#EndBadGovernance: Before The Next Protest, By Tunde Abatan
Barely one week after the end of the ten days protest tagged EndBadGovernance organised by some activists came to an end on August 10, one of the organisers, Omoyele Sowore gave a hint from his base in the United States that another round of protest will commence on October 1, the day to commemorate the nations independence anniversary.
He said that this time around the protest will be indefinite until the demands of the protesters are met. In whatever way we look at it, he has given us all including the government and security agencies enough time to prepare and address the issues raised.
Since we are all involved it behoves that all hands must be on deck both by the organisers and the government to get prepared.
First of all, before we begin to prepare for the next round of the protest which centred on ending bad governance like the size of the government, bureaucracy; the living style of our representative at both state and federal legislature and elected officials at all levels.
There is need for organisers themselves to evaluate the gains, failures and impact if any they have made from the previous protest and look for ways of organising a more effective and result oriented protest without doing damage to the system and endangering the nations democracy if their aim is to give good governance and not regime change as their slogan later turned out to.
Swore and his co- travellers must ensure that arson; killings and destruction of public infrastructures as was done in the last protest was avoided.
It is apparent that this could only be done if the protest is contained in a way that hoodlums do not take over as was experienced in some states in the country where looting, arson and destruction of government properties by enemies of democracy lurking around the corner.
In other words, the protest must not be allowed to degenerate as the last one did.
In as much as protest is the fundamental human right of every Nigerians, yet protest is not intended to cause disruption of public peace and discomfiture of the public the protesters claim to be fighting for.
When government and public infrastructures are destroyed the tax payers as represented by the protesters will also bear the brunt of repairing the damaged infrastructures with their resources inform of tax while those who awarded the contracts and the contractors will smile home.
On its part, the federal government led by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, must also accept the fact that the organisation of the last protest is an indication of the capacity of the organisers and other non- state actors to cause enough disruption to the stability of the country which he swore to protest and on which he also vowed to ensure good governance towards improving the life of the citizens.
He should endeavour to reduce the cost of governance as regards pruning down the number of ministries and government departments.
Since he has demonstrated the political will with subsidy and foreign exchange regime, same courage should be extended to the civil service.
On this score, this is the best time for him to publish the White the paper on the Oronsanye panel reports and take a second look at the recommendations of the committee which reviewed the report and has submitted the recommendations to him three months ago.
There is no better time to prune the nations bureaucracy towards reducing the cost of governance than now. This will definitely free enough funds being wasted on duplication of ministries, agencies and parastatals.
A situation where the country has to contend with over 256 public ministries and parastatals is not good enough for our economy at this point in time. President Tinubu must also ensure that the various programmes to bring succour to the people and especially the poor are implemented in such a way that they achieved their intended goals and not allowed to be hijacked by selfish individuals and politicians.
Our security agencies also have the ample time to monitor the activities of anti-democratic elements who may want to use the next round of protest to carry out their nefarious destabilisation plans.
Both the Department of state services, National Intelligence agency and the armed forces have enough time to mitigate any evil plan contrary to whatever is the intention of the organisers of the protests.
This is also the right time for President Tinubu to make far reaching moves to implement the restructuring the of the nation governance process without which no meaningful economic programme could work. Postponing the restructuring is akin to postponing the evil day. The evil day will definitely come in view of our diversity which is at the root of lour social malaise.
Let him walk his talk and engage the nation the way he has promised the committee of Patriots who visited him two weeks ago and carry along the national assembly.
Now that the Northern elite that has always pretended as if all is well with the nation have expressed its support for the move the right time is Now. Delay may be dangerous.
There is no denying that fact that any economic structure erected on this geographical superstructure will collapse under the weight without tinkering with its configuration.
In this connection, if and when the Tinubu administration convoke a national conference to deliberate on this important aspect of the nation’s life and submit its report through the elected representatives who formed the constituent assembly, the National assembly leadership should rise up to the occasion and do the needful if they must be seen to be performing the duties as elected representatives of the Nigerian people.
They should put their personal comfort and ego beside and do the needful to rescue the ship of the Nigerian state without which they could not enjoy the privilege position which the 1999 constitution has conferred on them.
As for the 36 state governments in the country they should understand the dictum that the health of their states is by implication the health of the country as any part of the body is also a function of the whole body.
The state governors should as a matter of urgency provide for the overall well- being of their people especially by implementing social programmes that would alleviate the poverty-stricken poor masses using the monthly allocation from the federation account judiciously to bring succour to their citizens in the overall interest of Nigeria.
Governors as privileged citizens should put their state interest far above their personal interests for the benefit of all.
There is no doubt the fact that with the human and material resources God has blessed the country with, it had no business with lack of food as this is the first condition of living.
Measures to boost agriculture in all the states of the federation should be the pre-occupation of our governors since they own the lands.
Asking the federal government to go into farming is counter- productive.
The federal government should only put policies in place to ensure stability of produce from the farms and economic environment to guarantee importation of machinery and equipment for mechanised farming.
Since the state governments have direct access to the people and its land, they should organise their state to produce food on which they have comparative advantage.
The Organised Labour represented by the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, also have a duty to ensure productivity of work force with the new minimum wage now in operation.
As for the third tier of government-the local governments, the new era of having direct asses to their funds should be utilised to the maximum by performing the functions which the nations constitution has saddled them with.
Today, with the local government financial autonomy, there is no excuse for the level of poverty in the grassroots. They should channel their resources towards making life better for their constituencies since they have direct contact with the people at the grassroots.
If local governments as representatives of the grassroots implement programmes to benefit the people, the standard of living caused by the depreciating value of the naira could be mitigated as social programmes put in place by the councils would have the desired impact.
