we the people of Nigeria

we the people

As I laid down to sleep after watching the late evening news my thoughts flooded to the number of casualties resulting from the recent killings in Kano were conservative estimates have it that over 250 people have died. Prior to that, 8 days of street protest against the increase in prices of petroleum (from N65 to N141 before Govt brought it down to N97) had brought the economy to a halt. Between 20th December 2011 and 20th January 2012 more than 1 thousand Nigerians have lost their lives with one of the causes being a terrorist attack on Christmas day at Madalla where chatolic christaians attending chrismas mass where targeted by a suicide bomber from the terrorist organisation Boko Haram which claimed the lives of 48 people. Before that the group had consistently killed over 500 innocent people in Yobe,Gombe, Adamawa, Bauchi,Borno n even Abuja the fedral capital territory where they bombed the police HQ and The United Nations UN building. In recent times, the life of a NIGERIAN has become so valueless that people are no more shocked when they hear casualty figures of people dying needlessly because of Bad infrastructure, insecurity and lack of social welfare.

If the duty and reason of governance is to provide for the welfare and security of the generality of the people then it is safe to say that Nigeria lacks a functional Govt structure. As I woke up in the morning going through online media I saw an excellent and timely presentation written by some intellectuals of NIGERIAN origin and I picked some of their message which flowed in line with my thoughts yesterday night enjoy:
In spite of the promises that have
been made by the present
economic managers, the Nigerian
masses and the withered middle
class will continue to experience a
life of unrelenting misery unless a
new path that encourages a
fundamental and holistic
restructuring of our national life is developed. The recent mass uprising against
the so-called “removal” of subsidy
on petroleum products by the
Federal Govt has
again brought to fore critical
questions about the crisis of
governance in Nigeria and the way
Nigeria is constituted or structured.
The historical and structural
conditions that led Nigeria to the
circumstances described above and
the failure of the ascendant neo-
liberal policies, whose purveyors
have remained consistently ignorant
of the reality and the specificities of
the Nigerian environment, while
displaying condensed disdain for
local knowledge and the political
economy of the fiscal crisis, are
evident in the condescension and
appalling obliviousness recently
displayed by the external and local
“experts” who have attempted to
define the “real issues” in the
course of the current debate.
The
industrial action and mass protests
have been terminated for now, but
the fundamental social, economic
and political questions that they
raised remain salient and continue
to constitute a threat to, not only
the survival of democratic rule in
Nigeria, but also to the corporate
existence of the nation. As the
unending rash of terrorist attacks by
Boko Haram shows, there is an
underlying structural predicament
which this government can only
ignore at its peril. The fact that Boko
Haram continues to ridicule the
nation’s security apparatuses, and
has rendered President Jonathan
inarticulate about its sources and
strength, constitutes an indication
of the urgent need to rethink the
bases of the social contract between
the state and citizens in Nigeria. Both
the terrorism of the Boko Haram
group and the gallant efforts by the
masses and the civil society against
the increase in the pump price of
oil, are manifestations of a perilous
incoherence in the structural
composition of Nigeria and the
manner in which the country has
been, and is being, administered.
The different forms of questions
raised on the corporate existence of
the country in the context of the
two, should compel every patriotic
Citizen in Nigeria to join the task
of responding to these challenges
and constructing the conditions and
institutions through which these
fundamental questions can be
addressed so as to save Nigeria
from an imminent collapse. Make no mistake,Our nation is headed
for the precipice unless we takes a
different course. A combination of
past actions and inactions and the
glaring incompetence, corruption
and lack of vision of the current
government, has made Nigeria to face serious
crises which now more than ever before threaten her continued
existence as a corporate entity;in spite of the promises that
have been made by the people in charge, the people will continue to experience a
life of unrelenting misery unless a
new path that encourages a
fundamental and holistic
restructuring of our national life,
including the economic and political
structures, is started. Continue networking and join hands
to immediately begin a process that
must lead to the convocation of a
national conference. This conference
must end in a comprehensive
restructuring of the federation through constitutional amendments. Nigerian citizens must actively
participate in the political process
through peaceful and non-violent
means. only a consistently active and
constructive engagement in the
Nigerian democratic process – both
electoral and non-electoral – can we
begin to harness the enormous
human potential of Nigerian citizens
at home and abroad, the
Nigerian govt must ensure that
Nigerians are secure to exercise
their democratic rights in a peaceful
and non-violent manner without
intimidation and violence from the
state. The challenges call for concerted
actions beyond mere postulations of
development economics which are
not interrogated through
nationalistic analyses of our local
circumstances and historical
conditions;Nigeria possesses
the human and natural resources
(particularly the former, both at
home and in the Diaspora) to
confront and surmount our national
crises. Nigeria faces enormous
national crises which threaten to
consume not only the government,
but also the nation. The govt now Violently
extracts, collects or gathers
resources to sustain the largely
inefficient,corrupt, unproductive and
thoroughly incompetent federal,
state and local governments that we have
now.
Nigerians must
continue to think carefully and act
meticulously to address our grave
challenges that confront us as a people. We shld continue to
debate and engage in high-level
deliberations with fellow citizens, home
and abroad, on the future of the
country and the convocation, at the
earliest possible time, of a national
conference to discuss our collective
future as a people that will create a constitution that can truly be said to have been agreed upon by ‘we the people of Nigeria’