#SomberTuesday has spilled over into Wednesday!
Nigeria is in the “emil’okan era. The lawsuits challenging the election results are also ongoing. The final disposition of the cases is yet to happen. But it’s hard to imagine that they’ll overturn the results. The big shocker of the moment is the removal of the fuel subsidy, a development that caused an immediate escalation of the price of petrol at the pumps. At up to 600 naira, prices are high enough to be destabilizing for many salary earners who depend on their cars for transportation. People who take public transportation also experienced immediate doubling, tripling, and even quadrupling of their transportation costs. All consumer goods are likely to be similarly affected. Organized labor immediately threatened a nationwide strike, but has now called off the strikes and announced agreements with the government to consider increases in the minimum wage. How exactly will ordinary Nigerians make ends meet? How will the majority put food on the table? How will they meet their basic human needs? These questions have no ready answers.
The statistics show that the emil’okan era is a continuation of Nigeria’s continued obliviousness to gender equity, inclusion of people living with disabilities, the poor, and the youth. Power has been appropriated by an ableist, oligarchic gerontocracy. Youths (under 30 years old ) constitute 70 percent of the population of Nigeria. Multidimensionally poor people are about 133 million (63 percent of the population) People living with disabilities are not found in elected and appointed positions of authority to any appreciable degree.
Nigeria is still bedeviled by dangerous levels of insecurity, abductions and kidnappings. Effective governance remains a serious challenge, with weak political institutions pointing to the lack of state capacity and political will to address these challenges.
Unemployment and underemployment are endemic. Decent jobs would solve the problem, but where are they to be found? Instead of seriously addressing this problem, the unemployed are exhorted to be entrepreneurial. But how many entrepreneurs succeed? How many fail to meet their goals? What options exist for them?
People have spoken of being hopeful that this new administration will address the country’s pressing socioeconomic problems, a signal that they demand accountability from the president who made hope a central part of his campaign promises. They are optimistic about the possibility of solutions that improve their quality of life. Calls for unity and support for the emil’okan administration also are expressions of hope that the new administration will address the problems dutifully. Prayers are deployed to express optimism about the administration’s success.
Nigeria should become more serious about genuine democracy, and recognize the importance of electoral integrity as a contributory factor. INEC must be reformed to fulfill its mandate as an election management body.
Nation-building is an urgent task. The constitution guarantees the full rights of citizenship to all Nigerians, meaning that we should create and strengthen a nation that serves all Nigerians with equity, justice, and fairness. This would be a contributory factor to unity, as well as to political, social, and economic transformation. On these matters, we should not perpetually agonize, but we must organize in a purposeful manner to build the nation that we want.
Democracy means that all Nigerians have access to full citizenship rights, and that fundamental principles and values like freedom, equality, fairness, equity, justice, and transparency, accountability, the rule of law, respect for human rights should become part of the modus operandi in Nigeria. Genuine democracy entails the enumerated principles and values being felt as realities by all Nigerians.
Majority of Nigerian youths wonder if there will be an end to shapa (unrelenting suffering). Many hope to japa–leaving the country by any means necessary to improve their life-chances and prospects of upward mobility. If these tendencies are to change to any appreciable degree, there must be opportunities here at home. Further, the dominance of octogenarians over Nigeria’s governance systems should end.
The new currency remains rare. ATMs are still not well-stocked, frustrating those with bank deposits. Mobile telephones experience so many network problems that take away the seamlessness of communication. The proposed cashless economy remains elusive. Inflation is high enough but the removal of the fuel subsidy will make things worse. The economic downturn is still a reality that is yet to be effectively addressed.
We urgently need genuine democracy and economic development, personal and human security, the well-being and welfare of citizens, and the masses’ ability to meet their basic needs.
#EndSARS youth protesters hoped the 2023 elections would change the status quo. They participated robustly but were disappointed by the conduct of the elections. The 2020 #EndSARS protests called for good governance, an end to police brutality, extortion, impunity, economic inequality, marginalization, targeting of youths and other minorities, and an end to political violence. They demanded deepened democracy. But the state responded with brutal repression. The #EndSARS youths’ protests were also labelled as foreign-sponsored and unpatriotic.
The 2020 Lekki massacre at #LekkiTollGate & other locations should never happen again.
Nigerians deserve unity, peace, democracy and sustainable development. These are core demands of the #EndSARS protesters.
Kleptocracy is ruinous. The resources belonging to all Nigerians should not be appropriated by a few oligarchs and their cronies. We must rescue present and future generations from the ill effects of kleptocracy.
Nigerians deserve positive transformation, where we collectively create a democratic country. We must embrace the challenge before us with determination, tenacity, and optimism and be ready to work together for the Nigeria we want.
#NigerianWomenArise #EndPoliceBrutalityinNigeriaNOW
#EndSars
#EndSWAT
#EndImpunity.
Howard Zinn’s statement has profound implications for Nigeria’s economic, political, and social development:
“Civil disobedience, that’s not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while, the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”
I now repeat my weekly exhortation:
Let the kleptocrats give back our stolen wealth so that we can fix our infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and also offer worthwhile social protection to our people. Let the masses enjoy the full benefits of citizenship in Nigeria. Let the leaders and political class repent and build peace with justice.
This is no time for politics as usual. The people elected should be those trusted to bring justice, equity and human security to the entire country, not expedient, unethical and egocentric individuals determined to dominate for self-aggrandizement or sectional gain. We don’t need oligarchs’ continued domination. We also need a government that puts the interests of the majority of citizens first. I am still hopeful that this will happen in my lifetime.
Prof. Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome is a professor of political science at Brooklyn College in New York.
