Being a press release of the “ALLIANCE OF NIGERIAN STUDENTS AGAINST NEO LIBERAL ATTACKS (ANSA) KWARA STATE CHAPTER Tagged #OurMumuDonDo
All Protocols
Nigerian as we know will be clocking it’s 57th this year, The once giant of Africa is almost 60years of age, What has she achieved, It has achieved nothing but the following.
1. Corruption
2. Bad economy
3. Political Scavengers
4. Power Hunters
5. Bad labour and productivity
Poor transportation and a whole list of problem the nation has been facing, Since independence in 1960, Nigeria has continued to grapple with numerous crises in the political amphitheatre. The crisis cannot be detached from frontrunners of the political parties in the country. The crises are always either intra party is inter party.
It is however disheartening and obvious that the political leaders in Nigeria have desisted to be a mirror image of the desire of the electorate rather exhibit themselves as selfish, Unfocused, vision less and capitalist leaders.
Asen and Ashaver ”illegitimacy, lack of patriosm, religious crisis, inability to curb poverty and stabilised the economy, inability to provide infrastructural facilities and inability to provide sound education system in the country instead of facing and fighting those challenges they rather attend to how to convert public funds to personal wealth, Run the government as private business, build a capitalist hegemony in public offices, neglect the desires of the governed, propagate class structure by expanding the gap between the rich and the poor, creation of God father and their worship to run affairs of the nation e.t.c this has resulted in searching for candidates that will submit totally to these vices thus, climb the ladder of leadership through the platform of political parties created by these capitalist.
Presently in Nigeria, second term, tenure elongation, defection, godfatherism etc.. have continued to derail the political office holders from good governance and delivering dividends of democracy to the electorates. The concern of most leader is to retrieve the money invested while campaigning for the office.
Corroboratory, in Nigeria some Leaders are in charge of virtually every aspect of the Nigeria economy. Even, they rotate and recycle Thier stay in these fields to gulp more money in the country.
Going by the corruption perception index, Nigeria ranked 136th among the 175 surveyed countries in the world. This means that Nigeria is the 39th most corrupt country in the world.
Good governance is the minimum requirement for any country to grow and flourish. However, there is a formidable enemy to this growth, called corruption has paralyzed the country because of its outrageous effect.
Corruption, like the sky is ubiquitous; it pervades every known nation, though with varying intensity in each society. In most African and third world countries, of which Nigeria is perhaps the most notorious example, corruption has its incidence as all pervading.
Nigerian leaders have now turn a turn in the flesh of the citizens that they now grab all the available opportunities for the less privileged, they now influence them with the stomach infrastructure during elections period, this has been practised largely In ekiti state during the elections of Governor Ayo Fayose.
What lesson have they learn from his eminence Moshood Abiola kashimawo the voice of the masses rather they turn to be the Lion and the citizens are the ones in the den, could you imagine we have a government dat have decided to allocate a ridiculous paltry of 50billion 4 an entire over 200 tertiary institution and yet they allocated 125billion naira for feeding 109 senators and 360 house of representativesmembers this is aside the over 1.1trillion naira meant 2 service the pocket of 17,300 political office holders. This are mouth watering expenses that are supposed to be looked into. This has made the ANSA to start a slogan across the state that #OurMumuDonDo.
J.J omojuwa a blogger and media personnel says “Nigeria has become an extremely polarised nation, to the extent that the white on the national flag, which signifies unity, is crying for a colour change. Almost every national discussion you hear will most certainly have a sectional undertone. Political officers are chosen based on what part of the country they are from or to satisfy some political interests and not necessarily for their leadership capabilities or the intellectual skill set they possess. It is now endemic in Nigerian that a person who steals from the public purse is not a thief if he or she is from the same ethnic region; they are termed “my brother” or “my sister”. This in itself is shocking!
Almost every Nigerian you speak to is dissatisfied with the state of the nation; people are angry and blame each other for the deterioration of the nation. The northerners will tell you it is the southerners, the southerners will tell you the northerners have ruled Nigeria for too long. Some have even conceived that the amalgamation of 1914 was a terrible mistake; that we would have been better of if there was no amalgamation. But before we start pointing accusing fingers and blaming the problems on the other ethnic region, I have an advice. Why not look inwards and ask your regional or ethnic leaders that are in political positions or have held political positions in the past some salient questions like:
What have you done with the allocations given to you from the treasury?
Can you point to the projects you have executed with utmost transparency and accountability?
Where are the policies you initiated that have benefitted the average Nigerian and alleviated the level of poverty?
Can you in all sincerity tell us that you have not soiled your hands in the public purse?
This list of questions is in no way exhaustive but you can begin to form an idea of the kind of questions you need to ask them.
The secession of Nigeria is far from the solution, in fact, it will indeed worsen the problems. If Nigeria splits into many parts, the prevalent problems of today will still remain. If we don’t learn how to llive in unity as Nigeria, we will never be able to live in unity even if Nigeria splits into fifty parts. There are only two sets of people in Nigeria – the good and the evil, and they both exist in every geopolitical zone of the country. The ethnic and religious division is nothing but deceitful seed sown by greedy politicians that has now grown into a mighty forest that has since been nurtured by the same group. The divide and conquer rule is not a myth, it works, and it will continue to as long as you allow yourselves to be divided along ethnic and religious lines. The more the ethnic division continue, the more the greedy politicians increase in political and financial power – the division suits their purpose.
I have said it previously that the problem of Nigeria is not the Northerners or Southerners, it isn’t the Christians or Muslims, but the major problem is corruption in high places. This is the common evil that we need to wade at all cost. A poor man from Calabar is of no better than a poor man from Sokoto. The same denominator, poverty, joins them.
I will like us to ask ourselves some questions. Of what benefit is it to you personally if the president is from your region but you have just lost a close family member because you could not afford to pay for sound health care, or when pregnant women in your region have a slim chance of surviving child birth due to bad health care service that is in its own coma? Of what use is it to you personally if the governor is from your village but yet the probability of it snowing in Nigeria is higher than you finding a job after graduation? What benefit is it to you if the local government chairman goes to your church or mosque but yet the road to your house is still impassable?
As the body is of many parts, so is Nigeria of many ethnicities, languages, and dialects. God that made the human body didn’t make a body of the same part but of different parts. There are many parts of the body but they all work together. The eye cannot say to the mouth that I do not have need of you, neither can the feet say to the hand let us depart in peace. The nose cannot perform the functions of the stomach, neither can the ear do the functions of the mouth, each member has its own important part to play in the body. The tender tongue in the midst of 32 soldiers (teeth) cannot do without each other, even though they fight at times (teeth bites the tongue), they still live together and cannot be separated.
Nigeria is a diverse country; we should draw strength from our diversity and not division, thus the need for a thorough reformation of the nation.
The future of Nigeria is indeed bright and it needs the brightest of brains from the north, south, east and west to joins hands to move this nation forward. We should see people for who they are or what they can contribute to the emergence of a better Nigeria and not for the geographical location they represent. If we follow the holy books we claim to believe in, we realise that we stand a better chance if we unite to advance this great nation.
This country will surely be great again when we are all ready to reform and re constitute.
signed:
IBRAHIM SIKIRU YINKA (SIMPLICITY)
COORDINATOR KWARA STATE CHAPTER
IMAM MURITADHO OLANREWAJU IDIAGBON
KWARA STATE SECRETARY