Christmas is generally celebrated around the world even by those who are not Christians. This is mainly because it has been merged with celebrations of the end of a calendar year into what is now referred to as the “season of goodwill”. Looking back on the year 2024 it has become apparent that ill-will has now become prevalent in our nation. Indeed, it has almost become institutionalized as evidenced by the detention of those who openly criticize the government, incarceration of accused persons who have not been found guilty of any offence; children losing their lives seeking a pittance to cushion themselves from the side effects of poverty; and the callous budgeting for luxuries for political office holders in the midst of growing poverty levels amongst the citizenry.
These days it increasingly appears as if telling unpleasant truths, openly venting anger and frustration towards the powers that be, or even simply offending the ego of highly placed individuals is enough to get a Nigerian incarcerated. The blame for this ill-will does not lie with the police or security forces that are doing their job albeit with little regard for human rights, it lies squarely with the judiciary. Nigerian judges and magistrates have dispensed with the goodwill of simply granting bail on self-recognition to those who freely surrender themselves to investigating authorities. Rather they prefer to order accused persons to be imprisoned until they perfect ridiculous bail conditions despite not hiding, not being violent, and not posing any flight risk.
Too many Nigerians, who have not been found guilty of any crime, are imprisoned and suffer indignities simply because an unproven allegation has been made against them. The result of this lack of judicial goodwill towards men is that over seventy per cent of Nigerian prisoners have not been convicted by any court of competent jurisdiction and are simply incarcerated awaiting trial.
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As for children suffering unnecessarily in Nigeria, it is simply an ongoing phenomenon. It has been over 10 years since 276 girls were kidnapped from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State and the nation has to its eternal shame given up on attempting to rescue any of them. In the 2023 presidential elections, none of the candidates even mentioned trying to locate the kidnapped girls as a priority of theirs. The latest scandal involving suffering children is their death in stampedes in Oyo, Anambra and the FCT while struggling for a pittance. The federal government rejected claims that widespread hardship resulting from its economic policies was responsible for the tragedies.
Reports have it that in Oyo 35 children were killed in a stampede because somebody promised to give N5,000 to 5,000 children. Quite appallingly the children died for an amount which is less than the World Bank-defined poverty level daily income. The World Bank 2024 Report revealed that approximately 700 million people or 8.5% of the World’s population are living in extreme poverty earning less than 2.15 dollars a day.
According to the current dollar/naira exchange rate, their definition of “extreme poverty is any amount less than N96,750 Naira per month”, which means the Nigerians are supposed to cope with a minimum wage considered which is below the international poverty line.
As for budgeting for luxury amid increasing suffering, it has become self-evident as Fabrice Rulinda the Lord Mayor of Entebbe, Uganda said, that political office is supposed to be a service, but unfortunately in Africa, it has become a job. Job seekers run for office so that they can get paid and become wealthy.
In truth, other than working in the oil and gas industry, political office is the only means of becoming wealthy through salary and entitlements. As a result, rather than showing goodwill towards the people, our political leaders see citizens merely as votes for election, not as a responsibility whose welfare they should bear on their shoulders.
Leaders who are supposed to demonstrate goodwill towards all and make people’s lives better by effecting change, prefer to behave like rulers. Nigerians are being ruled and divided by political elite who do not live amongst them. They blame colonial masters for our problems rather than taking responsibility for the mess created by their lack of goodwill towards all mankind. Even in the season of goodwill they happily ride on the misery of the people. Even as citizens struggle to buy more than one rubber of rice for a family Christmas lunch official pick-up vans distribute cows, goats, turkeys and bags of rice to political stalwarts all ultimately paid for with public funds.
In the 2025 budget where the minimum wage is pegged at N70,000 per month, the sum of N2.7 billion has been set aside for the “entitlements” of former presidents, vice presidents, military heads of State and others who were directly responsible for leading the nation into the current mess! They somehow feel entitled to live a life of opulent luxury at public expense.
Indeed, it has often been stated that the biggest handicap to development in Nigeria is that our top political office holders have no goodwill towards anybody except themselves, their families, friends and supporters, certainly not towards all men! While continuously importing so-called foreign experts, and blindly following the World Bank’s western economic ideologies, those in power fail to realise that the solutions to Nigeria’s problems can only come from within by Nigerians who genuinely have goodwill towards all others.
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