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Where is Nigeria Going?

The situation is moving at lightning speed on a world scale. After the Arab Revolution, events followed in quick succession: the movement of the indignados in Spain; the wave of strikes and demonstrations in Greece; the riots in Britain; the movement in Wisconsin and the Occupy movement in the U.S.; the overthrow of Gaddafi; the fall of Papandreou and Berlusconi; all these are symptoms of the present epoch. (See Perspectives for world capitalism 2012 (Draft discussion document) – Part One); and, if we may add, there was the magnificent movement of millions of Nigerian masses in January of this year.

These sudden sharp turns indicate that something fundamental have changed in the entire situation. Events are beginning to impinge upon the consciousness of ever-broader layers of the population. The ruling class is increasingly divided and disoriented by the depth of a crisis they never expected and have no idea how to solve. Suddenly, they find themselves unable to maintain control of society by the old methods. This description succinctly captures the current Nigerian situation.

Nigerian economy: the impending catastrophe

Although the Nigerian economy has been officially growing at over 6% for the past 5 years, the poverty rate keeps increasing; youth unemployment has risen to an unprecedented 47% and over 80 per cent of Nigerian youth don’t have more than a secondary school certificate.

Infrastructure is collapsing with power generation hovering between 1,000 to 3,500 mega-watts, when Nigeria actually needs over 75,000 mega-watts to power its size. Out of over 160,000 kilometres of secondary and tertiary roads in Nigeria, with an average registered network of 4,000 kilometres per state, only about 10–15 per cent is paved. While a large proportion of this network remains in poor or very poor condition with only 15 per cent of federal roads in good condition.

Nigerian Economy: Rising debt, IMF Once again, Collapsing Infrastructure as fat Cats get fatter

In 2005, during the tenure of Obasanjo with Okonjo Iweala as Finance minister, Nigeria paid a whopping sum of 12 Billion dollars to buy back 18 Billion dollars debt owed Paris club. This prepared the ground for Nigeria to completely pay off its debt by April 2006 and made her first African country to fully pay off its debt (estimated at $30 billion) owed to the Paris Club. This “exit” from debt trap was celebrated both nationally and internationally; the celebration alone was estimated to gulp 2.4Billion Naira.

This further confirmed the subservience nature of Nigerian ruling elites to their foreign masters in the west. This 12Billion Dollars would have gone a long way in solving many infrastructural challenges, the health, education and power would have positively benefitted immensely from this windfall, but those become completely unimportant when the interest of Nigerian ruling class or their masters are involved. Despite the fact that, over 35Billion dollars already paid in interest and the destination of this debt cannot be rationally traced, yet it was still the priority of thieving gangsters to dole out such a huge amount, under a dubious buy back deal.

Nigeria: 2011 Budget confirms the saying “a man on the edge of a precipice does not think”

On Wednesday, 15th December 2010, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan presented the 2011 budget for the approval of the National Assembly. The budget has been nicknamed “budget of consolidation”. The nickname, is a source of concern for every thinking Nigerian. For, what are we consolidating?