

The current level of decadence, uncertainty, the threat of balkanization, arms proliferation has gradually and steadily made the Nigerian project sinking into the abyss of poverty, hopelessness, insecurity, and deprivation.

From Abuja, the Federal Capital down to the smallest village, people sleep with both eyes open for fear of looming and devastating insecurity. A village teacher in the northwest recently lamented that his fear of night marauders is daily heightened from 7 pm till 5 am.  While the situation profiteers and prophets of doom are trying to actualise their evil machination of making Nigeria not to see 2023, we, the masses must be determined to make Nigeria last for eternity. The time for 2023 preparation is now.

Already, the political elites who parasitically live in and on Nigeria through dubious means have regrouped and started a campaign of calumny and diversionary, clamouring for Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, the northern or southern presidency. Nigerians must shine their eyes and reject tribal presidency, which has been responsible for the current situation in Nigeria. The tribal presidency is a kind of country leadership in which nepotism and mediocrity are the major consideration for the nomination, election, and appointment of political office holders and key positions for the country’s stride to progress.

Tribal leaders are egocentric with a tendency of primitive wealth accumulation and self-promotional above national interest. Under tribal leadership, appointments are made based on ethnic, religious, cultural, and brotherhood at the expense of merit, experience, exposure, dedication, innovative capacity, and foresight. In the end, huge resources are squandered in governance with little or no result to show.

From the year independence to date, Nigeria might not have experienced a complete and wholesome tribal presidency but has suffered significant elements of tribal leadership as shreds of evidence are glaringly staring at us. The pieces of evidence include the inability of the nation to adequately and sustainably supply electric power to the country despite expending billions, if not trillions of Naira over the years.

Portable water supply to all is a mirage and beyond government capability. The nation cannot achieve a good road network linking cities without potholes. Education and healthcare services are decimally being attended, Nigerians who can afford to pay for such services consult private sectors. These are the easiest developmental goals being achieved in smaller and relatively poor resource countries within Africa. Countries like Morocco, Ghana, Togo, even war-ravaged Sudan have an uninterrupted supply of electricity in all the cities I visited in 2018.

Come 2023, Nigerians should not be sold a dummy and should be so determined to upturn the ugly trend with our votes. The next president can come from any tribe or region or religion as long as he would overhaul the Nigerian system to create massive employment for our restive youths, and provide reliable electricity, potable water, needed security, infrastructure, and galvanize industrial revolution.

He should be able to present a transparent blueprint and strategy that can address myriad challenges militating against nation-building. Having a presidency from one’s region or state does not confer a special advantage to the region or state that is why presidency rotation is a sham. In fact, ‘presidency rotation’ is another form of tribal presidency in which the major determining factor is the region of the candidate. What a fallacy.

To emphasise the uselessness of ‘presidency rotation’ between the north and the south, I must provide a vivid example of my knowledge and experience. I am among the so-called ‘Hausa-Fulani’ extractions from Katsina state. In the current political dispensation, Katsina state is privileged to have produced two presidents; Umaru Musa Yaradua of blessed memory and the current President, Muhammadu Buhari.

Additionally, the state produced a Speaker of the National Assembly, at one time who is currently the Governor of the state, Alhaji Bello Masari. Today, what are the special privileges being enjoyed by Katsina people? Are the infrastructural developments in Katsina state, and the whole north better than those in the southern states? The answer is emphatical NO. Katsina state and indeed the rest of the north has an unsurmountable catalogue of insecurities causing sleepiness nights.

Generally, the northern region recorded more presidents and Heads of State than the southern region, but the poverty is more and alarmingly devastating in the north than in the south. The Statistics of the 2019 poverty headcount rate of Nigeria indicated the northern states with high percentages compared to the southern states.

Katsina recorded 56%, Sokoto, Taraba, and Jigawa all had 87% poverty rates, Adamawa – 75%, Zamfara – 74%, Gombe – 62%, Bauchi – 61%. However, except for Ebonyi and Enugu states with poverty rates of 79% and 58%, respectively, all the southern states had less than 40% poverty rate. The lowest poverty rate was that of Lagos state with 4.5%. The next state with a low poverty rate was Delta state – 6%, followed by Osun state – 8.5%, Ogun state -9.3%, Oyo state -9.8%, Edo state -12%, and Ondo state – 12.5%.

So, Nigerians must reject tribal presidency, as it will not help the majority of Nigerians except the few political elites who use it to grasp the position of power and means of aggrandizement of our commonwealth. It helps to produce mediocre political officeholders.

Thus, Political office holding to the few political elites has become a tool for self-service rather than the opportunity to serve the nation credibly under tribal leadership. We must choose a good leader with the capability of taking the country out of the woods.

Come 2023, our next president’s children should attend public primary, secondary schools, and universities here in Nigeria. He and his family should not fly out of the country for health challenges, and the same situation should apply to governors, ministers, and members of the National Assembly. This way, we will be forced to equip our schools and hospitals to international standards.

Our next president should invest 20% of his government’s annual budget in education, 10% in agriculture, 10% in health, and 20% in infrastructural development. May God bless Nigeria.

Prof Othman writes from NAERLS, ABU Zaria and can be reached via email: mkothman@gmail.com.

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