Nigeria, a country located in western part of Africa, was invaded by the British in 1861 with Lagos declared as the Slave Trade Center, through the British Parliament.
Sequel to the above the country was subjected into a long trends of colonialism for almost a century (1861-1960).
The invasion of Africa, including Nigeria by the whites has been criticized by scholars and some of the classical nationalists as a set back for the continent.
Former Ghanian president and one of the classical African nationalists, Kwame Nkrumah, once affirmed the organized structure of the African Political System, which according to him was later distorted and replaced with imperial civilization.
Conceptualizing Nigerian States an independent country may not be its status a sovereign nation. Of course, Nigeria got a freedom from colonial rule in October 1960.
However, the core freedom of the country from external control technically, from the British, did not come to stay until first of October, 1963.
For instance, the 1960 independence constitution, even though granted independence to Nigeria, the Governor General was still a representative of the Queen of England. This of course resulted in nationalists, seeking full republican status or better called Sovereignty.
The Westphalia Treaty of 1648 with a conceptual clarifications, made it pretty cleared that the National self determination or integrity of a nation and precedent of ending wars or conflicts including imperial controls of any form be achieved through a balance of power and sovereignty of nation states. This again is referred to as principles of non interference in the internal affairs of other sovereign states.
The French Jurist (Jean Bodin) in his view described sovereignty as the core or essential element of a state. In order words a nation without a sovereign status according to the aphorism, can not be affirmed in technical term as an independent nation.
The celebrations of Nigeria’s 64 independence, amidst uncertainties and hardships in the country can not be discussed in isolation.
The histo-cum-thematic analysis of Nigeria’s pitfalls and challenges could as well be traced to the inception of its birth.
At the early stage of the First decade of Nigeria’s independence; between 1960-1970, the country has a population of 46 million with agriculture as its major source of income.
The economy no doubt was booming and the country was doing very fantastically fantastic. Even with the sudden intervention of the military in January, 1966 and the Civil War of late 60s to early 70s. The country was a able to navigate successfully and consistently thrived.
Apparently, the country later differsified into oil production as its major productive force and inconceivably abandoned agriculture which supposedly served as its major source of income before the oil boom era.
Sadly, however, there was a global fall in the oil price. And with the mono or rentier economic nature Nigeria at this very critical period the country ran into economic pitfalls.
Since, this period of the early 80s Nigeria has been battling different economic issues. From Austerity measures of Shehu Musa Shagari, Structural Adjustment Programme of IBB Babangids’s government. And through to the aborted third republic and with the birth of the current fourth Republic.
Alaye (2023) classified the trends of economic hardships and uncertainties in Nigeria into three distinct time frame or era: The Pre-SAP, the SAP and the Post SAP eras.
Very sadly, the cumulative effects of each of the period or eras are directly impacting negatively on the hailing and rentier economy system of Nigerian States.
A very fundamental issue here is that despite all the reform and economic policies if different successive governments to tackle the economic hardships and by consequences poverty and poor living standard of the masses.
The policies of the Pre SAP and SAP era obviously failed to tackle economic hardships in Nigeria. During these periods, the poverty situation in Nigeria was steadily increasing.
The failures of the economic policies and measures have again been attributed to lack of targeting mechanisms for the poor, political and policy instability, poor economic policies and structures, over ambitions and interests of political class, inadequate coordination of the purputed policies and lack of mechanism for the sustainability of the programmes.
Pre SAP policies like: Operation Feed the Nation (OFN), Free and Compulsory Primary Education (FCPE), Green Revolution, Low Cost Housing, River Basin Development Authorities, National Agricultural Land Development Authority etc.
Having discussed the pre SAP and the SAP era of the Ibrahim Babangids’s government, it is important to therefore look critically at the implications of some of the policies of the Post SAP era on the uncertainties of the Nigerian economy.
With the birth of democracy and the inauguration of the fourth republic in 1999, the Poverty Alleviation Programme (PAP) and several other economic reform policies came on board.
For PAP, it was targeted at correcting the deficiencies of the past efforts of alleviating poverty through the fundanmental objective of providing direct jobs of 20, 000 unemployed people.
The National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals etc.
Subsequently, the administration of Umar Musa Yaradua proposed a Seven-Point Agenda of development. The cardinal objectives and principles of the agenda include improving the general well-being of Nigerians and making the country become one of the biggest economies in the world by the year 2020.
Afterwards, there were all other economic policies such as the SURE -P of Jonathan’s administration, Economic Recovery and Growth (ERGP) N-Power , Trader Moni Scheme and many more were also introduced by Buhari/Oshinbajo government. Again with all these reform policies Nigeria was still described as the poverty capital of the world.
Having, taken a critical look at the historical anticident of how Nigeria evolved from the inception of her independence with various economic policies to solve the hardships and uncertainties in the country, the question to now ask is what has Tinubu’s administration done differently?
On the 29th of May, 2023, shortly after president Tinubu took the oarth, in his inaugural speech, he bluntly declared the removal of the subsidy the Federal Government have been incurring for so long on the landing cost of a liter of petrol.
According to him Tinubu, it has been a means of enriching some Nigerian cabals and comprador bourgeoisie in the country with serious adverse effects on the economy of the country.
However, this development undoubtedly had consequently impacted on the price of a liter of petrol by the NNPCL and the Petroleum Marketers. And expectedly hiked the prices of commodities which invariably doubled the inflation rate in the country.
Again, Tinubu’s government embarked on the currency unification. Of course, this had also impacted on the nation’s economy too. This simply of the fact that Nigeria being an import dependent nation with a disarticulated economy would no doubt faces severe economic hardships consequently.
Consequently, while some economic experts and scholars have lauded Mr President for taken such bold actions to repositioning the economy of the country, some have criticized the development with the argument that President Tinubu seems to be very insensitive to the consequences of such policies on the living conditions of Nigerian masses.
However, President Tinubu has consistently acknowledged the enduring nature of Nigerians. He has consistently appealed to Nigerians that the country is just going through a very surgical moment that in no time all his supposedly tough policies would soon start yielding positive fruits.
Conclusively, as Nigeria celebrate the 64 independence amidst uncertainties how soon would president Tinubu policies start impacting on the living conditions of the Nigerian masses?
Adekunle Alaye, PhD.
Writes from the Department of Political Science Olabisi Onabanjo University Ago-Iwoye Ogun State Nigeria.
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