Oroscope

The Nigeria nation is a tale of an extravagant father, a country full of both human and natural resources. The country is the fourteenth largest crude oil producer in the world. The Nigerian people ironically ranked among the poorest in the world today. The people traverse the length and breadth of the world for greener pastures in order to escape the clutches of a draining government. The people mostly intellectuals but with no opportunity at home are forced into cheap labour abroad or rated poorly abroad due to the degrading standard of living in Nigeria.  Then where did this country the world is looking up to had it all wrong? The country could said to be sliding down from the good economic and political ladder from the government of former President General Ibrahim Babangida,

his government characterised with gross financial misconduct, corruption, unresolved assassinations and political logged gam, non of his predecessors in government was as rich as Ibrahim Babangida by the time he stepped aside from government.

His regime mid wived the steering of Nigeria towards a pure capitalist state by providing the framework for the privatisation and commercialisation of government establishment, corporations and parastatals. This means the Nigerian Government would hands off from the provision of basic infrastructures and amenities to the Nigerian People. The question is who is going to buy these huge investments from the Nigerian People, or is it so impossible to make the National Investment lucrative and efficient in the hands of the government? The General's romance with business moguls could have brought about this lofty economic strategy to sell the National Investment. The implementation of the economic strategy- privatisation and commercialisation was played down by the successive governments until the country became democratic again under former President Olusegun Obasanjo. The question, is the privatisation and commercialisation of government businesses good or bad for the Nigerian People?

There have been no improvement or expansion to date to the provision of social amenities to the Nigerian people along with the fast growing population,  especially in the area of generating the power and energy required to drive the economy  and coupled with the high level of corruption in government the poverty level in the country has risen to 71.5% of the Nigerian population with the increase in the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) to N97( Ninety Seven Naira ) by the Goodluck Jonathan led government.

This is a people with a spending power of $1 per day.

Then the question is - where is the Nigerian people’s money? The poor unequal distribution of the Nigerian wealth has brought about diverse agitations along tribal divide in the country i.e Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND),   Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Boko Haram, Oduduwa Peoples Congress (OPC), and Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) to mention few. Nigeria is govern with the 1999 constitution handed over by the Nigerian Military to the this present democratic  institutions,  the 1999 constitution has been criticised from different quarters to be inadequate in addressing  contending issues of Nigerian People i.e  resource control, revenue generation and sharing , political power sharing or rotation, poverty, corruption, unity and form of government. Nigeria government at the federal level is controlled by the People Democratic Party (PDP),  the political party where the present sitting president belong, the party is said to promote a liberal political and economic ideology that allow only few Nigerian businessmen to keep getting richer at the expense of the poor masses. How can the government justify the continued importation of fuel into the country, the removal of subsidy from Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), the epileptic power supply of 27 years, the high level of unemployment and failed industries and increase in tariffs of power supply? Simply put it, the Nigerian government under PDP is removing government hands from the provision of essential services to her people thereby leaving them in the hands of greedy businessmen.

The same businessmen that are fronting for government officials to defraud Nigerians then ask me, where is the hope of the people? in a government that does not believe in equitable distribution of the national wealth and welfare policy, not at all. The Nigerian people are facing hardship at home and abroad because of bad governance and visionless leadership. A leadership that does not listen to the wishes of his people and protect the interest of his own. The Nigerian political class should be careful, because most Nigerians are now politically conscious of their rights as fellow citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the riches and goodness of the land belong to all of us, let every Nigerian have a fair share of the national resources, give the people a good sense of life and violence will be a thing of the past.

Written By: Ayodele Ogunrinde