Opinion: For Nigerians, 2013 is a year of unfulfilled promises

by Ayo Olukotun

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Having said that, it must be reckoned that the Nigerian version of political fumbling and visionless leadership came with more woes for the citizen in 2013 because of the subsisting disarray in infrastructure. This is to say that an inclement social and economic climate for most Nigerians was made worse by political failure.

“Let me assure you and indeed all Nigerians that 2013 will be better for us than 2012 in all aspects of the nation’s history”

—President Goodluck Jonathan, December 23, 2012

The opening quote sourced from President Goodluck Jonathan contained a promise to turn Nigeria and the lot of its citizens around in 2013. The pledge, let us recall, was made against the background of widespread concern that Nigeria marked time in 2012, while the status of the majority of its citizens went from bad to worse. And so Jonathan said in effect, “Hey guys, don’t give up on me yet; I know how you feel, I will come through with democracy dividends in 2013”.

A slew of global league tables such as the Failed States Index published annually by the Fund for Peace, the Corruption Perception Index of Transparency International as well as the Human Development Index of the United Nations Development Programme suggests that Jonathan’s promise was not fulfilled. For example, Nigeria remained, in 2013, one of the world’s 15 failed states as it did in 2012. A failed state is generally defined as one with a weak, corrupt and inefficient central government, lacking full control over its territory; unable to provide basic public services and manifests a refugee problem.

A quick rundown of the events of 2013 featuring, for example, the murderous insurgency in the northern part of the country and the rickety nature of public services would seem to suggest that Nigeria’s classification on the Failed States Index is not wide of the mark.  Talking about corruption, hardly anyone would dispute the assessment of TI,  that Nigeria slid further down the bottom league in 2013. Even if TI did not so classify us, the many scams of the year ranging from fuel subsidy abracadabra to the sleaze in pension funds as well as Oduahgate suggest that the nation is still very much mired in corruption. That fact may explain why the 2013 Mo Ibrahim Index classifies Nigeria as one of the worst governed countries in Africa.

Of interest too is the 2013 HDI Report entitled, “The Rise Of The South: Human Progress In A Diverse World”. The document observes that although Nigeria’s growth rate at 6.5 per cent towers above the global growth average of 3.2 per cent, the country is not one of a cluster of African countries which have made impressive strides in human development which measures the quality of life of citizens. Leafing through the roll call of African countries which have improved HDI, we find hitherto war torn countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. What this suggests is that Nigeria’s economy is growing but the country remains a hell hole classified by yet another international survey as “one of the worst places to be born on earth in 2013”. Statistics do not tell the whole story. Ask the families that gathered around their television sets to watch their favourite programmes at Christmas how many times power was made available to them. Ask the commuters that left the city in droves for the rural hinterland, the state of the roads they travelled on; find out the last time water gushed out from public taps in homes around the country and the true meaning of the statistics will become clearer.

Talking about power, a report in The Guardian of December 21, 2013, informs that, “Disappointingly, seven weeks after transmission to the six companies which are mainly in charge of electricity distribution, the purpose for which they were commissioned still remains a mirage”. The report goes on to chronicle the distress call of end users across the nation who categorically assert that power supply has gone from bad to disastrous. Do we want to talk about the marathon shutdown of universities which took the better half of an academic session and whose impact will be with us for a long time?  As this columnist argued, had the latter day zeal displayed by government in resolving the strike been applied much earlier, parents and students would have been spared the nightmare of a virtually obliterated graduating year. How about insecurity of lives and property?  The siege by armed robbers and assassins which snuffed out the lives of several able bodied Nigerians during the year? Only a few days ago, advertising guru, Sesan Ogunro, was murdered in bizarre circumstances while returning from church, while a former primate of the Anglican Church, Bishop Peter Akinola, narrowly escaped death in the hands of kidnappers in Abeokuta. Do we want to count the many innocent casualties including schoolchildren who were murdered by Boko Haram or those who died recently in Kwara State in the course of a siege laid on several banks by armed robbers? How about the many victims of the recurrent strikes by medical doctors signalling a comatose health infrastructure? You may even wish to ask the users of mobile telephones the last time they made a clear call through any of the telecoms operators in the country.

In other words, in 2013, life became nastier and more brutal for the majority of Nigerians despite Jonathan’s promise to allay their distress. To be sure, the recession of purposeful leadership in 2013  is a global phenomenon. Consider for instances the plummeting of the approval rating of President Barack Obama of the United States from 51.3 per cent in December 2012 to about 40 per cent at the end of 2013 due partly to a crooked surveillance by national security of political opponents, the huge national debt, the debate over Syria’s chemical weapons among other factors. Look at the diminution of the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, in the opinion polls resulting in The Telegraph informing us on December 26 a situation where “he is disliked by a majority of the electorate for the first time since becoming conservative leader seven years ago”. Do we want to look at President Francois Hollande of France whose indecisive leadership style and inability to grapple with France’s fundamental decline makes him, at the end of this year, the president of France with the lowest approval rating ever.

Having said that, it must be reckoned that the Nigerian version of political fumbling and visionless leadership came with more woes for the citizen in 2013 because of the subsisting disarray in infrastructure. This is to say that an inclement social and economic climate for most Nigerians was made worse by political failure. Of course, there are a few good strides to talk about such as our sporting glory signified by our lifting of the FIFA Under-17 World Cup for the fourth time and the success of the Super Eagles at the African Nations Cup held in South Africa. There is also the modest success of agricultural reforms with its international reverberations through the naming of the Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, by Forbes Magazine as Africa Man of the Year 2013.

Overall, however, the lot of the Nigerian in the course of the year was a desultory one no less so because a tiny minority, by hook or by crook, accelerated their private fortunes at the expense of the majority.

 
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This post is published with permission from Abusidiqu.com

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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