By Richard Inoyo
Lagos is hostile to the poor; without public accommodation and business district provisions for its poor, the State government is busy destroying shops and residences of poor Lagosians, using building permits and urban renewal as a pretext to continue the hate against the proletariat, all in an attempt to get rid of them. The Faculty of Advocates, being the Nigerian Bar Association, needs to rise and challenge the Lagos state government to end the harassment and unethical destruction of assets and livelihoods of poor Nigerians in Lagos.
Akwa Ibom is harsh to opposition politicians and activists compromising almost everything on its space, investing outside the state, and building senseless towers in Lagos state, while its once infrastructural gains get eroded as bad roads and potholes in Itu and elsewhere continue to hit new depth and parameters with zero investment to take flood and other climate catastrophes. Delusion on the part of the leaders is making them invest more in religious crap money that could have been used to build world-class robotics and AI Research centres for new growth. Oron is now the headquarters of kidnapping in Nigeria, the Gulf of Guinea, serving the crime trade.
Its neighbour, Cross River State is playing the politics of lack a dangerous politics that forever pin the State to giving excuses, foisting its young citizens and graduates to run to Lagos, Abuja and Portharcourt for jobs, the very job, the leaders refused to create while the leadership is busy buying SUVs for close politicians, state house of assembly members and judges, along with turning many youths to hallelujah kids, praising primitive achievements in road repairs and selected traffic lights installation in few LGAs, while the primary health care across 18 LGAs can’t boast of having doctors mounting them in the proper ratio nor the needed equipment and energy facility guarantee to run them efficiently the problem persist. The solution is that doctors and health workers need to be recruited and posted to rural places with cars and better housing given to them to enable them to stay with rural allowances.
But then, in terms of sport, the state is engaging its public schools’ students rightly and helping them to engage appropriately and identify their talent and nurture same. I was at the sporting complex yesterday at the U.J. Esuene Stadium in Calabar, and I loved some things I saw. The director and commissioner of sport are innovating impressively. More can be done.
Benue State is improving; we are seeing big investments in agriculture and roads big investments. Try to visit; I was there a few weeks ago.
Delta State government is forever more interested in media achievements than real development. Buying time and doing very little with the huge resources at its disposal.
Edo State has been captured in bondage, with nothing good to expect; the hardship and failure of governance are now ubiquitous. No solution in sight. There is no solution; I repeat, hunger is hitting hard, and major roads across the state are collapsing and failing at an unprecedented rate.
The South East is under siege, a militarised zone that forces travellers to come down from their vehicles and trek while passing certain military checkpoints. You don’t see much anywhere in Nigeria. My travel across the East throughout October tells me the president needs to arrest this madness.
Across key oil installations and extraction centres in the Niger Delta, you are humiliated to raise your hands with guns pointing at you before you can check in or check out of such places, erasure of Indigenous people’s dignity to move freely in their lands.
In the north, militias and bandits rule supreme, taking taxes and reproducing insecurity at a scale that affects everything from food security to infrastructure vulnerability. And just recently, the rights of children were openly vitiated in prison and court, until the president regains his senses and calls for the discontinuation of the trial of minors, seeing how he has been embarrassed for such absurdity not just in media but in the comity of nations.
And for the rest of the country called Nigeria is in a mess. Leadership is missing in action, and the lack of imagination is costing the nation too much; hence, its younger ones are all prepping for Japa. We have a crisis.
Leadership ought to serve life, community and business; sadly, we are seeing the direct opposite, a disservice to all three.
There are NIGERIANS who feel we need new hardships and crises to foist us to have a radical and fundamental shift; I beg to differ; we already have plenty of crises that ought to push us to address poverty, hardship and climate catastrophes.
What we need now more than ever is a clear voice to guide new policy-compassion for all.
About The Author
Richard Inoyo is the Country Director of Citizens’ Solution Network.
