I promised myself I wasn’t going to talk about the government this month.
- Last week it was empowering people with akara.
- Yesterday it was further reinforcing the needlessness of NYSC.
- Today, it is changing the uniform to Adire.
What exactly is the economic impact of any of these things?
They’ve been building roads for three years, is this really what we need right now?
Could the monies spent have been channeled elsewhere into bettering the lives of Nigerians?
Maybe they could have built more schools.
Maybe they could have built more hospitals.
Maybe they could have increased the security budget so our armed forces are motivated - so that farmers are protected - so that traveling is safer. Everything that seems logical and should have been done - haven’t.
When some of us speak, it’ll come off as we don’t support the government. But if you remove the spec in your eyes, you will see clearly that this government does not support us in any way.
Where’s the foreign investments they promised us with the roads and infrastructure? It’s almost a full term now and it’s just been loans loans loans and lavish living. We all recently just discovered that there’s a Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council. But apparently that agency doesn’t exist. What exactly is really going on?
Yes, you can boast and say the administration has implemented so many policies. But which of these policies from NELFUND to this meter empowerment that the president just announced has actually helped to improve the hierarchy of needs for Nigerians. From food, to clothing, to shelter.
- Cost of feeding is expensive, garri used to be cheap.
- No one talks about buying December clothes anymore.
- Rent is at an all time unreasonable high.
The government has not for once set up a committee, put policies in place or set up an intervention that makes these things more affordable. It’s been one unnecessary and exorbitant expense or the other - in the wrong direction.
If you’re an avid supporter of this government - just like everyone else you see the folly but you choose to still defend it and gaslight the rest of us, just because of what you personally stand to gain - then God be with you and may your conscience judge you in the end.
I don’t know how much more we can keep saying these things.
Everyone go and get your PVCs abeg.
“Nigeria needs you”. I hear this phrase a lot. I believed it myself when I left my prestigious perch as a professor on the faculty @FletcherSchool@TuftsUniversity in 2018 and returned home to offer myself as a presidential candidate in 2019, and tried to become a candidate a second time in 2023 but was betrayed by self-serving, cash-and-carry political entrepreneurs in one of the so-called “alternative platforms”.
After which I decided it wasn’t worth the bother for someone who does not need the Nigerian “system” to feed, and whose contributions are demanded and appreciated well elsewhere. So I ended my brief foray into politics and returned to international professional life. Best decision I ever made.
Life since has been quiet, happy, and fulfilling. I love my country but I also love myself, my health, and my family whose time and attention to their needs - and resources to which they are entitled - I sacrificed in 2018/19 and again in 2021/22, because “Nigeria needs me”. Resources earned from honest labor, not “you-know”. And I still contribute occasional commentary on public and economic policy to help shine light on important issues of statecraft (but I do NOT make partisan commentary since I am not aligned with or a member of any political party).
Now I know better. So when I get the “Nigeria needs you” line I respond: “it needs you too, and ALL of us, not just me”. Our country is down deep, whether anyone accepts this or not. It can only be fixed by the people themselves, if they were to recognize their own power and come out in their millions to demand responsible and accountable governance and a transparent democracy where their actual votes are more important than those who “magic-count” votes. Governance remains absent because the Nigerian people have consciously disempowered themselves with excuses such as “poverty” etc - the very reason they should exercise their people power and shake up the greedy politicians.
Citizens in other countries- citizens, not politicians- have changed the trajectories of their own troubled countries. Admitted, not everywhere, and it’s admittedly not easy, but it has happened in places that did not have 220 million people. May we not become the Democratic Republic of Congo - although some would retort “what’s the difference, really?”
Life-changing money is any amount that is sufficient enough to steer your life in a new direction.
That amount is 100k for some and 1 billion for others.
The way I’m exhausted,the best remedy right now would be to listen to music from my 20s & party hard all night. Nothing eases away the mind like music & dance.
It's illogical to start New Years resolutions & dieting on a Thursday.
We go dey OUTSIDE until Sunday.
Our 2026 New Year Resolutions starts from Monday!