THE inability of any government to provide basic necessities of life for the masses without recourse to justifiable reason(s) is best described as a typical failure of governance. Hence, the untold socio-economic hardships which the overwhelming populace of the Nigerians are subjected to and which still persists at present exemplifies failure of governance.
Albeit, every successive governments in Nigeria have always contended with one form of socio – economic crisis or the other. In retrospect, Shagari government was faced with a serious economic crisis leading to the introduction of austerity measures. Also, Babangida regime introduced SAP, SFEM and FEM to cushion the effects of the economic hardship which made scanveging paupers of the Nigerians.In all the cases it has always been the masses that were made to bear the brunts of pains and pangs of these unfortunate and sordid developments.It is paradox of monumental proportion when the hapless citizens suffers from hunger, poverty and diseases in the midst of abundant economic and financial resources being gleefully mismanaged by the privileged few on the corridors of power.
This brings us to the present ravaging economic recession in Nigeria. President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has not found it easy since its inception.
Yet,the media team of the government has failed woefully to explain in concrete terms the meaning of this terminology. Rather, it heaped the failure of goverment to provide succour to the suffering masses on the door steps of the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan gross mismanagement of the nation’s socio-economic affairs during its ill fated tenure in office. According to the PMB-led government, GEJ and his co-travellers in governance plundered the nation’s vast financial and economic resources in a manner that is unprecedented in the annals of political history. To all intent and purposes, the explanations are still vague and ambiguous to an ordinary hungry and angry Nigerian.
The inability of our governments at various levels to educate and enlighten Nigerians of all cadres regarding the concept, meaning, causes, consequences and solutions has dampened their collective morale.The high expectations of Nigerians on the ability of the PMB-led government to make life more abundant for them gave way to despair. All the information ministries in Nigeria, NOA, NAN, etc, have failed in the all important task of keeping the young and old adequately informed and educated on the concept of economic recession. Our education departments too ought to have introduced it as a topic in our school curriculum. An uninformed mind is a confused mind.
Reasonably, had the government done the needful, the effects of the economic recession could not have been that biting as experienced by the populace.
Yes, the PDP-led government of yesterday looted the treasury. But, the information as to the exact amount of money recovered is still missing.What percentage of the recovered loot shall be ploughed back into the economy and for what specific purpose is still a mystery.Yet the information ministry at the centre has refused to do the needful by keeping the citizens abreast of all these developments. To the best of my knowledge, a government’s information department is not for image laundering only, but, disemination of information in all fronts about the activities of the government. It is only a government without focus and strategy that plays undue politics about information dissemination. After all, people deserves to know how they are governed.
To this end, adoption of damage control measures should be put in place to assuage the feelings of Nigerians in respect of the psychological trauma they have been subjected to. The unprecedented sufferings, hunger, poverty, diseases, death, indebtedness and pains must stop today. Short term measures such as quick wins must be introduced to arrest the ugly trend. It is even better to act now!
Akeem Adebiyi writes from Ibadan, Oyo State.
