North, South breaking apart –Agbakoba

That former president of Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Mr Olisa Agbakoba, is a household name in Nigeria is not contestable. He has not only been around but always speaks out on every national issue no matter how the odds are stacked. In the human rights community, his antecedents speak volumes. He bares his mind here on various issues of national importance. Excerpts…

With the level of uncertainty in the air following activities of the Boko Haram sect, how do you feel today as a Nigerian?
How I feel is that I am from a country of opportunity, immense natural resources and monumental human resources. But unfortunately, all of these I have mentioned are lying waste and prostrate.

You cannot deny Boko Haram, you cannot deny the ethnic strife across Nigeria, issues about marginalization, economic decline, unemployment and wastage of the youths. One would be tempted to say that perhaps we are going through one of the most depressing times.

The report of the National Bureau of Statistics just came out indicting the Nigerian state for impoverishing over 60 per cent of her population. In other words, in our country of about 160 million people, about 110 million live in extreme poverty. Nigeria is a case waiting to explode and the contrast is that we are such a rich country-natural resources, oil wells but we just came out of the subsidy problem. Corruption has prevented the leadership of Nigeria from directing the resources to the intended purpose.

Each time you hear funds deployed in billions to do one thing or the other but you will never see the result. It does not matter whether it is the Nigerian Integrated Power Project (NIPP), water projects or whatever. As a Nigerian, definitely I cannot feel good about it. To be honest, I could say I am privileged and I am not immediately, personally and directly easily affected but if I look at the environment I come from, if I eat rice, my driver cannot and it makes one very sad. When a person is sick, he finds that he needs to go and take medical treatment but what our leaders fail to understand is that our country is sick. A time has come when our leaders-not just those of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)- should declare a state of emergency over Nigeria. When the president of the United States of America was elected and he met the economic crisis in his country, he rolled up his sleeve and got down to work. He started to deal with job creation but here, you do not see our leaders showing such passion to change things. You do not see those who voluntarily come out to seek power to do something. When they just seize power, they just go home. They do not even remember that they owe the people any responsibility based on the campaign promises they made..................

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Posted: at 11-03-2012 01:20 AM (13 years ago) | Upcoming

After all d grammar, wat next?

Posted: at 11-03-2012 06:35 AM (13 years ago) | Hero

"yawning"...........abeg Ekaete throw me dat pillow make i sleep. The talking for dis movie don tire me. Wake me when the action part don start. 

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Posted: at 24-03-2012 01:56 AM (13 years ago) | Gistmaniac

The solution is to decentralize the government !!! We're not actually practicing the "real" federal system of government !!
Too much concentration of power at the federal level is not conducive to development at the local level.
 Or we can revert to confederation !!!

Posted: at 24-03-2012 03:54 AM (13 years ago) | Gistmaniac