Pick up five different Nigerian dailies any day and the gory tales of killings and orgies of violence ravaging Africa’s biggest economy would stare you in the face.
Insecurity has become Nigeria’s biggest nightmare as more and more citizens worry over the safety of their lives and property.
Daily, news of kidnapping, insurgency, banditry, farmer-herder conflicts and so on grabs the headlines, telling of lives being destroyed, business activities brought to a halt, millions of displaced citizens seeking shelter in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps.
When he sought the votes of Nigerians in the 2015 elections, President Muhammadu Buhari had vowed to return peace and stability to a country harangued by the deadly Boko Harm sect.
Nearly six years into his tenure as president, having won a second four-year term in 2019, the security situation has deteriorated, with many analysts wondering whether Nigeria has not become a failed state.
In 2020 alone, over 2,000 lives were lost in Nigeria due to issues relating to insecurity, violence, human right infringement and terrorist activities, according to Amnesty International (AI).
A breakdown of the lives lost, according to the report, showed that in the North-Western and North- Central regions, over 1,531 people died in inter-communal violence and bandit attacks.
Nigeria has also been named the third-most terrorised country in the world, according to the Global Terrorism Index.
Between December 2020 and March 2021, more than 600 school children were abducted from schools in the North.
Nigeria’s failure to solve its insecurity challenges has meant that money meant for the development and empowerment of its growing population is often diverted into fighting such threats.
Between 2007 and 2019, for instance, containing violence cost Africa’s most populous nation some $1.34 trillion, according to data by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP). That’s roughly three times the total monetary value of economic activities (GDP) in 2019, showing how the economic fortune of the oil-dependent nation bleeds from the lingering crisis.
Amid worsening insecurity which has hampered economic activity in parts of the country, especially in the northern region where farmers can no longer cultivate their farmlands for fear of the unknown, the call for total restructuring of the country has returned to the front burner.
Leaders of Northern Nigeria from 17 groups, including the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), are the latest to throw their weight behind calls for the restructuring of the country, saying that is the only way Nigeria could realise its potentials for economic and political development.
Already, various regions of the country are taking their destinies in their hands by forming regional security outfits. There’s Amotekun in the South West, there’s the Eastern Security Network (ESN) in the South East run by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), and governors of the South East only a few days ago announced they were coming up with Ebube Agu, a regional security outfit.
Insecurity biggest threat to Nigeria’s development
From rising commodity prices to lean government revenues, ballooning public debt and rising poverty, virtually all Nigeria’s current economic challenges have their root cause in the insecurity situation in the country.
Millions of people living in the northern region of the country have fled their homes as IDPs. Farmers are scared of going to their farmland over a prolonged clash with cattle herders.
This has caused scarcity of some major food crops produced in the region and has pushed up the prices of the few available.
Food inflation, which measures the rate of increase in food prices, has headed north for the 17th consecutive month, accelerating to 21.97 percent in February, the highest on record and among the world’s highest.
This has made food, which is supposed to be a basic need for human survival, increasingly out of reach for most Nigerians, many of whom have seen a huge decline in their disposable income.
The business environment is allergic to insecurity. When security challenges threaten business, the common man on the street suffers as unemployment increases. This would in turn increase the rate of poverty and further widen the gap between the haves and have-nots.
It’s like a vicious cycle and the nexus is clear. When a nation is threatened, the business environment is negatively affected; joblessness means people find it difficult to put food on the table. High unemployment would mean that the number of people living below the poverty trap ($1.90 a day) would increase. When this happens, the inequality gap widens pushing more and more of the populace into engaging in activities that are unhealthy for the development of the economy.
Already, about 40 percent of Nigeria’s population, equivalent to the entire population of Germany, are poor, according to a report by Brookings Institution.
The unending insecurity has continued to make some parts of the country unfriendly for investors, thereby worsening the country’s risk premium.
Data from NBS show that a total of 26 Nigerian states failed to attract foreign investment in 2020. Although the huge decline in foreign investments in the year could largely be attributed to the pandemic which triggered an economic lockdown in many advanced countries, most critics believe the social upheaval across the country made an already bad situation worse.
The attendant effect on these states is the huge decline of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and a high dependence on Abuja for monthly allocation.
With the world racing away from oil, government revenue is fast drying up; most state governors are finding it difficult to pay salaries as the amount of money they get from the Federation Account (FAAC) continues to fall.
With the slowdown in fresh investments alongside businesses struggling to thrive, Africa’s biggest economy is unable to create enough jobs to meet up with the growing population.
With unemployment rate soaring to a record high of 33 percent, more than 23 million Nigerians are without a job. This coupled with an inflation rate of 17.3 percent only shows how miserable Nigerians have been. Both situations only create more desperate Nigerians willing to do anything to survive.
Restructuring the way to go
Analysts say a delay in the implementation of restructuring may further worsen Nigeria’s economic woes.
From solving the country’s epileptic power situation to reviving its educational and health systems, restructuring holds a myriad of benefits to Nigeria’s economy if done properly, according to analysts.
“Nigeria is already restructuring. However, the way it is going about it is wrong,” said Cheta Nwanze, lead partner at SBM Intelligence.
According to him, Nigeria needs to have a clear path about “where we are now, where we need to be as a country and plot out a road map on how to get there”.
“The advantage of this is that it gives us checkpoints so we can easily carry out monitoring and evaluation and make necessary adjustments when we need to,” Nwanze said.
For many analysts, the Federal Government is overburdened by so many responsibilities, thus stifling innovation for states.
According to them, Nigeria today does not run a truly federal government and this has been proven with the federal police, power issues and the compulsion to connect to the national grid, education, agriculture, mineral resources which the states cannot mine and other areas as contained in the Exclusive Legislative List.
However, with restructuring, state governments can create their state or regional police. This would go a long way in addressing security issues as states and indigenes who understand their territories can take charge of ensuring that the states are safe.
In terms of education, restructuring will enable states to better explore the talents and abilities of students and channel their curriculum and policies to design an education that brings out the complete potentials of students, they say.
Restructuring will also help in tackling the country’s epileptic power situation as state governors will have to produce their power and share it with those within their state borders and when there is excess, they can share with neighbouring states.
It will also allow states to tap into their vast natural resources, explore the uses maximally, and create wealth for the state and country.
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