The revolution the President must lead

Right from independence, Nigeria as a nation has been ripped off by those who were supposed to take it to greater heights. Elective posts in all the post independence years, and military incursion into politics have been more of service to the individual pockets than service to the state. Impunity succeeded corruption and greed took on the form of a monster and all hell was let loose. It’s inconceivable that a nation would be populated by so-called leaders who have no single interest in its development and who would rather conspire with their foreign partners to shortchange their own land and continually relocate to foreign lands after their tenures.

Nigeria has much of the world’s oil deposit and abundance of every other treasure found elsewhere. Coupled with this, it also has an amazing weather conditions which remain one of the very best on planet earth. Every state of the nation is a country on its own with more than adequate resources to back it up if sincerely developed, with all such natural benefits at the nation’s disposal, Nigeria ought to parade one of the most adorable and enviable economy in the entire universe.

Alas the nation from inception has been riddled and ridiculed by unbridled looting. Public offices are avenues of self-aggrandisement and continuous pillage which have left the whole land thoroughly wounded and woefully incapacitated. In the calamity of extremely corrupt leadership that befell Nigeria, Britain must be held accountable and if need be, dragged before the world court and forced to pay reparations. It was Britain that colonised Nigeria, and the rot that took the center stage shorty after the exit of the colonial masters was a reflection of the conspiracy masterminded by Britain itself aimed at keeping the fledging nation backward.

Now, how would anyone explain a nation so endowed with so many resources still crawling fifty nine years after independence! Almost all facets of life are in shambles. Education which is the bedrock of any society has been relegated and from primary to the university, all indices point at a complete rot and a totally collapsed sector. Some school buildings constructed over a period spanning more than fifty years have not had any form of facelift and still retain their old dilapidated structures forcing learners to study under very pitiable conditions. Even majority of those saddled with the responsibility of imparting knowledge themselves being a products of a failed system, are bereft of ideas and sometimes more ignorant than those placed in their care.

All infrastructure are comatose. Many innocent lives are being lost daily to completely avoidable deaths due to the utterly poor state of the roads. Thousands bow to sudden deaths due to absence of any reliable health care system. Government hospitals are ill-equipped and most so-called private hospitals are death centres.  The situation is so terrible that even Mr. President himself had to seek medical treatment abroad. The question then is what happens to million others who do not have such opportunities as the president?

Youth unemployment continues to ravage the entire country. With so many tertiary institutions including the mushroom ones churning out thousands of graduates every year, the labour market is over saturated and without outlets for employment, the youths are getting agitated and veering into many nonsocial fields such as internet fraud, ritual murders, pipeline vandalism  kidnapping,  prostitution and armed banditry. Majority of the nation’s youths flee the country on daily basis subjecting themselves to so much harrowing experiences and risks just to get out of the country. In the process, many are enslaved in foreign lands while many unlucky ones perish in the Mediterranean and other seas.

The youths have therefore been pushed beyond the wall and now is the time for the president to lead a revolution to recover all nation’s stolen wealth. The nation is in dire need of large fund to develop all the natural resources in each state of the federation as a leeway to creating gainful employment for the youth as well as to check rural I urban migration. President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption war which is yielding many positive results is quite commendable.  But the dragnet should now be extended to all former leaders be it civilian or military whose fortunes have now risen beyond that of the country.

It’s completely unacceptable to the nation’s youths who have been at the receiving end for decades that few Nigerians who had used their privileged positions to corner the nation’s wealth could today be sitting comfortably on billion-dollar empires while the whole nation groans in serious pains. The president, considering his noble and indubitable integrity is well positioned for such task. By refusing to use public office to enrich himself, he remains the only leader that can confront and question corrupt past leaders. The clear evidence is that all of them became richer than the state shortly after their tenure. In prosecuting the proposed revolution, the president should be aware he has the backing of all the nation’s youth and he should go ahead without bothering whose ox is gored