The next Level after the elections

The 2019 elections are over. But they left for us a lot of lessons to learn. One can deduce many things to study, but before this let me congratulate all those who won the elections and are nursing or keeping in their minds the intention to assist President Muhammad Buhari to achieve his noble goals, patrician aims and objectives and accomplish his mission.

These are to revive and reactivate our economy though we are out of the recession now, to make Nigeria stand on her feet, to cripple embezzlement, to efface all forms of corruption, to unite the people of this great country, to raise Nigeria to occupy her right position not only among African countries, but also among the so-called third world countries e.g. Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Ghana, South Africa and so on. Nigeria is not less than any one of these countries, nay she is supposed to be above them all, for she has all the required agents and elements for all kinds of development such as manpower, minerals, scientists, technologists, technological know-how and so on. But unfortunately, her sons and daughters are not ready or willing to put their personal interests and ego aside. Most of us only want to enrich ourselves at the expense of the others. Malfeasance and graft are the order of the day. Many of us are only good in acquisition of money, gain or advantage by dishonest, unfair or illegal means, especially through the abuse of one’s position or influence, politics, business, etc. Any good and decent Nigerian who wants to fight these ugly and grisly behaviours will be their arch enemy. They do not care or bother about the scorching poverty bedeviling and tormenting our people, especially the less privileged ones.

It is enough to serve as a lesson that in the previous elections the illegal practices that made swindlers and charlatans win elections did not work, e.g. rigging, snatching of ballot boxes, money, blarney, thuggery and conspiracy. These are traditional ingredients which were used in any election in the past. Some politicians could even predict the results before the conduct of the elections because they knew what they put in place for rigging and injustice. We thank Almighty Allah that now the era of these heinous behaviours are extinct. My compatriots, let us imbibe the culture of sincerity, truthfulness, uprightness and behave rectitudinously. These are the secrets as to why Nigerians always uphold Buhari. I have no iota of doubt that all of us have seen how rightfulness and patriotism pay. In fact, this previous election has projected Buhari favourably. He scrambled with someone who shared the same faith, same region, same tribe with more affluence than Mr. President, nevertheless Buhari came first.

As an advice to Mr. President, as you promised to take Nigeria to the highest level in your next tenure, please exert effort on education and agriculture. In terms of education, the government must start her building right from our primary schools. Lack of good foundation will never make a good structure. Our secondary schools, colleges, polytechnics and universities need serious attention in general. Education started decaying and declining from 1985 according to my personal assessment, because corruption started becoming vicious from that time. Even after the creation of ETF which is now known as (TetFund) nothing tangible has been achieved. No country can develop without good education. It is pathetic to see that no Nigerian university is among the first best 100 universities in the world, including our first generation universities. It is very disheartening for Nigerians to send their children to Ghana, Malaysia, Sudan to read Medicine and other courses. Nigeria loses billions of Naira every year to these countries. Nigeria would have the best universities in Africa if our past leaders were sincere and patriotic as the present ones. We have competent, skillful and well qualified lecturers in all fields of education in many countries in the world, especially in the petro-dollar countries like Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Brunei and so on. We have a lot of them also in Europe and America. We have engineers and technologists who can industrialize this country. In other words, we have a lot of brains living outside this country. These experts and specialists do not want to come back to Nigeria because Nigerian governments, both federal and state, including the people of the country do not respect knowledge and know-how as much as they respect politics and politicians. In some localities, people know the value of a secondary school drop out, but do not know the value of a professor of Medicine. This attitude is obtained in both south and north of the country, what a pity. Nevertheless, our consolation and solace is in the present government, for Buhari and his team are in place to renovate, overhaul and reposition of the country in the next level. Education is expensive but can we try ignorance?

Agriculture is the backbone of every country. Any nation that depends on others and imports food items from other countries is a failed one. It is disappointing and humiliating to see a country like Nigeria importing what to eat from India, Thailand, Cameroon, what an ignominy! With all our manpower, land and wealth we cannot feed ourselves, and ironically we call ourselves leaders of Africa. Despite what I mentioned above, we have now a patriotic government that is aiming at making Nigeria to become self-sufficient in food production. I hail the government of Kebbi State which produces rice in commercial quantity. Sure, Governor Atiku Bagudu deserves commendation. Please let the other governors emulate him.

By and large, my fellow Nigerians, please, let us back Buhari to serve this country to the utmost. He and his government need our support to discharge the mandate given to them by us.   To me, the previous 8th Senate was a disgrace to Nigeria. They contributed nothing tangible apart from confrontation and showdown with the government.

Prof Nguru is the Chief Executive of Nigeria Arabic Village.