How to Fix Nigeria: The First Thing the Next President of Nigeria Must Do
Every Nigerian wants Nigeria to get better.
Nigerians are tired of the corruption, the suffering, the poverty, the bad roads, the lack of constant electricity, and the myriad of problems that plague our dear country. Previous leaders and governments have won elections by promising to fix these problems, and some have even made genuine efforts but they’ve all failed.
Because our problems seem endless it is not uncommon to hear Nigerians ask “if you become president, what is the first thing you will do?” We ask this question as a joke, but it is a very serious question. The next governments that will be voted into office in 2023 at the local, state and federal levels will be saddled with many challenges, and they will have to hit the ground running if they want to succeed. But with all the challenges facing Nigeria, what areas should the next government give priority to?
If there is one area in Nigeria that deserves absolute priority in Nigeria, it is the judicial system. Without a strong, working and upright judiciary, nothing else will work in Nigeria and every effort to get other areas to work will most likely result in failure — as has happened before — no matter how well-meaning those efforts might be. Looking at it, every other problem that we have in Nigeria boils down to the weak and ineffective judiciary.
Let us take for example the cardinal issue of corruption. What is corruption? Politicians boldly siphon public funds because they know that they won’t be caught, and if they are caught, they can easily buy their way out. The policeman on the street also takes bribes because he knows that even though taking bribes is illegal, he won’t be held accountable by the law.
No other statement exemplifies the weak judiciary system than when a policeman who is supposed to be a custodian of the law says to you “I can kill you here and nothing will happen”. When the judiciary system of a country is weak, government contractors deliver shabby projects, private individuals act illegally, people rig elections, businesspeople do shady deals etc.
To illustrate how much a weak judiciary influences a society down to the common man, let us consider a common example. There have been numerous examples of citizens stealing transformer parts from newly installed electricity transformers in order to sell them for profit. Setting aside all other underlying reasons these individuals do this, for example, poverty, nobody will go to steal a transformer part if they are sure that they will be caught by the police and will face the full weight of the law. When they steal these transformer parts they leave the neighbourhood in darkness, which affects lives, businesses, hospitals, etc. The government will then need more funds to replace these transformers, giving the government officials another opportunity to inflate the contract for the purchase of new transformers, which might get stolen again…. I hope you can see the cycle!
You might ask; Nigeria’s economy is in tatters right now, what does the judiciary system have to do with this? When corruption is the order of the day, the economy is bound to suffer. Due to corruption, there are massive leakages of public resources, and these leakages in the long run lead to a weak economy.
Just recently it was discovered that oil theft is rampant and that even prominent Nigerians are involved in stealing oil and selling it abroad. Stolen oil means lost revenue for the government and less national cake to go around. Less revenue means less money to do projects, pay workers, invest in human capital, and so on. Blocking all these leakages will help bolster the economy. If Nigeria has a working strong judiciary, these individuals won’t be able to steal oil because they know they know that stealing is a straight card to jail.
Lack of constant electricity affects the economy negatively. Imagine that all the individuals who are responsible for our current electricity actually had to face the full weight of the law, from corrupt government officials to conniving private companies, down to the roadside transformer thief.
Insecurity, which is a very serious challenge in Nigeria is also tied to a weak judicial system. One main problem of our security outfits is poor funding. Yet, billions of Nairas are budgeted every year for our security agencies. These monies end up being diverted by private individuals. There have been multiple videos of our soldiers fighting with inferior ammunition. We are faced with the problems of banditry, kidnappings, unknown gunmen, and armed robbers, don’t you think that if the police and military had better training, better equipment, and good funding they would be able to tackle all these challenges more effectively? With a working judicial system, people will be afraid to divert monies meant for security, which will in turn lead to better equipped and motivated security outfits, and improved internal security.
If you have read carefully, one salient theme that all our challenges share in common is corruption. Corruption leads to bad roads, a lack of electricity, and wasted resources, which leads to poverty and insecurity. If we can fix the problem of corruption in Nigeria, we have solved 80% of our problems. Any leader who is serious about fixing Nigeria will start by fixing the judiciary so that Nigerians again can begin to fear wrongdoing and respect madam justice.
In the next article, I will tell you how any serious government decisively kill corruption in Nigeria.
