The people gave the president a resounding victory in the election expecting that his promised transformational leadership will address critical issues such as corruption, insecurity, infrastructure, unemployment and the convening of a conference of ethnic nationalities to finally address the issue of nationhood.
Unfortunately the nation is deeply disappointed as the president has yet to address any of the core issues. Indecision is the worst quality a president can have. Everyone expected a robust war against corruption, a determined effort to reorganise and reposition the police including the creation of state police to decisively tackle nationwide insecurity, a nationwide registration state by state of all unemployed youths to enable direct intervention in skills-vocational training, enterprise programs and others, a definite deal with multinational construction companies and the private sector to commence nationwide road construction, rehabilitation of public schools, hospitals, water schemes, mass housing and the setting-up of a committee to organise a conference of ethnic nationalities.
These issues remain the greatest fundamentals of the state of the nation which requires urgent attention from any president deserving of his office. Fortunately, there is still ample time left to commence action in all these sectors and show some results within the shortest possible time. The strategy is to re-strategize, refocus and relaunch by commencing immediate sectoral action as proposed below.
WAR ON CORRUPTON:
Corruption is the single greatest cancer that has brought the nation to her knees and the federal government should decisively tackle it by creating special courts. Alternatively corruption could be re- designated “economic treason” by law which would pave the way for the use of military tribunals to prosecute cases of corruption with mandatory sentences which should include capital punishment.
INFRASTRUCTURE:
The terrible state of federal roads, public schools, hospitals and total absence of pipe borne water is a scandal on a democracy that in 13 years has benefitted from the longest oil boom in the nation’s history. There is simply no excuse for this damming predicament beyond corruption, misrule and a deliberate decision by the leadership not to address the infrastructure crisis. Mr President must now move fast to strike a deal with multinational construction companies. If there is no money, the federal government can negotiate to pay with crude oil and accordingly set-aside 100,000 or 150,000 barrels of crude oil daily as payment for the infrastructure network.
A serious effort to combat illegal bunkering estimated at 180,000 barrels a day will significantly halt the stealing of crude oil thus cancelling out any loss of earnings from the deal to pay for infrastructure with crude oil. This effort should lead to an immediate and visible construction work on all federal roads and rehabilitation of public schools and hospitals across the nation which in itself will be a means of massive job creation.
UNEMPLOYMENT:
The lack of jobs and opportunities for millions of unemployed youths who roam the streets poses a great danger to the security and social stability of the nation. The federal government should begin efforts to solve the problem by commencing a nationwide registration of unemployed youths state by state to get data for direct annual intervention in providing skills-vocational training and other job and enterprise programs. With foreign aid from the millennium development goals of the United Nations and the possibility of introducing a social security tax to which all corporations, income earners and others can contribute together with donations from private philanthropists, local and foreign NGOs, annual funding for the youth training and employment programs should not be a problem for the government.
INSECURITY: Declaration of A Nationwide Amnesty
The nationwide insecurity owes largely to the action and inaction of government over the years. Insecurity derives in large part to the actions of politicians in arming thugs, gun running- proliferation of assault weapons and the inaction of government in solving the youth unemployment crisis. A comprehensive strategy to solve the security crisis must thus include a redress of these two critical areas. The need to mop up the large amount of guns and ammunition in the society can be decisively tackled by granting a nationwide wide amnesty to all restive youths.
The amnesty should carry a cash incentive for all surrendered guns which would serve to encourage the surrender of weapons. The amnesty should also include an intensive rehabilitation, indoctrination, vocational training and enterprise programs. Automatic government grants should be available to restive youths who complete their training programs and desire to set-up businesses. This initiative should be followed with the creation of a “civil intelligence corps” which basically will be an intelligence gathering and policing unit with should substantially recruit the amnestied youths thereby using erstwhile violent actors to police the communities and provide vital intelligence to the security services .
Further initiatives should include tough gun control legislation with mandatory sentences for anyone implicated in gun running and gun crime, the establishment of a free police emergency number, a comprehensive reorganisation and retooling of the police by a technical committee of experts for an interim period.
Final initiative should be the creation of state police-sheriffs to be under shared control between the federal government and the state governments in order to prevent abuse. Six police colleges should be set up in the six zones to undertake the training of the state police personnel. The advantages of state police include the local content advantage of recruiting people from local communities who have a good knowledge of the area and the miscreants in the community. Increase in police man power for increased rural and urban policing, increased means of intelligence gathering, a complement to the federal police and ultimately a means of job creation for unemployed youths.
It is recommended that each state recruit a minimum of 10,000 state police-sheriffs up to a maximum of 50,000. Populous urban centres such as Lagos and special centres such as Abuja should be able to recruit a minimum of 20,000 metropolitan police-sheriff personnel up to a maximum of 80,000. About 20-30% of recruited personnel should be trained as plain clothes undercover intelligence police officers tasked with intelligence gathering.
Funding for state police can be sourced jointly from the federal, state, local governments and possible special security tax. To avoid the mistakes that created a corrupt and incompetent federal police, training and indoctrination of state police personnel should be by a competent technical committee in collaboration with foreign experts in order to create an honest, dedicated, professional and efficient state police.
CONVENING OF A CONFERENCE OF ETHNIC NATIONALITIES:
Due to the contradictions of her creation, Nigeria has been beset with crisis from her birthing. This crisis has resulted in a civil-war and continuing bloodletting in frequent ethno-religious conflicts, widespread group grievances and total lack of cohesion. To seek a lasting solution to this problem the government should create a special committee that will oversee the organisation of a conference of ethnic nationalities which will assemble all ethnic, religious and social groups for an exhaustive dialogue on Nigeria’s future and possible structure.
An implementation of these key issues of critical importance will positively signal a re-strategizing refocusing and relaunching of the promised transformational leadership of Mr president.
Lawrence Chinedu Nwobu
Email: lawrencenwobu@yahoo.com
