So if Mr. Obi, Atiku or Tinubu emerges president in the forthcoming presidential election, the one agenda he should seek to actualize, which will be of immense political and economic benefit to the nation, is to restructure the country, along the line recommended above.
It has become obvious that Mr. Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party, is the most popular of all the presidential aspirants, in the forth-coming presidential election and if popularity is anything to go by, he stands a chance of emerging President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria come May 29 this year.
Obi’s popularity is an indicator of the likely outcome of the presidential election, namely, that his prospect of emerging Nigeria’s president is high, all other things being equal. For he has the support not only of the majority of his fellow Igbos, but also of a massive number of Nigerians from other ethnicities, because of his track record as a former governor of Anambra State. For this reason, Nigerians from different walks of life including Diaspora Nigerians regard him as a beacon of hope of a new Nigeria.
This article intends to demonstrate that an Obi presidency of Nigeria as presently constituted, cannot effect any positive changes, unless it has the sole aim of restructuring the country for effective governance.
Obi’s promise to take Nigeria “from consumption to production” is well-known and reflects a mistaken view of government developed during the 18th century enlightenment or age of reason in Europe, and was adopted by the countries colonized by Britain and France, being consolidated by the global influence of the United States.
It is the view point that places the responsibility to create employment, provide educational, health, transport and other services and participates in every aspect of the economy on the government. This understanding of government, has retarded the economic progress of African countries, so that the time to review it has arrived.
The task of government is simply to govern, by maintaining law and order (that is law enforcement), security of lives and property and seeking to further the welfare of citizens.
With regard to the maintenance of law and order, qualified citizens has the responsibility to create jobs through entrepreneurship, that is, founding schools, hospitals, transport companies, power generation companies, and agro businesses, while the government regulates these businesses, by issuing licenses and fixing minimum wages and prices of goods and services.
This was the generally accepted view of government, across all societies in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, from ancient times to the modern world. There is a high unemployment rate in Nigeria because rather than create jobs, Nigerians are passing this responsibility to the government.
When we hear that there are jobs in the U.K, the U.S.A., France, Germany, and Canada for instance, make no mistake about it, those jobs are being created by the citizens of those countries.
Additionally, this fact has been illustrated in Nigeria’s political history, namely, the privatization programme of the Obasanjo administration, in which the privatization of the education and telecommunication sectors, created employment for tens of thousands of Nigerians, if not hundreds of thousands, who were likely to have remained in the labour market till date.
An important point to note in conclusion is that Nigeria’s present political system makes it ungovernable. A lot has been written on the need to restructure the country, so I would only add here that resource control, and most other duties which have been left to the Federal and State governments including security (apart from defense, currency and external affairs), should be implemented at the Local government level.
So if Mr. Obi, Atiku or Tinubu emerges president in the forthcoming presidential election, the one agenda he should seek to actualize, which will be of immense political and economic benefit to the nation, is to restructure the country, along the line recommended above.
Bishop Godwin Obialor Umozurike
B.A English (Unilag)
Dip. Th. (London Reformed Baptist Seminary, U.K)
Umuahia City Church,
Abia State.
Tel: 09122808472
E-mail: [email protected]