2017: What a year!

As today Sunday December 31st marks the last day of the year 2017, it provides the opportunity for taking stock of key developments that gave accent to Nigeria’s public space. Ordinarily a time span of 365/366 days captures a cascade of significant events, especially for a country like Nigeria, where the citizenry are programmed to watch helplessly as governance is reduced to sporadic knee-jerk responses by public officers, who do not see their official briefs as being for selfless service to society, but opportunities for self-aggrandizement. Under consideration are some of the developments that stand out with respect to their impact on the country’s public space: either for good or otherwise. While the following round-up of such developments may not necessarily be exhaustive, it still would have served its purpose if all it achieves is to help the reader reflect along the same line. 

For instance among such factors was the long period of hospitalization of President Muhamadu Buhari early in the year; a development that virtually placed the country at a standstill even as the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was acting for his principal. Osinbanjo’s acting tenure, however, was at best dysfunctional for all practical intents and purposes, as the much he could do was amplify and echo the biddings of a mafia comprising the President’s men who were really in charge, in the absence of their master. A most iconic incident that marked Osinbanjo’s impotence in office as Acting President was the drama associated with the Presidential assent to the 2017 budget, which document he was believed to virtually carry to Buhari’s hospital bed in London, to secure the ailing President’s personal approval before signing it. 

Another pointer to the incontinence of Osinbanjo’s tenure of diminished import was the latter revelation that President Buhari was actually approving multi-billion dollar contracts for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) even on his sick-bed in a London hospital. Questions arise over the propriety of the development as even if Buhari could bypass the Acting President, did he also have powers to bypass the Federal Executive Council (FEC) as there is no evidence in the public domain that FEC actually considered the contract and approved same in a formal scheduled meeting? 

It is also easy to recall that during Buhari’s hospital stay, Osinbanjo visited some communities in the Niger Delta where he made promises of better days ahead for the region that produces the bulk of the country’s wealth. History has come to prove that his promises where only hollow political statements that were not intended to be fulfilled, even as some of the leaders of the affected region had known better than believe his tales.   

Another drama whose impact hit the country with the impact of a tsunami was the incendiary uprising by the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) under Mr Nnamdi Kanu the self-styled supreme leader of Ndigbo, who virtually split the country into two units namely – Biafra of his imagination and the rest of Nigeria. His campaign which enjoyed massive following among the younger generation of Ibo youth, was to conjure apocalyptic imagery for the country when a coalition of youth groups of Northern extraction, under the aegis of Arewa Consultative Youth Forum launched a counter-offensive campaign in which they ordered all Ibos to exit the Northern region within three months; an ultimatum that was to expire on October 1st 2017. The impact of that order was as telling as the declaration of war on the Ibo by the Northern youth. It eventually took the return of President Muhamadu Buhari from hospital to call the restive northern youth to order and squelch the IPOB insurrection with a military operation ‘Operation Python Dance’ which was designated for the South East homeland of the Ibo.

At the regional level the oil rich Rivers State was in the news as the governor, Mr. Nyesom Wike, defied protocol and possible harm to himself to save an Appeal Court  judge from being humiliated and whisked away from the latter’s home during a midnight raid by the Department of State Security Services (DSS), in what the organization called a ‘sting operation’. Wike was to up his premium in the nation’s political space when he almost single handedly installed a new Executive Committee for the returning opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at their recently concluded elective National Convention in Abuja.

 In the same Rivers State which has political loyalties already divided between Governor Wike and the immediate past Governor and now Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi (of the All Progressives Congress APC), the latter, acting either by accident or design, elected to split his political base in the course of a determination to stop a serving Senator Magnus Abbe from contesting the 2019 gubernatorial seat in the state. How that development will serve the interest of his party APC, which is presently in opposition in the state, is blowing in the wind. 

 On the economic front, the country ‘officially’ exited from a two-year recession, even as Nigerians on the streets will swear that such a dispensation exists only in the puerile imagination of designated government officials as the hunger and hardship on the streets had only deepened. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), almost 8 million Nigerian workers in the formal sector of the economy lost their jobs between 2016 and 2017 being the peak of the recession, while the number for the informal sector could even be higher. How can the country be talking about exiting recession when all of these citizens are not back at work?

Meanwhile, the 2017 budget is yet to be implemented beyond a paltry 20% and so, almost at the tail end of the year. The woes of Nigerians would not, however, be done until the year’s ending when the country was hit with a devastating fuel crisis over pricing disagreement between the government and the marketers. The public mood was so soured that even a documentary on the “Human Side of Buhari” which was intended as an image booster for the President, was roundly rebuffed by critical sections of the Nigerian society. 

This is the year that is ending by mid-night today. When tomorrow comes, it will be a new year – 2018. Ordinarily, no year is intrinsically good or bad as any year remains just a span in the continuum of time. It is the series of events driven by natural causes and or human activities that define the character of any year.  While the outgoing year 2017 may not have provided smiles for the bulk of Nigerians, it is not to blame as the problem lies in the collective enterprise of Nigerians and the dividends from such. 

The new year offers fresh opportunities for the government and people to make amends and chart a more prospective course. After all, beyond the fanfare that will greet it, not much may change in the course of the new year except the government takes deft steps aimed at changing the country’s drab story.

Already, as part of the seasons greetings to Nigerians, President Buhari has assured of better days in the coming year. This message indicates a willingness on his part to do things differently this time around. This is also hoping that he will match his words with action.