The last mile syndrome (1)

This is obviously a crucial point or crossroads in the chequered history of Nigeria. The Last Mile of the election or democratic cycle has crept up on us. We are at our most vulnerable economically, financially and every otherwise, ranging from terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, sabotage, and fear as well as INSECURITY of lives and properties. Everywhere, poverty and crimes have taken over vast swathes of our sovereign territory. In the East, some warlords have declared that elections will not hold while in the North, some local government areas are directly under the control of bandits who extort taxes and levies from hapless and utterly bewildered citizens.

What we are confronted with are the old demons of ethnic jingoism and religious intolerance superimposed on corruption and lawlessness.

The stark choice before us is whether to conclude that our nation is already beyond redemption or to summon our collective patriotism which would compel us to intervene to restore peace, order and justice. What looms on the horizon is a fierce competition between anarchy and chaos that would rapidly take us back to the civil war which raged from 1967 to 1970. The massive loss of three million lives and millions more of limbs would have been in vain if we are now still battling with the same issues (and worse) over fifty years thereafter.

If we fail to intervene now, no matter the cost, our children and grandchildren will not forgive us. The mutual suspicion and gaslighting have already commenced in earnest.

The already toxic environment is being further contaminated with an influx of drugs, weapons and ammunition on an unprecedented scale. The gathering storm is of truly epic dimensions.

We have been thoroughly clinical with the STRESS TEST as a precursor to the forthcoming elections and we have had to restore to AI (Artificial Intelligence); computer simulations; scenario planning; machine reading and analytics. The outcomes are consistent – the ALARM BELLS are ringing.

The red flags are everywhere. We are neither blind nor deaf.

Our patriotic duty is a sacred obligation – to intervene before it is too late rather than wait until the crisis has crystallised into conflagration which would rapidly engulf our entire nation.

This is the most expensive election in the history of mankind. If we are lucky we may have a “winner” but nobody appears ready to be a loser.

Already, the buying of voter cards has become a large-scale industrial enterprise.

The results of the stress test across the main pillars of government:

• The Executive

• The Legislature and the

• The Judiciary should give us cause for concern.

The “Daily Trust” newspaper editorial of January 3, 2023 has provided some of the irrefutable data evidence.

Abuse of CBN Ways and Means

“Last week, the Senate rejected President Buhari’s request for approval to restructure the government’s debt owed [to] the Central Bank of Nigeria. The debts were accumulated through the apex bank’s overdraft to the government, otherwise known as Ways and Means. In his letter to the Senate, President Muhammadu Buhari explained that the amount involved was N22.7trn, made up of advances given by the CBN to the government over the last 10 years, and another one trillion naira billed to be raised as a new domestic loan.

“The Ways and Means advances to the government have ballooned since President Buhari assumed office, rising from just about N789.6 billion in May 2015, to its current unacceptable and illegal level of N22.7 trillion. Worse, the advances have grown precisely as the government’s revenue flows have dwindled. Consequently, the Ways and Means advances, which are supposed to be of a short-term nature, have become the primary ways of funding the government’s deficits, or worse a blank cheque for the government.

“As the 9th Assembly comes to a close, Daily Trust calls for a complete overhaul of the committee system in the National Assembly. Had the committees been more effective, such open disregard of fiscal regulations in the country would not have persisted over ten long years. If the National Assembly hopes to retain its relevance in the emerging political realities, it must rise to the challenges of ensuring that the right things are done, and where infractions are recorded, the culprits are brought to book.

Our intervention may not be limited to pressing the PAUSE button or negotiation of a CEASEFIRE or TRUCE but rather a bold initiative anchored on CONSENSUS – in order to avert anarchy and chaos.

The international community is already preoccupied with Ukraine and the next round of COVID-19.  Hence, there is no guarantee that they would have sympathy or time for Nigeria’s self-inflicted tragedy.

If we treat our nation as an abandoned project, we cannot blame the rest of the world for turning a blind eye or deaf ears.

Regardless, we must recognize that the eternal optimists amongst us insist that democracy (elections) is like pregnancy — awkward in conception, painful in delivery, and glorious when the outcome is a bouncing baby full of hope, and energy.

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