Nigeria’s problem: who is to blame?

By Oladele Oguntimehin

Nigeria is faced with so many challenges from various segment of the society. Nevertheless, it is difficult to point out the sole orchestrator of all these, ranging from high rate of unemployment, uneven distribution of income and wealth, epileptic power supply, insecurity, abject poverty, social and political unconsciousness, high illiteracy rate, poor healthcare services, inadequate housing, ethnic crisis, unstable economy and more recently, renewed agitation for the Sovereign State of Biafra and the resurgent militancy attack on oil installations in the oil-rich Niger Delta region.

However, no one seems to be accepting the blame for all these retarding problems the nation has been grappling with for decades now. The man in the street will blame the government; those in government blame the previous administrations, just like the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is blaming the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for our nation’s woes, and the previous administration blaming the government in power for jettisoning their great legacies and unimplemented programmes. But of course, no new government would like to implement the unfinished programmes of their predecessors; instead they would start their own fresh projects all in the name of implementing their campaign promises.

The impact of those occupying one political office or the other to some extent has not been felt by the wider collection of Nigerians who are at the receiving end of every government policy and programme. Political analysts are of the view that the vision of our founding fathers is being blurred by the present crop of politicians in this past decade.

Take for instance during the military in 1995, Nigeria recorded its lowest ever unemployment rate with just 1.9 percent of the country's population are unemployed and this is about 2.1 million out of about 111 million of the total population. Nigeria's trend of unemployment in the year 1999 is something to worry about as it record about 22 million of the country's total population unemployed in 1999 and dropped down to 16 million the following year 2000.

Since 2007 till date, Nigeria unemployment trend has increased as the population size increases with the latest recording about 12.1 percent in March quarter of 2016. By implication it means if Nigeria's population is 140 million, then 50 percent of Nigerians are unemployed.

The present leaders and politicians have failed to emulate what was done by the founding leader then to reduce unemployment and other related problems like power generation and distribution,  as a result of  Poor economic growth rate  in terms of  high level of corruption, mismanagement of public funds, harsh economic policies and the insecurity of the Nigerian environment coupled with long term despotic rule of the military among other factors have dampened the spirit of economic growth for a long time.

The politician and leaders of Nigeria neglect agricultural sector which has been the leading provider of employment in Nigeria especially in the sixties and in the seventies when the sector provided employment for more than 60 percent of the Nigerian population, at the wake of oil discovery. The attention on this anchor of the economy was gradually drawn away to the oil sector where employment capacity is very low. The resulting effect is the large number of job seekers who have no place in the oil industry even with the expansion of the industry unemployment has continued to grow at an alarming rate.

The problems of Nigeria has increase immeasurable as security has grown more weaken over the year forcing foreign investor to leave the country which as result greatly in the unemployment and poverty level among the people, nevertheless the leader are not applying the right tactic in solving these rather engage in endless dialogue which as not being able to solve the problem instead we have increment in militant attack.

It is believed that most of the developmental deficiencies currently being experienced across the country is as a result of bad administration and mismanagement of public funds by political office holders who seek for their own interest and not that of the people. They engage in diverting, laundering and looting of the national treasury for their inordinate use, abandoning the poor and helpless masses to wander in poverty in neglect.

Politicians during electioneering tend to play up the insanity of ethnic differences in order to accumulate the votes needed to make them victorious, thereby breeding ethnic hatred which has been identified as one of the root cause of our present disunity.

History has it that ethnic hatred was first caused by the Nigeria–Biafra Civil War of 1967 to 1970 and has being affecting every segment of the country in terms of economic and political development as disunity is disincentive to national development.
Unfortunately, the past military and civilian leaders to present have failed to entrench national cohesion and unity in Nigeria who are still slaves to ethnic sentiment. Rather than condemning it, politicians have taken advantage of it to achieve their individual desire and goals.

Clerics blame their religious faithful, religious faithful blame their clerics for allowing themselves to be used as political tools. Youths blame the older generation, as the elders   blame the youths, People point hand to others’ ethnic group, Opposition blame the ruling party, Illiterates blame the elites, and elites blame illiteracy/illiterates.
We are all caught in the ‘shift the blame game’. No one seems to be responsible for the nation’s woe but the fact is that we absolve ourselves of any culpability.

The people are not being passionate enough as they ought to be in the fields they find themselves. Nigerians are recorded, according to some, as the most educated world over, meaning we have Scientists, Engineers and well educated people in various sector but the question is how many of them are applying their skills and actually willing to educate themselves beyond college so they can achieve even more? How passionate are they in the field they are in?  .

How good is it having a doctor who does not really care to update his skill set to compete with the rest of the world but is more concerned about how much profit his retail stores are bringing in for him at the end of the week/month. So the people need to address the aspect in order to be free and solve part of the quagmires.
Until Nigerians realise that our collective actions and inactions brought us where we are, until we all take collective responsibility for the failure of our country, only then can we make effort at making the changes we so much desire and charter a way forward.

These changes would only be achieved when we start revolting against our corrupt thoughts, homes, offices and society at large.