Even more damning is the alarm raised by Senator Smart Adeyemi regarding insecurity. According to him, our entire nation is firmly in the grip of bandits, kidnappers, and rapists.
“It has come to a point that we cannot sleep with our two eyes closed. Our security has collapsed. Let’s forget the ego. Nigeria needs to seek foreign help and strengthen our security system. People are hungry, and people are suffering. We are facing a serious problem.”
We also have to deal with what the World Bank and our own NBS (National Bureau of Statistics) describe as multidimensional poverty.
Read also: Nigeria in crisis over ‘unholy marriage between insecurity and education’ – Report
“Home to over 200 million people, Nigeria is the most populous country on the African continent and the seventh largest in the world. The United Nations forecasts that the population will double by 2050, making it the third-largest country in the world (UNDESA, 2019). Given Nigeria’s size and growth potential, the pressure to safeguard and improve the lives of its citizens is significant. Nigeria was still recovering from its 2016 economic recession when another recession hit in 2020 due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, further detailing its economic recovery.
While the COVID-19 regulatory measures implemented in Nigeria helped to control the spread of the virus, many of these necessary and lifesaving measures had deleterious effects on livelihoods, health, human wellbeing, state-society relations, and social harmony. The Nigerian economy has grown post-COVID, with the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate rising from -1.92 percent in 2020 to +3.40 percent in 2021. Despite this economic recovery, the lingering impact of the 2020 recession has undermined household welfare and exacerbated poverty and vulnerability.
In August 2019, the President of Nigeria committed to empowering an additional 100 million people to escape extreme poverty by 2030. This means that, on average, 10 million people must be lifted out of poverty each year, starting in 2020. With the adverse impact of COVID-19 on livelihoods and unemployment, this challenge has become even more important. It is within this context that the Nigeria MPI (2022) survey was conducted across the 109 senatorial districts, establishing a baseline for the local government area (LGA) survey due in 2023 and the future two-yearly national survey.”
Q: “The challenge before our nation is how to deal with being the best of friends in the worst of times.”
We have no choice but to accept the validity of the “Chaos Theory” which States as follows:
“Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of scientific study and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and were once thought to have completely random states of disorder and irregularities.”
Chaos theory, in mechanics and mathematics, the study of apparently random or unpredictable behaviour in systems governed by deterministic laws. A more accurate term, deterministic chaos, suggests a paradox because it connects two notions that are familiar and commonly regarded as incompatible. The first is that of randomness or unpredictability, as in the trajectory of a molecule in a gas or in the voting choice of a particular individual from out of a population. In conventional analyses, randomness was considered more apparent than real, arising from ignorance of the many causes at work.
In other words, it was commonly believed that the world is unpredictable because it is complicated. The second notion is that of deterministic motion, as that of a pendulum or a planet, which has been accepted since the time of Isaac Newton as exemplifying the success of science in rendering predictable that which is initially complex.
Read also: Taming inflation, ending insecurity: A “war council” for Nigeria’s economy
The challenge before our nation is how to deal with being the best of friends in the worst of times.
We can at least draw comfort and inspiration from the thesis of Tim Harford of “Financial Times,” who argues that:
“The basic building block of economic activity—so basic that we take it for granted—is two people making each other better off by finding gains from trade.”
However, a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Nigeria has raised the alarm:
“Security spending in the past nine years amounted to N14.8 trillion. Despite increased spending, insecurity remains a challenge and jeopardises national stability, negatively affects economic activities, and undermines investor confidence.”
KPMG has released the following report:
“The Head of Police Pension Board, Yakubu Yusuf, has been sentenced to two years in prison by an Abuja High Court after he pleaded guilty to the embezzlement of N23.3 billion. The judge also ruled that he forfeits property valued at N325 million. He was, however, given the option of N250 thousand to avoid the jail sentence.”
Thankfully, this has been corrected by J.K. Randle Professional Services. The correct report is as follows:
He was actually jailed.
