NIGERIA: A NATION IN SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL QUAGMIRE!

According to Warren G. Bennis, “Leadership is the ability to translate vision into reality.” Nigeria from independence to date has not been blessed with such a leader who is selfless, visionary, and sacrificial, who can translate the dream of our founding fathers and nationalists into reality- the dream of an indivisible, united, peaceful and prosperous nation. This explains the current situation we have in Nigeria, where a nation of about 180million people, that is about 56years old, with abundant human and natural resources, cannot feed itself nor provide job for its teeming unemployed youths, talk less of generating adequate power for its industrialization. This is despite the huge trillions of naira that had been sunk into the sector, without any meaningful result. Simon Sinek aptly describes the type of leaders that have presided over the affairs of Nigeria to date, when he said, “The bad leaders are the ones that push hard so they can gain, who brow beat us so that they can receive the benefits of our hard work, not so we can enjoy the success.” The unbridled craze of our leaders to acquire wealth and amass our collective commonwealth to themselves and stashing their stolen loots abroad-oiling the recipient countries’ economy- led us to where we are today. Anyway, that is a topic for another day. To say that we are presently in a state of confusion, anomie and quagmire is to underplay the enormity of the current hardship plaguing the country, of which the common man is the worst hit. The country is heading towards a disaster if something urgent- humanly and divinely -is not done. Let me point out clearly, that, this discourse is not borne out of ethnic, political or religious sentiments, but propelled by the spirit of patriotism of a concerned mind, that follows events in the country and is guaranteed under the Constitution to freely air his view on any issue affecting the nation, without any fear of molestation. It is no longer news, that, Nigeria is in a recession. Times are very hard and the negative economic realities are biting harder on the common man, including yours sincerely. Ordinary common staple food is no longer affordable by the masses. Stories are being told daily of some people doing some unimaginable and dehumanizing things to survive the economic plague. We hear of people stealing pots of soup on fire. We hear of a mother of three, who went to give one daughter in exchange for food for the remaining two, to save a soul! Our present situation in Nigeria is creating more beggars, destitute, thieves, prostitutes, criminals, kidnappers, militants, and hopeless citizens! The hope they have in their leaders for succor, is waning gradually! If we are to be honest with ourselves, it is not the time to play the blame game, but for all stakeholders in the Nigerian project, to collectively put heads together on how we can quickly get out of the debacle. Generally, there is a global economic recession, with most countries experiencing an all-time reduction in their GDP, with manufacturing industries experiencing marginal reduction in their capacity utilization, and revenue. This has resulted is severe job losses across the globe-Nigeria not an exception. Suffice to say that our own economic recession was self-inflicted. We could have been shielded from the global economic recession, if we had managed our receipts from oil resources very well, by plowing it back into other revenue generating sectors, like agriculture, mining, etc. We are feeling the heat more now because of our monolithic economy which is about 90% dominated by oil. All our leaders abandoned other productive sectors and were fighting over oil, allocating oil blocks to their families and cronies. It was even alleged that an ordinary official hair dresser of one of the former leaders’ wife was awarded an oil bloc in the Niger Delta! Because we were making quick petrodollars, we all became lazy, living profligate and wasteful life, like the prodigal son in the Bible. Now that the petrodollars in no longer flowing in, we have come back to our senses. This reality has made the present government to diversify the economy by concentrating more on Mining and Agriculture. This is commendable. I submit that the present woes of Nigeria is inflicted on us by all our past leaders (from independence), who lived like King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. They wasted our resources by living luxuriously and ostentatiously, when indeed, majority of Nigerians cannot feed three times a day. One of our past leaders in this country was once quoted to have said, that, our problem in Nigeria was not how to make money, but how to spend it! This statement, if true, smacks of a leader who was visionless, blind, shallow-minded, and lacked the developmental understanding of backward integration. We became the Father Christmas of Africa! When our leaders didn’t know what to do with our overflowing milk and honey, they invited every country in Africa to come and showcase their filthy gods, all in the name of Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC 77), which we hosted. This seemingly harmless cultural event polluted our land. That was the beginning of God’s anger with Nigeria. Since then, Nigeria has not gotten it right, either politically or economically! Let’s go back to the main issue of this topic. Nigeria has adopted many economic models and fiscal policies, either cooked or seasoned by reputable world financial institutions, like the IMF, World Bank, AfDB, etc., none has ever worked. Rather than solve our problems, they inflicted more pain on Nigerians. But surprisingly, such economic models work in other countries! It’s pointless asking why they failed in Nigeria. The usual Nigerian factor was the culprit. If every known economic theory, models and policies have failed to rescue us from our economic woes (which is self-inflicted), it high time we switched over to GODONOMICS! This is the best and never-failing economic models in the world. There is no doubt that Nigeria is a nation so specially blessed by God. A nation, that God specially designed, to be the leader of the black race. We have abundant human and natural resources to rule the world. But where are we today? Those nations we were better than in the 70’s have overtaken and left us behind! We used to be number one exporter of Cocoa, Tin, Coal, Palm oil, Rubber etc in Africa-if not the world. Even the oil that we dominated as Africa’s largest exporter, we have lost the position to Angola! Our problem from my own spiritual diagnosis is that we are a nation that is busy running after the RESOURCES (oil wealth, etc), but has forgotten the SOURCE(God). There no nation that forgets God without paying dearly for it. When the Israelites forgot God, they suffered for it and God made them to go into captivity, hunger, famine, pestilence, deaths, wars, etc., just like we are experiencing in Nigeria today! Until they came to their senses and realized they have gone astray, they came back to God and God restored them. We are witnesses to how powerful and wealthy the nation of Israel is today, a tiny desert country, that is not up to the population or size of the smallest state in Nigeria. They have turned their desert land into a land flowing with milk and honey, with purposeful, visionary, and selfless leadership. They became the envy of other countries. Even the powerful USA, fears and respects Israel because of her military capability. Israel sells weapon technology to USA today and that’s why they are a world power. It sometimes bleeds my heart, how we run our affairs in this country, as if there is no God! Some leaders have even arrogated the power of God to themselves, by determining what will happen in the next 50years to come, as if they have power to keep themselves till that time! It is disheartening that some of our leaders, after intoxicating themselves with their whisky, cognac, or wine display such annoying arrogance of ignorance and mentality of negativity. They claim to know it all, whereas, they are blind and empty-headed, yet they resent positive criticism and they see any other opposing views or opinions as worthless. They are not humble with power and they lack the servant-leader’s mind. We are a nation that forgets our source (God), and I perceive from my spiritual understanding of the mind and the word of God, that God is angry with us in Nigeria. That is why He has shut the heaven against us, in order to punish us for our recklessness, wastefulness, and wickedness! When the nation of Israel sinned against God, God gave them a leader who tormented them, until they realized that their dependency and sufficiency is of God. God is a custodian of all human and natural resources. He hates the habit of wastage-either of human lives or material resources-which unfortunately is our trademark in Nigeria!. God is angry with us because we are a nation full of all kinds of wickedness, violence, hatred, inhumanity, bloodshed, abominations and every kind of ungodly act! I once had a dream about Nigeria, which terrified me. But I prayed to God not to allow the dream come true, otherwise Nigeria will be history. We need to go back to God and adopt the divine economic model of GODONOMICS-where we put God first in everything that we do and seek his divine direction, because without God, we can do nothing, either as a leader or a nation. When a nation forgets God, when God shuts the heaven against a nation, no amount of economic policies or models can work without the help of God, because He rules in the affairs (including economic) of men and nations. In rounding up this discourse, let’s relate Nigeria situation with the scripture. The solution to Nigeria’s woes is in the world of God. In the book of Jeremiah 18:7-10(NIV), “ If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it. “ From the passage above; Are we not experiencing these disasters because we choose to follow our own heart and despise God? Are we not a nation that is doing evil in the sight of God? Is God not relenting in bringing the good things that He promised to benefit us because, we have become stiff-necked, and rebellious, by following our own destructive ways as a nation, thinking we are wiser than God? But God is a merciful God and also forgiving. He can still restore Nigeria back to take its rightful place as leader of the black race, where there will be peace and tranquility, wealth and prosperity. Nigeria can still flourish again. Yes, I believe! WE CAN! WE WILL! But we must collectively ask God for forgiveness of the sins, errors, and mistakes of our past and present leaders, and also the followers, irrespective of your religious and ethnic affiliations. We all have a stake in the Project Nigeria. Collectively we can salvage Nigeria. God will abundantly pardon and make all things beautiful again. In conclusion, according to 2 Chronicles 7:14; “ if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land “. God will heal our land. Nigeria will RISE again! Hope is not lost. God bless Nigeria! Written by Femi Ayelehin