By Nik OgbuliePresident Bola Tinubu is a speech craftman, or at least he has slogans that can always be disarming. Saying that Nigeria has no reasons to be poor is a copious reminder to the streams of opportunities that are available to Nigeria to be great and stable . Glorious as the statement must have been, Nigerians equally see the release as obviously hackneyed . Almost all the presidents have said this as a way of looking good to the optics. It could be a subtle gift to angry Nigerians who are not sure where the next meals would be coming from. Many may see it as an age-long blackmail successfully deployed by the caterpillars of our commonwealth to make many of us look guilty and blame ourselves for the position which Nigerian policies have subdued and subjected us to.Nigerians are aware that leadership is the reason why Nigeria is poor and not Nigerians themselves. When the leadership lacks the capacity to put together policies that are not efficient, there is every tendency for things to get skewed. There may be good policies but implemented against its will based on poor education, corruption or nepotism. When such things happen, the citizens do not have any need to remain largely down-trodden and rely on self-help for even such efforts they cannot ordinarily attain. When policies become seriously misrepresented, their fall-out will remain disastrous for a long time and will continue to influence the processes to economic growth and development. Nigerians can take their minds to so many laudable national programmes meant to arm the people with growth opportunities, but they were dashed by the various streams of leadership. There was Normadic Education introduced earlier to improve the social , political and economic lives of the many Sahel-Savannah herders who would have their lives refined by education. That programme was killed by the establishment few years after. There was the NDE programme which was designed to up the skills of Nigerians for employment beyond mere subsistence, but they never survived. The indication is that government gets these fine policies in place but uses most of them as avenues for siphoning public funds. That is why they never deliver the goods to the people which remains some of the reasons why many Nigerians remain poor.Policies of governments are of various spaces and dimensions, and that’s why they remain the major reasons for failure due to poor monitoring or intentional abandonment .Its obvious that governments have set up various commissions, Agencies and parastatals for their selfish reasons provided their rent-seekers and psychophants would find them very cheap avenues to execute their bid.The continued existence of a poorly structured and corrupt civil service remains some of the reasons why many Nigerians remain and would continue to remain poor. A civil service that has been backward in thought and deed can never improve the status quo ante , but will continue to diminish or cause to diminish the urgent reasons for national prosperity because a nation only prospers when her citizens do. Without killing the growing ambition of politicians to control, dominate and own all facets of our processes and scapping the inglorious ambition of the civil service to envelop the spaces with their high level of corruption, nothing would get better for every Nigerian, be they technocrats, the private sector, students, artisans . There is a defined nexus between corrupt civil servants and the usually corrupt politicians. This nexus has become the Bermuda of our growth. The whirlwind defined by these class of government operatives has remained the biggest conspiracy against growth in all activities of Nigerian. How the president begins to dismantle them remains an expose on his sincerity to clear the obstacles for Nigerians to be rich.A situation where armed robbery, terrorism, banditry and various untagged killings would vanish or highly reduce during elections or popular festivities only to rise to high heavens immediately after explains that strings of poverty-stricken citizens are the operators of the country’s “disaster industry”.He must know that a lot could happen in this economy by expanding the productive spaces across the industrial and every commercial sector. Making Nigeria rich must not be about increasing the tax rate but by reducing and expanding the tax nest The problem of our governments is that they lack ideas, that is why when situations like we have now arise they begin to look at low-hanging fruits like taxes and will not strategise to consolidate. Even when they do this, the anticipated income will get missing through the unscrupulous civil service or political cabals. Does the president not know that 50% of our crude oil is stolen daily? The only way to dismantle them is by government to equally dismantle their levels of dichotomy, and see national administration by understanding the need for expedited leadership devoid of political sentiments, gangsterism, and other obnoxious rates and levels of favouritism.The President’s observation is in order, only his command can begin to make the difference. After all, he has been part of the political leadership since the late 80s. Our president did not fall from the moon into the highest seat of government. If he does not know why many Nigeria is poor, maybe he should have another look at his Manifesto .Finish!!
