THE recent happenings have brought up a lot of discussions and have left a lot of people thinking about the future of the country, it’s obvious what started as a peaceful quiet protest by some concerned Nigerian Youths have progressed into something more of a revolution, we have witnessed loads of issues this 2020, but the #EndSARS campaign have become an ice breaker and a talk one cannot but notice, the #EndSARS have being one of the talked after word on social media and have being breaking records every day throughout this month of October, causing the entire world to pause and follow what is happening in Nigeria. For me I have seen the power of Social media first hand and now we would all concur that the power of the mobile phone and social media can never be underestimated. Statics reveal that the youth population makes up over 80% of the Nigerian population of over the 206 million Nigerians, most of which are under 40, this reveals that Nigeria has over 115m young people most of which are living under the poverty level, with no jobs nor businesses, most of which are also not educated, making it very difficult to earn a decent living. This for me is a red flag of a disaster that would soon explode in our hands if something isn’t done drastically.
We have seen that this would not be business as usual for the Nigerian government, the introduction of technology and social media have revealed to majority of us that this generation cannot be governed by the old analogy way, this is the 21st century, and the techniques for ruling has to change, they see all, keep all, store all and keep track of everything that you have said, even if you forget the internet doesn’t forget and they will always remind you, so it’s rather unfortunate that the same government who took advantage of the huge impact and event of social media, now want to shut the same social media, I find it quiet shocking that in this modernized, empowered, and equipped generation a nation could watch a video and then be bamboozled that the video they watched wasn’t true “Photo shopped videos as they were tagged”. How elated and glad that technology have brought to our rescue once again and Forensic investigations have begun to reveal proofs that, yes that night actually occurred. A lot of Nigerians have seen a lot these few days and this have impacted negatively on their mental minds, which some are still talking with counselors, this we can never erase from their minds.
It will be paramount that we take a quick look at the poverty level in Nigeria, this will give us a better understanding of why we have witnessed the huge negative impact that have being caused by another set of young people who feel they are also right and fighting for their rights, in their minds they feel that they are stealing what belongs to them, and this behavior many have condemned, we must fight for our rights, but this must be done in the right way and manner, without disrupting other civilians, or destroying the lives and properties of both individuals and civilians, this has gone way out of hand. Over the past few days we witnessed loads of food looting some called “Palliatives” from warehouses across different states in Nigeria, these palliatives were donated by wealthy concerned citizens of the country, the major questions on the minds of numerous Nigerians have being why the hunger relief packages were not shared during the lock down, well I would leave that for authorities to explain. We have witnessed also loads of businesses being vandalized by some people and their goods carted away with leaving them helpless and confused on where to go to or how to start again, this most of them may never recover from, but we hope that the government intervenes and comes to their rescue.
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According to Lagos (Reuters) 40% of Nigerian live in adverse poverty, statistics revealed that the conditions are scary as this really shouldn’t be the case in a country with the largest economy. During the period of September 2018 to 2019 October, it has being reported that 40% of people who live in the largest country in Africa “Nigeria: live below the poverty line of about 137,430 naira (381.75) per annum and this is way worse than that now, as we all know that the value of the naira has depreciated even much more compared to this figure, this represents 82.9m Nigerians according to Lagos (Reuters).
As we all know Nigeria is the leading oil exporter in Africa, which has led to its wealth creation years ago, which amounted to more than 50% of its government revenue, but the inability of the government to diversify the economy and build other streams of income has left the country in adverse debt and poverty. Over the years the government have also failed in rehabilitating the power sector which has crippled businesses, the education section which have left more young people on the streets than in paid employment, bad governance and bad roads which has made transportation and movement a living hell in various cities, where a 15 minutes’ drive to work takes you between 4-6hours leaving you exhausted and tired, poor support from the government and banks have left the agricultural sector stranded there by making food scares and extremely expensive if found available. There has being no clean water for years and most homes have had to create their own sources of clean pipe borne water, lastly the area of security has being the greatest issues which even promoted the whole protest in the first place. Citizens felt that they were no longer safe in their own country and felt threaten by the same people who were meant to protect them, we have seen that a lot have gone wrong and the government has a lot to do to resuscitate the Nigerian economy and this is just to mention a few.
Another major issue has being the issue of sporadic population growth that isn’t moving at par with the economic resources, presently the population increase by 2% every year and the United Nations projects the Nigerian population at about 400m by 2050, this is a lot and would put further adverse restrain on the already available resources, making it almost impossible to get out of the constant setbacks and recessions. The report according to the 2019 study revealed that the statistics office said that 52% of people who live in the rural areas live in adverse poverty as compared to their counterparts in Urban cities with only 18%, which has impacted on the massive influx of people migrating from the villages to the cities for greener pastures, Lagos being one of those major cities with more entries than exit. It was revealed that the northwestern state of Sokoto, suffers the highest level of poverty of 87.7% living below the poverty line as compared to only 4.5% in the commercial city of Lagos which has witnessed the lowest rate till date.
Let’s take a quick look at the poverty measurement and see where most Nigerian belong to, poverty measures attempt to look at the welfare of the individuals who live below some minimal acceptable level of income, just like economic growth , poverty can be measured in different ways, we have the international poverty headcount ratio , this takes into consideration of the proportion of the people who has income below the international poverty level of $1,90/day at purchasing power parity (PPP), this controls for differences in how much a given amount of money can buy in a particular country. The national poverty headcount considers the proportion of the population that has income below the national poverty level; this is most times determined by the various countries. The poverty gap measures the average gap between poor individual’s income and the poverty level, in this case the international level of PPP is $1.90 a day PPP. For the sake of this article we would be considering The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) this defines if an individual is deprived on a 3rd of more of ten indicators (Child mortality, electricity, floor, assets, water, toilet, cooking fuel, nutrition, years of schooling, school attendance)and then puts them at par with the intensity of their poverty by the number of deprivations they experience, with this index we will agree that most Nigerians still do have access to these basic amenities of life, no employment, nor even live above the $1.99 approved by the international poverty level, we have revealed that we still have a long way to go, these we have witnessed over the past few days, where more people are concerned with looting food from warehouses and stealing as they lack even the basics of life, if a lot of these things are provided for majority of people, this will reduce the negative impact looting will have on businesses and the economy in general.
KEY STRATEGIC DECISIONS
We will all agree with me that the youth have woken up now; they are ready to take things more seriously and contribute towards decisions and policies that will shape their future and those of their kids. It’s obvious now that, it’s not about social media post, but about strategic concrete plans that would help change the narrative. Outlined below are a few points that I have thought about that can help us achieve a better Nigeria
1. The work doesn’t happen on social media: we have seen that most of the work won’t be done on social media but on ground, the educated young people must enlighten and empower the other set of youths, who have gone about destroying properties most of them have done what they best know how to do, destroy and take advantage of situations, what we need to do is teach them, looting is destroying our reputation and that expression of anger mustn’t be on lives and properties but expressed in right ways, for the government to see their pain and know how to help them
2. We must create a plan on how the educated and elite youth can work together so that their efforts don’t go to waste: For us to succeed come 2023 we must unite and work together to take out those we haven’t achieved anything in the past years, and then decide on how we can educate, empower and choose our own representative that will have our interest at heart, this might be a very difficult task, but if we start now, pretty soon we would get it right.
3. Thinking out of the box and engaging all stake holders so that they don’t get bought over by peanuts : This is the time for us to think outside the box, according to the interview granted by Mr. Atedo Peterside on AriseTv recently , he spoke lengthily for about an hour on how the young people can unite to create and form their own party now against 2023, this isn’t really the time for story, blame games or competitions, but a time for unity across tribes, religion, wealth, influence and affluence, he explained that the young ones who started the protest had good intensions but the other set of youth had hijacked the situation and turned things around, but they still had time now to plan and prepare, I couldn’t have agreed much more to his advice, and we must yield to every single word that he said. The educated young people would have to extend a helping hand to the other set of youths, by teaching, empowering and enlightening them on what they want to achieve and how they can both work together to achieve it, without this in place the other set of youths might jeopardize their chances of winning the elections as they might get bought over at the point of elections by little to nothing given to them once in four years.
4. Think out of the box and come up with a detailed concrete plan ahead of 2023: Thinking out of the box would require a lot from everyone, we can’t afford to keep doing things the same way but totally different, we have a lot of work to do in studying the law and constitution so that we are on top of the game, it would definitely be a very tough road, but with persistency, consistency and determination we will overcome. The young people would have to start now, by creating a solid plan that would stand the test of time, this has to start now against 2023, they might feel like they still have time, but they don’t, all things must be put in place, deciding on a party and who would lead the parties, they can’t move on from here without a leader, they must save and plan as this would have to funded internally by them and for them.
5. Migration isn’t the solutions as we mustn’t loose hope: we have seen a huge out flux of young professionals to other countries with greener pastures like Canada and co and this is all to protect their children and give them a better future, some have left high paying jobs, to travel out and start all over again, some have even had to take up small and menial jobs not up to their qualifications or standard, but then it gives them and children a brighter future than they would ever have achieved in Nigeria even with their high paying jobs, the number is still going up yearly and this year alone we have seen a huge surge in the outflow, in 2019 we have seen that 45%of the young adults are making plans to leave the country , most believe that there are better chances of them living a better life outside than in Nigeria, many fear that they won’t be able to give their kids a better life here, so leaving remains the best option they have. We must believe in our country and stay back to fight for a better country, the biggest questions on our minds are that if everyone get frustrated and leaves, who would remain to make this country a better, it’s obvious that this is our country and our home and no matter where we run to, one day we will still return home as the saying goes “there is no place like home”.
6. Empowering SME as a drastic tool for massive job creation in the next 5 years: we have seen the massive growth of this sector over the past years, even with adverse working conditions and economies; they keep striving and pushing on. According to an article written by PWC , they explained that the SME sector is the backbone of loads of developed countries, as well as important contributors to improving the employment rate, export growth and the economy. In South Africa SME’s account for 91% of businesses, 60% of employment and contribute 52% of total GDP, while in Nigeria SME’s account for 48% on the national GDP, account for 96% of businesses and 84% of employment. Despite the significant contribution of SME’s to the Nigerian economy, challenges still stop them from growing and developing as fast as necessary. For us to achieve more the government will need to create policies and strategies that will empower these SME’s to grow faster, thereby reduce the level of employment and impact positively on the employment rate.
7. Providing an enabling environment for all, where we are all seen as equals chasing one goal: it’s extremely very important that the government creates an enabling environment for all to strive and survive. The government must treat all its citizens as equal and as one, no segregation, and no varying punishment, people must be treated equally, despite their tribes, religious, and believes, no one must feel superior to the other in the same country, we are all brothers and sisters and we must remain united.
8. Providing loans with low interest rates to help the SME’s: As stated by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria have contributed about 48% of the national GDP in the last 5 years, with a total number of about 17.4m, which accounted for about 50% of industrial jobs and nearly 90% of the manufacturing sector, in terms of number of enterprises. Although over the years the MSME sector have seen massive growth, a lot still needs to be done to help these businesses, according to an article on “Developing Africa through effective, socially responsible investing”, there still exists a ‘missing middle’, which finds it hard to access funds due to the classification of funding they belong to”, they also discussed other impeding issues affecting them like lack of skilled manpower, multiplicity of taxes, high cost of doing business and many others. Loads of businesses suffer and die due to funding issues, thereby impacting the economy negatively, if the government can assist these sectors, a lot more will be achieved with in a very short time.
9. Slum inclusion ahead of 2023- carrying the grassroots along: these past few weeks have displayed the real importance of a strategic inclusion for all both the poor and the rich together. The educated youth would have to carry the uneducated and unenlightened ones along, if they are going to win this race come 2023, to achieve this goal the comprehensive plan must cover everyone, only then can we make sustainable progress.
10. Increasing the number of young people who have access to education and internship roles: we must create programs whereby the well-educated young people go to public schools to teach and empower the less privileged ones. We must find ways of improving the educational system to help all. We must create forums and groups whereby we teach, train, educate and empower young people, so that they are prepared ahead of time, we know that this is a very long term plan, but the time is now. We must create ways of placing this young people in internship roles, technical roles and jobs where they can improve their skills to enable them fit in better into the economy. More young people would need to be trained for us to achieve our 2023 goal.
In conclusion we must understand that this is not really about the #EndSars campaign but the preparation for 2023, this is not a time for mere talks and argument but for action, we have seen that despite the fact that the youth population makes up over 75% of the Nigerian population only but a few own voters card, and only a few take part in the country’s election and hence cannot really choose who will govern them or fight for what they really need. The time for active participation is now, enough is enough where young people are sidelined and given back roles instead of front roles to make strategic decisions that would affect them positively. While many mourn and get angry about a lot of things that have happened over the past weeks, we must not let our sentiments and emotions get the better part of us, but teach us a lesson that we must act now and change the course of our future. For me I would suggest that we have one group, one voice, one mind and be unified, while I know this might be very difficult and hard to achieve if we do tackle these problems now and create lasting solutions, we are on the right path to a better Nigeria. The young people must unite and create one party that would select the best leaders among us, who would lead us, we could start from our local government, constituency and states, as this one’s control us directly, and this will be a right step in the right direction. For me this #EndSARS campaign is an awakening of a new movement, a new movement that would plunge us into a better Nigeria and the new Nigeria we have always dreamt off, this is just the start and the beginning of many more good things to come.
LINDA OCHUGBUA
