The End-Sars movement which started as a protest to stop SARS and police brutality, and progressively culminated to the call against bad governance and other ills in the society. But like I have said before, it later got hijacked by politicians through the use of hoodlums, and things eventually got out of control which led to what many Nigerians never really bargained for.
Then there has always been the agitations for restructuring, which is a more broader spectrum of agitations that is intended to re-organize the entire structure that make of the Nigerian entity. But is worthy to note that the call for restructuring encapsulate everything that is wrong in the country, and that needed to be addressed, including the issues with the police – whether it should be State police or not, and of course the issue of funding. Hence, some people believed that the End-SARS thing was a hoax, since the demands were escalated.
We all know that Nigerian politicians are always in the habit of using every trick in the book to gain popularity, while supposedly trying to address national issues. But the will to entrench good governance is never really there. To me, even if Nigeria is restructured today with the same kind of leaders who join politics/government at a young age but have glued themselves to power for life, then be rest assured that Nigeria will not develop one bit.
All of them up there in Executive Government at all levels/Legislative levels today in Nigeria, joined politics as youths and have remained there till when they couldn’t walk again due to old age. This is why I strongly believe that there are areas of the Nigerian Constitution that urgently need to be amended for us to see the desired changes in the polity. But I fear if restructuring alone, without amending some areas of the constitution, will bring good governance in the country. For instance, we need to make our Government unattractive to reflect a place for Service and not a place where people can easily get rich overnight.
More so, what Nigeria will really need is a change of mindset and attitude in the way we do things, for good governance to be entrenched. Nigerians join politics to steal, hence restructuring or no restructuring, Nigeria will remain stagnant with bad leaders if the problem is not addressed from the root. Those Nigerians who perform well in other foreign developed countries and world organisation’s, but when appointed as ministers for this or that in Nigeria, they still glue to offices, abuse their privileges and supervise unrestrained looting, yet they won’t resign even when they are not comfortable with it. A good example of this is Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who was a technocrat and former Minister of Finance under Goodluck Jonathan. Yet, despite all the looting in that administration, she didn’t resign her appointment and was comfortable with that administration.
So, I look at Nigeria beyond restructuring. The politicians from the South-South have never shown any iota to be caring for the common masses in the region despite all the huge resources in their disposal that are meant for development. Look at Bayelsa State today, as small as that State is, there is no single development to boast about with the huge resources available to the politicians in that State. Delta State also, since 1999, has been held hostage by James Ibori and his cohorts. Is that the kind of restructuring we are looking for? If you are not Ibori’s boy or in his good books, forget about being in Delta State politics because you will not even be allowed. Ibori must impose and have a major say in the government and the cabinet selection in Delta State. So, there are many fundamental issues that are evidently wrong in Nigeria which can only be addressed from the roots – which is our change of mindset and attitude towards governance.
Zik Gbemre.
National Coordinator
Niger Delta Peace Coalition (NDPC)
We Mobilize Others To Fight For Individual Causes As If Those Were Our Causes
