1 week Ago By Rapheal
Last week’s outing saw us close our talk on a very important subject matter under the title, “What we ought to know about development.” It was a series that ran for three weeks. In those outings some very critical things we should have known but seem not to know were identified and their place in our journey to sustainable development explained.
The people in authority were urged to adopt the suggestions and ensure they constitute part of our transformation processes going forward. By way of recall, emphasis was placed on the fact all great countries we know as of today began the journey from the all-important point of agreement followed by clear vision on the destination and finally how to get there. Our case can’t be different.
The insistence is still sustained. Countries are creations of consensus. Harmony and stability would remain elusive where there is no foundational agreement.
We haven’t had that and the omission is responsible for the very hostile relationship that exists between the various components that make up our entity. If we took lessons from history and began our approach to creating a country as prelude to achieve nation-state it very easy to take a costly bet that some of the things we see trouble our country wouldn’t be or happen with minimal force. Most of us want ‘one country, one destiny’ but attitude of leaders haven’t helped the cause.
Ethnic and religious organizations dot every corner, their influence is both pervasive and strong, sometimes far stronger than those of governments in the three tiers. Leaders most often proceed to make contributions to national policy through the narrow prism of ethnicity and religion. We keep hearing the northern leaders say the Federal Government is against the North.
The latest being the matter of the Tax Reform bills. The North has remained perpetually afraid of a possible break-up of the country. Otherwise the level of its anger of the proposed Executive Bills on tax would have led to unintended negative consequences.
Journalists asked a top aide to the newly inaugurated President Donald Trump about his impression of the swearing-in ceremony that took place last Monday in Washington, DC. He said: “As part of the American value system it was full of passion, it was indicative of how the president would drive the process in the overall interest of America.” Some of us who heard marvelled at the focus of his response and the emphasis that the country has an aggregation of core values.
Minister of Federal Capital Territory gave an interview early last week, which he devoted to politics of identity, and to deny his Igbo heritage, stressing that he is of the Ikwerre tribe. The intention is not to interrogate features that make a people who they are because doing so at this point could turn out to aggravate factors preventing us from touching down on the pathway to sustainable development. However, it is crucial we express huge surprise that system drivers would at the point where we are with all the troubles besetting our march to real liberation, be dwelling on tribe, citizenship and citizens’ rights.
If truly we wanted to have a country, by now our focus should have been on strengthening the bonds on the finer principles of citizenship and rights within a united country. Because we have left the major to face the minor, the development process has gone haywire and the resultant outcome is threatening to swallow everybody. It is obviously a very distressing experience.
We have looked at things we ought to know about development. Going forward we will look at other smaller foxes that may appear inconsequential but very strategic, if we must move from Third World to First World. We would begin this exposition by looking at examples of the last few days.
Each successive administration in the country has prided itself as carrying out reforms – political, economic and even social, which they insist would turn around the structures of the country, enhance its fortunes and result in better life for the people. Each attempt ended up muddling whatever was in existence, creating more complex problems and leaving the citizens terribly impoverished and more vulnerable. President Bola Tinubu has come and has met the rot.
Like others before him he has also began waving the reform flag. An acclaimed scientist, Albert Einstein, told us that the very sensible thing to do in solving societal challenges is to go beyond the level at It is not certain that is what we are seeing. At the instance of Western prodding we are being taken very deep into the inner recesses of private initiative without the pillars that should hold it.
Education has become a preserve of the rich. It is of poor quality yet increasingly becoming unaffordable to the far majority. Inflation is running so high at over 30 percent.
Farmers can’t farm because of insecurity made worse by reckless politicking, so food is lacking and very prohibitive in price. The government wants to expand the tax net at same period. Massive suffering pervades the land but the leaders hang on to the old story, “What will make tomorrow better will taste bad today.
” Now see the difference: Ghanaian president recently sworn into office has begun fresh building efforts by scrapping ministries and merging them with a pledge to run lean government. The government also offered to lower taxes for some categories of businesses. Any discerning person can tell the possible outcome on growth and wellbeing of citizens.
Let’s go far to the progenitors and promoters of capitalism and make port call on America. Last Monday a new President took office but before then the preceding government had picked quarrel with a Chinese company that owns TikTok. American business controls the social media market but the late forays of TikTok have become an issue for concern.
The American government wants to control another person’s company but where that wasn’t possible, ban its operation in their country. What is in all of this? Very simple: trade war. It is veiled to those like us who close our eyes and senses to vital matters in development.
Balance of trade concerns were part of the reasons for the American war of independence. It is at the root of the altercations over TikTok’s operation in United States. The deep penetration of TikTok is influence.
More importantly, it is about huge capital flight from the American economy. It is about security given that a huge data about behavioral trends concerning America would be available to its archrival – the Chinese. So the Americans are fighting back.
President Trump is hard on immigration and border controls. Juxtapose this with what we are doing. After 64 years of independence, we still lack a productive base, yet we talk of globalization and intentional standard far more seriously than those pushing the frontiers of private initiative.
Isn’t something fundamentally wrong with this approach?.
