OPINION: THE DECISION THAT LED NIGERIA TO A STATE OF UNCERTAINTY AND HOPES OF SUN AT NIGHT. - By Emiola Wale

Emiola Wale

Nigeria is on a journey of total overhauling of an old system of governance, taking cue from the events that have encapsulated the polity in the few months that we have been governed by the new government; which posed to offer Nigerians a change from in governance by the last political party that took control of the affairs of our country since the return of a stable democratic form of government. It however remain a question in the mind of many students of thought who are willing to see their country compete with other countries around the globe.



Before the issues are addressed accordingly, kindly take your time to shut your minds off the billions of political propaganda of different political parties that participated in the last general elections because, it is general knowledge that political propaganda serves as the common meal provided by political parties to innocent citizens who are ignorant of lies fed to them by political parties in any given….political election especially in the current political dispensation around the world.


A focus on Nigeria’s election drove the attention of the western and eastern powers towards the importance of our economy to theirs and as a result, they have shown much interest in the political movements of the country. To this effect, it is publicly… stated in different international speeches by different world leaders that the shift in Nigeria’s economy determines the direction of Africa’s economy as a whole. Questions arisingfrom this notion go thus:

• Has Nigerian Economy moved at all? Yes or No? 

• What was the true nature of the economy before immediate past government took over and where wasit after they left power?

• What is the economy policy of Africa; since the direction of Nigeria’s economy determines the direction of Africa?

* What is the foreign policy of Nigeria for Africa as the 'Big Brother'?

The ability to provide answers to the questions above will help us to determine the true state of the Nigerian economy and would guide us against expecting a sun at Night.

Immediately the government of the day took over the economy of the country, there was wide speculation that things would "Change". The campaign of the ruling party was driven by the change mantra and everywhere in the country was filled with the change song. Of course, it is a general belief that stagnation is a serious defect in life and in my view {I think} the innocent Nigerians thought the immediate past government brought stagnation to the Nigerian economy. The election campaign was rigorous and filled with roses of different colours radiating rays of the hope for change and luring citizens towards what could possibly be a mirage


The comparism between the two governments in context would help to either differentiate the weak policies that had damaged the economic outlook of the country or integrate the similaritiesin policy.
First in contrast is the policy in the agricultural sector of the country. We have in past times, witnessed the shutting down of several agro based industries due to lack of raw material for their production and this has resulted in financial loss to the companies because the running cost of the company continues during and after production. 

The immediate past government however, focused on the utter development of the dead agricultural sector of the country by encouraging citizens to grow the sector with full financial back up by the government so as to limit the gross importation of foods from other countries. During this period, the GDP of our economy was on a positive trend as different agro based industries decided to focus on local farmers for local sourced raw materials for their production. Today, the sugar industries have sugar cane farms all over the country with hope of setting up their sugar mills to extract juice for the production of industrial and home use sugar. Fish production, vegetable farming, and animal rearing amongst others. This approach definitely affected the international market as the total food import cost into Nigeria dropped significantly. It is no news that the advent of the new government was graced with the immediate ban of exportation of Nigerian agro based produce into Europe by the European Union which is yet to be tackled so as to give our local farmers hope of exporting their agro produce. It is now over 100 days of a government of change and no policy has yet been made, this has dashed the hope of agricultural investors in the country. The multiplier effect of this is not oblivious to many and total collapse of the agricultural sector is imminent if urgent attention is not mete out to curb the effect.

Also, it behoves us to pay critical attention to our Oil and gas sector. Since time immemorial, the oil and gas sector has remained the major driver of our economy. shrinking the creativity of any weak government. This orchestrated the move to repair the major refineries in the country to curb the menace of continual exportation of crude oil and daily importation of petroleum products through the vessels. Today Nigeria is at the point of refining her crude oil locally thereby engaging more citizens locally in terms of employment opportunities. It is very sad to see the government of the day who is yet to have a minister of petroleum claiming the success of the immediatepast government. Weeks after the advent of the new government, the country faced a challenge of fuel scarcity which crumbled different sectors of the economy. However, one should not shy away from the effort of the current government that has just changed the management of NNPC so as to oversee the functioning of the sector still it is an obvious fact that the refinery was not put in place by the new management of the board. The immediate past government diversified the economy wholistically so as to change the focus of the country off the oil sector.


In addition, it will be very wrong for us to say that the current administration is not trying to fight corruption but it is however wrong to say it has fought it better than the immediate past government because today we see more of the prosecution done in newspaper than in any court of law. Most of the acclaimed trials are based mostly on political witch hunt because we all know that the only way to sink the popularity of a politician in Nigerian is by taking advantage of positions to indict those that seems like a threat to the powers at the Centre and with this Nigerians seek to know what corruption means in the opinion of the current government.

Unemployment is on the rise and over 90,000 employed are now unemployed due to the mismanagement of the country’s economy, the gravitational fall of the Naira against the dollar is also at will, the increased activities of the Boko haram deadly group in the North, nepotism amongst others.

Let me remind the President as clearly stated in the Nigerian constitution Section 14. ss.2a; “sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government through this constitution derives all its powers and authority and ss. 2b; the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government” On this note any form of negligence on this primary course of governance is tantamount to waste of state resources on the government of the day.

As a Nigerian, I challenge President Muhammadu Buhari to wake up to responsibilities and provide the campaign promises that gave him a slight victory over the last administration at the polls. We long to see Nigeria’s economy growing better than he met it but not to deteriorate. The president said “I belong to nobody and I belong to everybody” Nigerians wait to see where exactly the president belongs. 

Happy eid el kabir to you all!!!.


Emiola Waleola.
An advocate for purposeful leadership.

Twitter: @EMIOLAWALEOLA