•'They are making a carricature of serious national issues'
The national Chairman of the New Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Abubakar Baraje has lamented the many woes of Nigeria as the country celebrates its 53rd independence anniversary.
In a statement he personally signed yesterday, the party chair described the country as a crumbling edifice wrecked to the seams by corruption, bad leadership, ethnicism, parochialism, sectarian intolerance and childish political recrimination.
Baraje bemoaned the fate of the citizenry, saying the masses have been pauperised and dehumanised by the present leadership through exorbitant charges on essential goods and services.
But PDP National Publicity Secretary faulted his position. He said: "They are making a caricature of serious national issues. Their statements defy all known political norms and at best provide entertainment for social gatherings."
Baraje said: "Nigeria at 53 has turned into a borderless valley of tears where life expectancy hovers between 40 and 43 years. Nigerians are callously extorted through various government agencies like the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) which today excels in generating darkness and subjecting Nigerians to the highest ever tariff regime.
"The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) set up as a well-meaning agency to tame the rising cases of road accidents has become a tool for mindless extortion through the issuing and re-issuing of vehicle number plates and drivers' licenses at very exorbitant prices.
"The petroleum sector has become an illicit cash cow for the people in government, their friends and relatives who exploit the hapless citizens through sundry means and cleansing the treasury via a phantom fuel subsidy scheme that targets friends and fronts of the members of the government for enrichment.
"What could best demonstrate the wanton brigandage going on in Nigeria than the fact that the government, which set up the SURE-P programme with the huge N32 increment in each litre of fuel Nigerians purchase, has recorded no known achievement with the huge accruals from the increment?
"Today, SURE-P has sacked the 110,000 youths it placed on N10, 000 monthly allowances on the excuse that there is no money to pay them. We ask, where is the government keeping the huge amount it realizes from the inhuman increment in the price of petrol, kerosene and diesel?
"At 53 years of independence, our educational sector has completely crumbled and our universities have been shut for close to three months simply because a government that celebrates free loading of the nation's resources cannot meet the agreement it signed with university teachers four years ago.
"Our secondary and primary school sectors are jerking at the most inefficient level; neglected, abandoned and dejected and all have contributed to make Nigerian certificates almost worthless.
"The health sector is in a pitiable state as our hospitals cannot handle simple malaria cases. Nigerians now troop to India and the Far East Asian countries to treat common ailments and nothing is being done to arrest this sad situation".
Baraje also noted that Nigerians in their millions are being forced to get out of the country, even to poorer countries as a result of pervasive poverty, unemployment and social dislocation.
"The infrastructure sector is in its worst state as Nigerian infrastructural base has crumbled. Roads are decrepit. The economy has screeched to a halt in the face of unrestrained purloining, coupled with an officially-backed oil theft that targets the members of the government, its cronies and hirelings for enrichment.
"The management of the Nigerian economy is, at best, haphazard as the cooking and circulation of flattering and fatuous economic reports that curiously suggest growth in the obvious degenerating reality Nigerians are facing.
"At 53, youth unemployment has soared to over 80 per cent, insecurity of lives and properties has clearly overwhelmed the capacity of the state and a social crisis has driven many Nigerians to their untimely graves.
"Our security agencies are inept and the Nigerian police have been reduced to the attack dog of the present Federal Government and its cronies while security challenges go unmet.
"We can go on and on but suffice it to state that Nigeria has woefully failed its citizens at 53 years. The indices are all too obvious even as the present government lives in curious denial of these grave realities.
"On a daily basis, Nigerians are being kidnapped, assassinated or butchered like chickens in hundreds and government seems at a loss on what to do", Baraje said.
He expressed disappointment with President Goodluck Jonathan's Sunday night media chat in which he said rather than coming clean, the President chose to prevaricate on his 2015 re-election bid.
The party chairman urged Jonathan to drop his re-election bid if he truly meant well for the country and concentrate on how to rescue the sinking ship of the Nigeria state.
He observed that given the mindset of the present government, there is dim hope for redemption, adding however that well meaning Nigerians would continue to offer suggestions on how to save the country from imminent collapse.
To this end, the party chair made the following demands on the Jonathan administration:
. The constitution of a critical management team made up of apolitical, eminent technocrats and knowledgeable Nigerians to take over the management of the national economy given the woeful failure of the economic management team of the Jonathan government;
• A similar team to arrest the infrastructural decay that is threatening the nation's infrastructural base at present;
•Impanelling of a credible, independent and resolute anti-corruption body to cleanse the country of the thick stench of corruption that has overwhelmed it at present;
• A re-ordering of the inchoate federal structure we are running with a view to allowing the states and the other federating units more access to resources to attend to the numerous responsibilities placed on them;
•The introduction of state police as an antidote to the worsening security problems, which the present inept and highly politicised Nigerian Police had been unable to deal with.
• An urgent need for Nigerians to come together and discuss matters affecting them as well as proffering the way forward, as stated in the President's enunciation of a national dialogue.
Baraje however, welcomed the President's announcement in his Independence Day broadcast of the establishment of a committee to advise him on the modalities for the holding of the proposed national dialogue.
"We, however, wish to warn that the proposed conference should not serve the same cosmetic purpose served by previous efforts; it should be empowered to discuss all issues agitating the minds of Nigerians – there should not be any no-go areas except the unity and oneness of Nigeria, which is not debatable.
"Finally, we urge Nigerians not to lose hope but to remain resolute in demanding good governance, transparency and accountability from government at various levels as that is the only way to force the corrupt clique in power to change their ways", Baraje stressed.
