Nigeria at risk of becoming a failed state ― Financial Times

A UK-based newspaper, The Financial Times, has reported that Nigeria is at risk of becoming a failed state.

It stated this in an editorial published on Tuesday, noting that the spate of insecurity in the country showed “the government is no longer in control.”

Financial Times stated that Nigeria and its government “must redouble efforts to get a grip on security.”

The editorial also stated that Nigeria “needs to restore trust in key institutions, among them the judiciary, the security services and the electoral commission, which will preside over the 2023 elections.”

Even as it declared that the young people in Nigeria were more than capable to turn the country round, the editorial warned that if nothing was done before the population would double to 400 million by 2050, Nigeria could become a problem far too big for the world to ignore.

The editorial is presented below:

More than 300 Nigerian schoolboys were reunited with their families last weekend, days after they had been abducted by kidnappers from their dormitory in the country’s North-West.

The kidnapping revived memories of the 276 Chibok schoolgirls abducted in Borno State in 2014. Just as then, Boko Haram, the militant Islamist group, claimed responsibility.

But the government insisted no ransom was paid.

A failed state is one where the government is no longer in control. Africa’s most populous country is said to be teetering on the brink.

President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 pronounced Boko Haram “technically defeated”.

But Boko Haram has remained a constant threat.

And if the latest kidnapping turns out to be its work, it would mark the spread of the terrorist group from its north-eastern base.

Even if the mass abduction was carried out by “ordinary” bandits — as now looks possible — it underlines the fact of chronic criminality and violence. Deadly clashes between herders and settled farmers have spread to most parts of Nigeria. In the oil-rich, but impoverished, Delta region, extortion through the sabotage of pipelines is legendary.

Extortion is a potent symbol for a state whose modus operandi is the extraction of oil revenue from central coffers to pay for a bloated, ruinously inefficient, political elite. Security is not the only area where the state is failing. Nigeria has more poor people, defined as those living on less than $1.90 a day, than any other country, including India. In non-Covid-19 years, one of every five children in the world out of school lives in Nigeria, many of them girls.

The population, already above 200m, is growing at a breakneck 3.2 per cent a year. The economy has stalled since 2015 and real living standards are declining. This year, the economy will shrink four per cent after COVID-19 dealt a further blow to oil prices. In any case, as the world turns greener, the elite’s scramble for oil revenue will become a game of diminishing returns. The country desperately needs to put its finances, propped up by foreign borrowing, on a sounder footing.

In its three remaining years, the government of Mr Buhari must seek to draw a line in the sand. It must redouble efforts to get a grip on security. It also needs to restore trust in key institutions, among them the judiciary, the security services and the electoral commission, which will preside over the 2023 elections.

More than that, Nigeria needs a generational shift. The broad coalition that found political expression this year in the EndSARS movement against police brutality provides a shard of optimism. At least Nigeria has a relatively stable democracy. Now Nigeria’s youth — creative, entrepreneurial and less tainted by the politics of extraction — should use that system to reset the country’s narrative.

A new, slimmed-down state — ideally one with fewer, bankrupt regional assemblies — must concentrate on the basics: security, health, education, power and roads. With those public goods in place, Nigeria’s young people are more than capable of turning the country round. At the present trajectory, the population will double to 400m by 2050. If nothing is done, long before then, Nigeria will become a problem far too big for the world to ignore.

Governors Forum Decries Insecurity In North-West

LATEST NEWS

By Tribune Online On Dec 22, 2020

 Share

The Chairman, Nigeria Governors Forum, Dr Kayode Fayemi, the Governor of Ekiti State has expressed the concerns of the forum over the security situation in the North- West and the country at large, promising to collaborate with the Federal Government to bring an end to the menace.

Dr Fayemi made this assertion when he led the Governors of Sokoto, Kebbi and Jigawa states on a solidarity visit to Katsina State Governor Aminu Bello Masari at the Government House Katsina, on Tuesday.

“For us, the Nigeria Governors Forum, we believe that we not only have to be tough on banditry, on kidnapping, on criminality generally, but we also have to be tough on the cause of the problem.

“Socio inequality, poverty are key issues, and we need to be able to ensure that our states pry away our young people from the merchants of death who are using them as cannon fodder of this criminal brigandage,” he said.

“And we can only do that by providing them with alternative means of livelihood and support system that’ll not entice them to these elements that are endangering the whole of our country.”

“However, we as governors are still very concerned about the security situation in the North-West and in the entire country. This is almost a daily occurrence,” he said, adding that, the governor is spending the state lean resources on both material and human on this priority issue which pervades the whole of our country.

“We want to thank His Excellency, the President for being abreast of the situation and for working closely with the governor of Katsina state in ensuring that the kids were retrieved from the forest in Zamfara with the assistance of the players who were critical to that retrieval- Miyetti Allah, the military, our brother the governor of Zamfara State,” he added.

ALSO READ: 253 died in Kwara road crashes in 11 months ― FRSC

“And this is something that we are committed to as governors in working with Mr President in working with all our colleagues so that we don’t keep talking about the same thing over and over again”.

“We’re all tired, we’re all frustrated that these issues are happening, but we know that with concerted efforts on our part as governors and commitment of the federal government and professional conduct of our security services and our social investment programme intensified; we shall see to the end of this criminality, this brigandage in our states,” the NGF boss said.

“And this is something that we are committed to as governors in working with Mr President in working with all our colleagues so that we don’t keep talking about the same thing over and over again”, Fayemi concluded.

In his remark, Masari thanked his colleagues for the concern, urging them to join hands together to defeat the enemies and safeguard the lives and properties of their people.

“The issue of security is the issue of all citizens, people should not join security with politics; no leader wishes the people he swore to protect are in turn being killed.”