AS THE NATION CELEBRATES
It is a time-honoured saying that the interest ‘subjects take in their leader does not lie in the leader’s physical and intellectual abilities, but, lies rather in what he can add to their lot in life’. Standing as a telling proof to the above assertion is the heartening celebration that recently resonated across our nation’s political wavelength following some human-faced actions taken by the President Muhammadu Buhari’s led government; a development analyst’s described as right step in the right direction.
The signing of the not-too-young-to-run bill into law by the president granting financial autonomy to state Houses of Assembly, the declaration of June 12 as Democracy Day in Nigeria, and the posthumous award of Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR), the greatest honour in the land, to Chief MKO Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election was rightly done.
In response to the above development, the vast majority of Nigerians had as pre-empted, became sympathetic and supportive of the present administration while affirming President Buhari as no prisoner of any theory, but, a leader guided by reasoning, reality, and equipped with the power to probe ideas before implementation.
Having scaled over this hurdle created by the June 12 debacle, and as part of the effort to completely calm tribal nerves, it will be appreciably gratifying in my view, if the president could urgently yield to the call by Nigerians for the review/possible restructuring of the nation and tackle other multifaceted challenges bedevilling the country as a way of consolidating his newfound ‘’transformational leadership’.
Indeed, it’s of a growing concern that the federal system we practice is inverted pyramided and asymmetrically structured, a line of argument that Mr. President had earlier admitted during his January 1, 2018 national broadcast where he, among other things, remarked that ‘no human law or edifice is perfect. That whatever structure we develop must periodically be perfected according to the changing circumstances and the country’s socio-economic developments.
As an incentive, therefore, now that Mr. President has kickstarted national renaissance/healing of national wounds, perfecting this imperfect structure via restructuring of the nation to reflect a true federal system has become not just inevitable but desirable.
To further simplify the process, what the proponents of restructuring are saying is that the over bloating of the exclusive list with about 68 items is antithetical to the doctrine of true federalism as majority of the items are trivial for the federal government to handle and should serve the greater good of the people if left in the hands of both the state and the local governments.
It becomes even more inspiring knowing that the template for solving these problems is readily available: the report of the 2014 National Conference. The holistic implementation of that report is germane to the survival of the nation.
Again while this celebration of ‘transformational leadership’ is ongoing, it will also necessitate a peep into the global stage to spot the nations which had faced our current situation, how they tackled them, and how successful they had been.
For instance, ‘The Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) in Islamabad to conduct joint research on issues related to terrorism and extremism for informed policy decision making, to create public awareness, and build a counter-narrative in the country’.
Looking at commentaries, it’s glaring that this time is auspicious for our nation to adapt, adjust, and possibly implement the above useful lesson in our ceaseless effort to find a lasting solution to insecurity/terrorism challenge on our shores.
We shall like other nations to collectively defeat insecurity/ terrorism using informed decisions based on research. Still, on the celebration of this new found people-purposed leadership, there is again the need for the president to remember that education is an indispensable means by which a nation can wholesomely achieve a hyper-modern development.
It will therefore be rewarding if Mr. President should put in the same political strategy of the past weeks to subsidising education, train and retrain our teachers, and find an enduring solution to the perennial underfunding challenge of the sector which stakeholders believe is majorly occasioned by non-compliance to the United Nations’ budgetary recommendation on education. Jerome-Mario Utomi, jeromeutomi@yahoo.com