How Buhari Can Save Nigeria

One of my friends in my university years in Europe said (and rightly true) that Nigerians are good orators. That their mastery of the English language and use of it are second to none; that Mark Antony of Shakespeare would envy them, and that even the British cannot challenge them.

I do not know whether this is a blessing or a curse because our archives are full of reports from dozens of panels which proffered recommendations to solve all our problems.

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I watched proceedings at some of these panels like the Oputa Panel 1999, National Conference on Constitutional Change 2005, National Conferences of 2014, 2019 etc, and was amazed at how we could easily solve our problems but only in words and only on paper.

Some of us still remember our Senate when Chuba Okadigbo was Senate President. Proceedings were very robust,. Yet nothing to show for those eloquent deliberations.


I am not going to bamboozle and mesmerize us with grammar here. I will simply tabulate some of what we must do to rescue this nation from disintegration, dismemberment and economic doom.

  1. Government should distance itself from religious activities, including pilgrimages. It is a waste of revenue and an avenue to siphon public funds. People should sponsor their holy pilgrimages, more so because Nigeria is a secular state.
  2. Government should hands off financing any broadcast media in the country. With this, NTA and FRCN should be privatised with government retaining minimal shares to be yielding revenue or better be outrightly sold out if the required revenue is not coming. These media outfits have only been used as public relations departments of government instead of being truly mass media. Government role should be an impartial regulator.
  3. Government should also privatize our oil refineries and have no input in the importation and subsidy of petroleum products. With three to five years’ tax holidays on refining of petroleum, more refineries will spring up with the resultant high employment and the importation of petroleum products will end within one year. Nigeria will then start exporting refined petroleum products to other African countries. That will earn huge foreign exchange for the country.
  4. Government should cut down overhead by 80℅. This means spending maximum of 20% of what it currently spends on the executive, legislative and judicial arms of government. Also to be included is civil service. A situation where a senator earns over a thousand times what a university professor is earning is not good for our economy and polity. Nobody in public service should actually earn more than twenty times the country’s minimum wage in salaries and allowances.
  5. Over 90% of institutions and parastatals in the country should wind down.Take EFCC, ICPC, Road Safety, VIO, NDLEA etc. A good and functional police force can accommodate all these duties. Same goes with other sectors. Thus our police as constituted should be decentralized and reformed.
  6. There should be restructuring of the federation to make states explore and exploit the abundant natural resources under their jurisdictions. A map of mineral distribution in the country shows that every local government has over five mineral resources in commercial quantities. But because of this era of sharing oil money, they only resort to monthly windfalls from Abuja. Oil is becoming unpopular and we must sit up.
  7. Also the independence of the judiciary and legislative arms of government as well as electoral body should be imperative. The doctrine of checks and balances, and total independence of the electoral umpire cannot be separated from a true democratic dispensation.
  8. Governments should encourage the private sector and play down on overtaxing them. The private sector, if well motivated and managed, should be the engine driving our economy. Nigerians are enterprising and industrious. They only need enabling environments to thrive.
  9. Government should encourage agriculture at the private sector level. Single digit interest loans should be made evenly available for investments in agriculture. This must return to the government treasury with the little interest for government after the banks have taken theirs. Actually the Federal Government should allow the states to undertake this. There must be some security in place to ensure repayment of the loans. Government should not directly invest in agriculture to avoid wastages. They should empower and encourage private sector participation.
  10. Government should initially invest constructively and massively in education, health, security, uninterrupted electricity and other basic infrastructure like roads, rail transportation, potable water, etc. as these are panacea for economic development. Some of these would require private sector involvement. Gradually government should completely stop investing in some of the sectors like electricity and reduce investments in health, education (except for research), and transportation after the private sector has been brought into them in joint ventures as partners.
  11. Government should stop financing foreign medical expenses for any public official. If possible a ban for education and medical treatment of public officials and their dependants should be promulgated. This would force them to improve these sectors in the country.

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If we were able to achieve these, then our economy would stabilize within a few years and not be oil-dependent. Nigerians will stop agitations for separation; people will want to serve genuinely and not go into public service to become rich overnight and of course the doctrine of equity and accountability in government will gradually be seen and felt.

Chukwumezie writes from Garki, Abuja.

Disclaimer: This article is entirely the opinion of the writer and does not represent the views of The Whistler.

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