A software expert, Mr Chinemelu Ezeh, has urged the Federal Government to deploy Artificial Intelligence (AI) in tackling insecurity and other challenges in financial and health sectors.
THAT Nigeria has been truly unfortunate with leadership is no longer news. Literary icon, Professor Chinua Achebe, aptly put the challenge of Nigeria’s underdevelopment squarely on her leadership.
All over the world, most countries are making progress by enthroning leaders who work assiduously to raise the bar of leadership. Ironically, in Nigeria, the reverse is the case. There is no controversy that the Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa’s government, in terms of governance, was better than Ironsi and Gowon governments.
Similarly, Gowon’s government was better than Murtala/Obasanjo’s government in terms of laying the foundation for a better Nigeria. With benefit of hindsight, the Shagari government was better than the General Babangida’s military government. The only exception was the 1984 disastrous regime of Major-General Muhammadu Buhari.
It took the patriotic genius of the Babangida administration to pull Nigeria out of the ditch which Buhari plunged the country into. General Abacha faced severe opposition arising from the annulment of the June 12 presidential election, but still managed to offer Nigeria some sense of macro-economic stability and nationwide infrastructural interventions. There is little argument today that the Abacha regime despite its limited resources and propaganda against it by the apostles of June 12, managed Nigeria much better than the Obasanjo civilian administration which came in 1999.
Yet, and painfully, the Obasanjo government has remained the most patriotic, most impactful and relatively a better administration than all others that succeeded it till date. Even President Goodluck Jonathan himself acknowledged his lack of capacity for the job of President as he was clueless about the demands of his office which made his government wobble throughout his six years in office.
Buhari who, again, assumed office in 2015 with so much fanfair and expectations but, through arrogance and unspeakable incompetence wrapped in Fulani irredentism, brought Nigeria to her knees. Simply put, between 2015 and 2023, Buhari re-enacted, on a larger scale, his disastrous misadventure of 1984. The pain in the land is palpable.
Nigerians have become so weakened and famished that they are praying that their fatherland cannot survive another regime that wobbled and fumbled like the Buhari regime. Unfortunately, President Bola Tinubu appears to be working very hard to fail. Tinubu has assembled a cabinet with some members whose competence one cannot vouch for.
Some of his ministers are clueless, which is why, many of them routinely stumble from one mistake to another. Strangely, some ministers don’t even know what their mandate is or how to key into President Tinubu’s vision. Or how to contribute towards moving Nigeria forward! Recall that the Minister of Women Affairs, few weeks ago, threatened to sue the United Nations while another key minister firmly believes that making noise is the only way to manage the sector under his watch.
In the financial sector, Nigeria, for the first time, is saddled with officials who cannot explain the meaning of monetary policy without reading from a prepared script. Worse still, there is not a single monetary policy expert in the Monetary Policy Committee recently nominated by Tinubu.
Also, for social balance, most societies allow some jobs for the “boys” and “friends”. But not in strategic positions, particularly at a time the roof is caving in.
The poor performance of the Tinubu administration, so far, is the price Nigerians have to pay for having square pegs in round holes or using round stones to cover square holes. Except something gives, and gives urgently, Nigeria is headed towards the kind of monumental disaster that will shake the very foundation of this country. Time is ticking. But it is not too late. President Tinubu should be courageous enough to dissolve his weak cabinet. As Vice President Atiku Abubakar told President Buhari in 2015, “even the APC has enough quality men to credibly salvage Nigeria”.
Each time I see President Tinubu on television, I am persuaded to think that he genuinely means well for Nigeria. Could his dilemma be a case of his mind being willing while his body is weak? The “body”here are the men and women who are obviously a disservice to him and his government.
Those very close the President should tell him that he has been nice to his “boys”: They should be allowed to go home and forever keep the high titles of “Former Ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”. After all, many of them are not even fit to be councillors in local government areas.