A Happy Independence Day to Nigeria. The Federal Republic of Nigeria is a richly blessed country on the western side of the continent, Africa. This time 60 years ago, Nigeria was declared and recognised as an independent country from Britain, its Instrument of Independence was received from Princess Alexandra of Kent, a representative of the Queen in the same year. Nigeria had its Civil war in the year 1967, after Lt. Col. Emeka Ojukwu declared the independence of the eastern region of the country as the Republic of Biafra and the civil war ended in the year 1970 with an estimated 3.5 million deaths (most of which were starving children). Nigeria’s main source of income as a country is traced back to the “oil boom” in the early 1980’s. Sixty years on, Nigeria is still marred by the issues from its early years; corruption, a poor Economy, insecurity, ethnic clashes and unemployment amongst others.
In terms of elections; violence, disruptions and electoral fraud can be dated back to 1983, during Alhaji Shehu Shagari’s tenure down to recent times in 2019, Giants of Africa as they are called rank a lowly 25th in Africa in regards to Human development as at 2018. Human development is the process of enlarging people’s freedoms and opportunities and improving their general well-being, and I believe that it can only be truly achieved in an honest democratic government, Seychelles is the most developed country in Africa in regards to human development and they operate a “true” democratic system of government. The lowest turnout for an election in Nigeria is under 10% in the year 1997 under the late Gen. Sani Abacha’s tenure, rigging and electoral violence are the major reasons for low electoral turn-outs in the country, most especially electoral violence, numerous footages of individuals being maltreated and harassed at polling centres are enough to discourage any person from coming out to perform their civic rights. Nigeria can conduct free, fair and credible elections by embracing E-Voting, European countries; Switzerland and Estonia introduced e-voting as a means to tackle the problem of decline in turnout, in 2009 Estonia had nearly a quarter of all votes casted online with the use of a special card or a mobile phone ID, this process if implemented now can reduced the potential of any form of electoral crimes to a low 2% by the 2023 presidential elections, as it stands, almost everyone in the country has access to secure internet connections so it cannot be tabled as a hindrance to e-voting.
Now talking security, Nigeria is cited as the 3rd most insecure country in the world with a GPI (Global Peace Index) of 148 as of 2019, in the year 2009, the Boko Haram insurgency began and has lingered on till date, with the most deaths recorded in the year 2015 but my focus is on the inhuman actions by some unruly officers of the force cited as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and quite a large number of Nigerian citizens have a story or two tell about their ordeal with SARS operatives. The SARS operatives seem to have youths as their major targets and currently in Nigeria most youths look over their shoulders in watch for these SARS operative to avoid these inhumane treatments from people who are inaugurated to combat crime. There is no checks and balances for these SARS operatives, even members of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) are terrified of them, SARS operatives tend to abuse the power vested on them to protect the citizens of the country either they are put on leashes or they should be scrapped in general as they are obviously doing much harm than good.
Nigeria is a home to numerous scholars; Prof. Wole Soyinka, John Dabiri, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, late Prof. Dora Akunyili, Grace Alele-Williams to mention but a few. Currently the illiteracy rate in the country is on the high rise for a country that has seen an increment to its Gross National income for at least 15 years has One-third of its children to have never enrolled in school, Series of lengthy strike actions embarked by the Academic Staff Union of Universities has hinder a lot of students of which most of them fall in the class of those cannot afford to pay the fees at the private universities, in the year 2013, ASUU embarked on a 5 months long strike from July 1st –December 17th 2013, the irregularities in the countries educational system has lead to a large number of drop-outs. Another issue with the Nigerian educational system is their failure to successfully integrated entrepreneurship in to the curriculum, instead more emphasis are laid on more prestigious or “white-collar” occupations, they need to understand that not everyone is meant to be an engineer, doctor or a lawyer, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo has one of the largest farms in the country, diversification of the country’s economy would be effective if the educational system places equal level of importance on all disciplines.
Nigeria faces a serious case of “Brain drain” in the country’s medical sector as most Nigerian medical personnel seek better work conditions and pay abroad, an estimate of 2,000 medical doctors have left the country Nigeria for countries oversees, the doctors blame their exit on poor working conditions and inadequate infrastructure and it is no big surprise given that only 4% of the Nigeria’s Budget is allocated to the health sector. The annual healthcare threshold per individual in the US is $10,000 and in Nigeria, it’s an incredible lowly $6. A doctor in Nigeria earns averagely N200,000 monthly ($560) which is one of the reasons for their mass exodus, this in turn means that eight of 10 Nigerians are presently receiving substandard or no medical care at all. Middle-class and wealthy Nigerians often travel abroad for healthcare. Even the septuagenarian Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari, seeks medical care in London. British, American, South African and Saudi Arabian agencies have taken advantages of this mass exodus to set up shop here in Nigeria to recruit the best doctors, a recent survey shows that 88% of Nigerian doctors seeks jobs abroad. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that one doctor per every 600 person but in Nigeria, is one doctor per every 5,000 person bar the mass exodus, there are 72,000 doctors registered with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN); over half of these doctors practise outside the country. The government needs to show more care and concern towards the health sector, significant pay rises, provision of standard equipment and infrastructure.
Nigeria is richly blessed with enormous oil, gas, hydro and solar resources and has the potential to generate 12,522 megawatts daily but some days it is only able to produce a lowly 4,000 megawatts which is not enough. 36% of the electricity produced goes to the rural areas, 55% of the electricity produced goes to the urban areas and 9% of the electricity produces does not reach some certain which amount for 20 million of the country’s population. More efforts should be made to gradually move the country to be a solar powered nation as it is both economically and environmentally friendly.
