By
Jaye Gaskia
1.The ruling political elites have been in power over
the last 52 years, and they have ruled only in their own greedy interests. They
were not making any mistakes; they have not been foolish or stupid; they have
simply ruled and governed in their own interests.
2.Under their
cumulative watch, they have increased their wealth so much so that they have
created multimillionaires amongst themselves at the expense of our collective
well being. As they have grown in wealth, the poverty of ordinary citizens has
increased.
3.The basis of their stupendous wealth and our
monumental poverty has been the focused and targeted looting of our collective
treasury; the organized, conscious pillaging of our collective wealth. Under
their watch, corruption has increased tremendously; so much so that for instance
since 2000, roughly 12,000 infrastructure development projects at the combined
cost of N7.7tn have been abandoned, with N2.2tn already paid in mobilization
fees! Furthermore; in 2011 from the subsidy regime alone, over N1.7tn was lost
to corruption; a further $10bn is lost annually to combined crude oil and
refined products theft; while according to investigations by Punch Newspapers,
in 2 years [June 2010 to June 2012], over N5tn was lost to corruption – that is
a public theft rate of over N220bn per month – an amount bigger than the annual
budgets of several states, and several federal ministries!
4.The result of their cumulative rule over the last
52 years has been increased poverty [which grew from 54% in 2001 to 70% in 2012
– the only country to have increased poverty by half rather than reduce it by
half in meeting the MDGs]; increased gap between the rich and the poor [the top
10% of wealthiest Nigerians own 41% of national wealth, while the bottom 20% of
poorest Nigerians own a mere 4.1% of national wealth; further with 115 million
people living in poverty, we also boast 15 out of the 40 richest Africans!
5.Throughout
the five decades plus of their combined rule, homelessness and joblessness has
increased tremendously! They have routinely destroyed the homes of the poor and
evict them from their homes under the guise of urban renewal; instead of making
qualitative housing accessible to the poor, they destroy the homes of the poor!
They also continue to routinely criminalize and destroy the livelihoods of the
poor; destroy their shops, arrest and harass hawkers, etc; instead of providing
jobs for the poor, they destroy their meager means of livelihoods!
6. The measure of the quality of the future of a
nation can be glimpsed from the quantity and quality of its investments on its
children and youths! The ruling elites have destroyed the education
infrastructure, so much so that they now train their own children in expensive
[therefore unaffordable and inaccessible to the poor] private academic
institutions in and out of the country! The result of this is that millions of
youths are unable to access qualitative education; while they graduate into
joblessness! Instead of investing in the training and job creation for our
youths, they have converted the young of the poor into their political thugs,
and recruits for their various insurgency projects; while the many others have
been forced into a life of crime. Youth unemployment hovers around the 50%
mark!
7. It
is now an understatement to say that the state of insecurity across the country
has reached alarming proportion! Nowhere is a safe haven; no part of the
country is excluded from the scourge of insecurity; whether it is driven by
armed criminal violence or armed insurgencies! To make matters worse, the
security apparatus has been undermined by corruption and the privatisation of
the public security by the privileged few in power. The state over which this
ruling elites preside over, has even now gone a step further in abdicating its
role by outsourcing state security to private armed groups; a further
indication of the gradual collapse of the state.
8. They have bastardised the political process and
system, creating vehicles for accessing power and sharing our collective
patrimony in the name of political parties. Their parties are not know for any
principles, any programs, only known as vehicles for taking power and thereby
gain access to our treasury, which they then proceed to promptly loot! This is
why a defining character of the political process has been cross-carpeting and
decamping from party to party!
9. In 52 years rather than improve the quantity and
quality of our healthcare delivery system, they have callously turned our
hospitals into first consulting clinics with no drugs or equipments; and then
finally into mortuaries, with no electricity to even keep the corpses! And
while they have denied access to healthcare for tens of millions, they continue
to fly abroad and treat at public expense ailments as ordinary as headache!
10. And now the
economy! Over 5 decades, we have managed to be left behind by every other
country that was at a comparative level of development with us at the time of
flag independence in 1960; and that had comparative resource pool with us! Even
now as the current rulers boast of high GDP growth rate [which in effect
actually meant a 1.3% shrink in 2012 compared with 2011 for instance]; the
consequence of this growth without human development have been high increased
poverty levels, increased corruption, and increased insecurity across the
country. We are still one of the countries with the highest cost of doing
business anywhere on earth! Little wonder that companies are moving their
headquarters to Ghana from Nigeria! In fact industrial capacity utilization
have continued to remain far below 35% for decades; while the Business
Confidence Index [BCI] has continued to remain abysmally low, remaining
persistently below 20% for a decade, far below the 50% global threshold mark! A
nation of 160 million people, and after a cumulative investment in the last 13
years alone of over $30bn, we still generate a little over 4,500 MWs of
electricity at peak period; while the transmission capacity is even less than
this 4,500 MWs! What is more? A nation that paid off its external debts barely
half a decade ago, has now grown its external debt stock to more than $6bn, and
yet it has external reserves of $48bn and maintains an Excess Crude Account
with a balance of $9bn; while on the other hand criminal enterprises under
state protection, cause the nation to lose $10bn annually in combined crude
oil, refined products and subsidy theft from the petroleum sector alone!
What
We Need To Do:
This is why it is
important for active citizens to understand that the salvation of our country
cannot and will not come from the current array of the political parties of the
ruling elites: neither PDP nor APC is the answer to our developmental
challenge; in fact they are central parts of the problem!
To achieve our
Social Emancipation as a people and as citizens; and our National Liberation as
a country; we must look beyond the political platforms and contraptions of the
ruling elites; we must be prepared to undertake the herculean task of Building
Our Own Autonomous, and Independent Political Party Platform to challenge the
discredited ruling elites, and begin the organisation of a new emancipatory and
liberating experience of Human Civilisation in our Country.
To Kick our these
Charlatans and Vagabonds in power; this treacherous, light fingered and
thieving ruling political elites; We must undertake the daunting task to Build
Our Own Mass Political Party, in order to enable us to Take Back Nigeria!
That is why we urge
you to come work with us as we build the Democratic Party For Socialist
Reconstruction [DPSR].
