25 Years Of Civil Rule, A Trust Betrayed

Recently, Nigeria marked the silver jubilee  anniversary of the return to democracy, or the Fourth Republic.

The last military head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, handed over power to former President Olusegun Obasanjo about 25 years ago on May 29, 1999.

President Bola Tinubu referred to it while addressing members of the National Assembly on May 29. While no ceremonies were rolled out to mark this piece of our recent history, it is understandable that there is not so much to celebrate for this milestone, save for the fact that the military has restricted itself to its constitutional role of safeguarding the state from external aggression and internal dissension by non-state actors.

When the military relinquished power to civilians in 1999 after ruling for 29 years of the country’s 39 years as an Independent nation, most Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief, for they thought that with the military out of the way, it was the opportunity for Nigeria to make real progress as a nation. Not only that the military was not trained for public governance, but military juntas were frowned upon by the international community, and this constricted Nigeria’s development.

However, 25 years after the military retreated to the barracks, it is arguable whether Nigeria has achieved any meaningful progress as a nation and as a people. While the government exists to protect the life and property of the citizens and ensure their well-being, it is difficult to score the civilian rule the country has had since 1999 high on any of the major performance indicators for assessing governments.

The first one is security because it is the foundation upon which all other progress is built.  When the military handed over to civilians in 1999, the gravest security challenges confronting Nigerians were armed robbery, campus cultism, and occasional sectarian violence, which the military quickly stamped out.

At the present times, insecurity is the clear and present danger confronting Nigerians all over the federation.  In the North East North West, and North Central,  non-state actors are having a field day terrorising hapless Nigerians. Islamist terrorism led by Boko Haram and ISWAP, banditry, mass kidnapping of students and residents, communal clashes, herder militia ransacking communities, killing and maiming locals and burning down their houses and farmlands have become the order of the day.

In the South East and South West, separatist violence has led to consistent bloodshed, with the federal government declaring IPOB and its militant wing, ESN, terrorist groups. In the South East people can hardly move around on Monday on the orders of the non-state actor, IPOB. In the South South, illegal oil bunkering, pipeline vandalism, kidnapping and cultism are rife. In fact, Nigerians no longer feel safe moving around the country to conduct their normal activities. Nigeria has been consistently ranked second or third as the most terrorised nation in the world.  Clearly, the civilian administrations have not only mismanaged the country’s security challenges, they have aggravated them by sometimes policising the insecurity in the country.

In terms of economy, the last 25 years of civilian rule have been, at best, underwhelming. Despite successive administrations’ declarations that they would diversify the country’s economy away from over-reliance on oil, they have failed to do so. They failed to develop Nigeria’s vast natural and agricultural resources to create wealth for the nation and its people. In our opinion, every economic indicator has gone south since 1999. Inflation was single digit then, at 6.6 percent; it is about 33.6 percent now, with food inflation hitting 40.6 percent now; unemployment and underemployment levels have worsened. Poverty levels are sky-high, with Nigeria gaining the unsavoury accolade of the poverty capital of the world under this civilian rule.  The last data released by the government’s agency, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in 2018 showed that about one-third of Nigerians were living in multidimensional poverty. Since then, things have got even worse, especially since the present administration ended the fuel subsidy regime and jerked up energy costs and taxes. A combination of poor government investment and banditry has led to acute food insecurity, with food prices now beyond the reach of even formerly middle-class Nigerians.

On another economic indicator – debt profile, Nigeria is also in troubled waters. From clearing its foreign debt to the Bretton Woods institutions during the President Obasanjo era, the country is now back to the days when its hefty debt is a huge concern. For Nigeria to be using over 80.4 percent of its national income just to service debts, far above the World Bank-recommended 25 percent, shows just how terrible the situation is. In fact, Nigeria will still borrow N10 trillion of the N28.78 trillion expenditure in its 2024 budget.

The fight against corruption has also left a lot to be desired. Most of those who have looted the country’s wealth are not in jail; rather, they are occupying the highest political offices in the country. This has made the quest for public office a do-or-die affair for the political class, for the only thriving industry appears to be run by political officeholders and their conniving top civil servants.

In other aspects of the human development index like good health, sound education, potable water, and so on, Nigerians do not fare any better. It is no wonder that Nigeria is experiencing another wave of mass emigration, with its productive workforce fleeing the country for greener pastures.

As a newspaper, we urge this present administration, which came on a renewed hope mantra, to make its policies people-centred; otherwise, democracy will continue to make less meaning to the Nigerian masses.