ADVERTISEMENT
  • The Membership Club
  • PT Hausa
  • About Us
  • Advert Rates
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
Thursday, January 21, 2021
Premium Times Nigeria
  • Home
  • COVID-19
  • News
    • Headline Stories
    • Top News
    • More News
    • Foreign
  • Investigations
  • Business
    • News Reports
    • Financial Inclusion
    • Analysis and Data
    • Business Specials
    • Opinion
    • Oil/Gas Reports
      • FAAC Reports
      • Revenue
  • Opinion
  • Health
    • News Reports
    • Investigations
    • Data and Infographics
    • Health Specials
    • Features
    • Events
    • Primary Health Tracker
  • Agriculture
    • News Report
    • Research & Innovation
    • Data & Infographics
    • Special Reports/Features
    • Investigations
    • Interviews
    • Markets
  • Arts/Life
    • Arts/Books
    • Kannywood
    • Lifestyle
    • Music
    • Nollywood
    • Travel
  • Sports
    • Football
    • More Sports News
    • Sports Features
  • Projects
    • Parliament Watch
    • Panama Papers
    • Paradise Papers
    • AGAHRIN
  • Home
  • COVID-19
  • News
    • Headline Stories
    • Top News
    • More News
    • Foreign
  • Investigations
  • Business
    • News Reports
    • Financial Inclusion
    • Analysis and Data
    • Business Specials
    • Opinion
    • Oil/Gas Reports
      • FAAC Reports
      • Revenue
  • Opinion
  • Health
    • News Reports
    • Investigations
    • Data and Infographics
    • Health Specials
    • Features
    • Events
    • Primary Health Tracker
  • Agriculture
    • News Report
    • Research & Innovation
    • Data & Infographics
    • Special Reports/Features
    • Investigations
    • Interviews
    • Markets
  • Arts/Life
    • Arts/Books
    • Kannywood
    • Lifestyle
    • Music
    • Nollywood
    • Travel
  • Sports
    • Football
    • More Sports News
    • Sports Features
  • Projects
    • Parliament Watch
    • Panama Papers
    • Paradise Papers
    • AGAHRIN
Premium Times Nigeria
BUA Group Ad BUA Group Ad BUA Group Ad
ADVERTISEMENT
A fate worse than breakup by Olumuyiwa Adekeye

Olumuyiwa Adekeye

A fate worse than breakup by Olumuyiwa Adekeye

byPremium Times
November 27, 2012
3 min read
ADVERTISEMENT

“A country does not have to break up to breakdown.”

The unity choir is rather ubiquitous, regularly imploring Nigerians to stay together. Former head of state Abdulsalami Abubakar, speaking in Makurdi recently, reechoed the unity message, arguing that the various ethnic groups have “intermingled” and that “there is nothing that can break up this country because God has brought us together”. The clarion call to stay together often concludes with such intermingling of pious exhortation and patchy logic. The frequency and shrillness of these admonitions make it appear as if a break up is imminent, and that the intervention of the good and the great is required to avert this looming tragedy.

Despite appearances, and the din of secessionist threats, Nigeria is not about to break up. The country’s various peoples and factions may not have worked out exactly how to live in concord but a troubled union is not always headed for divorce. Some live well enough with tensions in such relationships, while for others such complications bring only endless hazards. The logic of a nasty civil war has advised most rational people that this country can be split only by consensus, and that is a most unlikely scenario.

Nigeria faces a peril more insidious than the phantom of dissolution. It may be said that the campaign to avert an unlikely break up has become a distraction from the urgent need to stem a breakdown. Nigeria is united, but untied to the values and discipline that make a modern state; its institutions are delivering below par; for many citizens life and liberty are as uncertain as they tend to be in broken polities.

There is a fate worse than a break up, and it is creeping upon us. The challenge Nigeria faces today is breakdown, a condition that is devastating because it replaces order with anarchy and nullifies the prospect of a happy life for most people, all these without any adjustment of borders and often without a change of government. Breakdown is the retreat of the state from its obligations, its inability to effectively protect its hegemony and an incapacity to credibly project might. There are signs aplenty of this syndrome across the country.

Boko Haram is not the only group thumbing its nose at the state with a murderous project. There are sundry low-intensity conflicts afflicting parts of the country. Entire communities have been sacked in fatal attacks in Zamfara, Plateau and Kaduna with shootings and assassinations occurring in many cities from Kano to Lagos, the country’s commercial centre that’s recording a growing menace of robberies and kidnappings. There are reports that the country’s pipeline network has become a vandal’s paradise, reducing the country to distributing most of its fuel by road. Crude oil meant for export is stolen as are imported refined products.

In many of the spaces that matter the state is at best a half-hearted presence. The absence of responsiveness is a defining trait of the attitude of many state institutions to citizens, be they victims of crime, the infirm or the many warriors holding an increasingly weak line against the advance of poverty. Public goods such as security, education, healthcare and transport infrastructure are in poor shape, yet the government does not exhibit any perceptible sense of urgency to prevent Nigeria from becoming the country that defines the parody of a state.

This unstructured diminution of the state is accompanied by a deterioration in rationality among sections of society. We have seen the unlikely spectacle of unions going on strike in support of indicted marketers, teachers refusing to be certified and the curious absence of a sustained challenge to state failings.

Somalia did not break up, but its collapse since 1991 into a lawless entity hobbled its people, and transformed the country into a threat to international commerce and a hotbed of terror. The Congo has retained its colonial era borders through its many incarnations and bloody history, but the weakness of its state structure has meant insecurity, poverty and many mutinies.

RelatedNews

COVID-19: Why Ondo recorded three deaths, 39 cases in three days – Official

17% of Nigerians don’t believe COVID-19 is real – Report

Kano distributes 5,000 water pumps to farmers

Insecurity: 348 killed, 411 abducted in violent attacks across Nigeria in December – Report

Nigeria is effectively a vastly under-governed space. Our government and leaders should focus on the things that make daily life worthwhile enough for dreams of a better future to seem a realistic prospect. The country is bleeding, insecure and uncertain, and the life chances of many citizens are being narrowed. It’s still united but is not working well. Let the jingles of unity yield space to the hard work of building a state that works for most of its peoples. Let us face the problem that is here and now, ruining lives and halting dreams, by focusing our energies on building a system that works. A country does not have to break up to breakdown.

  • WhatsApp
  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • Telegram
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pocket

Support PREMIUM TIMES' journalism of integrity and credibility

Good journalism costs a lot of money. Yet only good journalism can ensure the possibility of a good society, an accountable democracy, and a transparent government.

For continued free access to the best investigative journalism in the country we ask you to consider making a modest support to this noble endeavour.

By contributing to PREMIUM TIMES, you are helping to sustain a journalism of relevance and ensuring it remains free and available to all.

Donate


TEXT AD: To advertise here . Call Willie +2347088095401...


JOIN THE CONVERSATION

  • Disqus (3)
premiumtimes



PT Mag Campaign AD

Previous Post

US court dismisses defamation lawsuit against Sahara reporters

Next Post

Fashola approves new Governing Council for LASU

Premium Times

Premium Times

More News

Abubakar Shekau, leader of Boko Haram terrorists

Boko Haram: NHRC trains security personnel in Adamawa

September 17, 2020
The Nigerian Economic Summit Group

EDITORIAL: Unearthing the Cogent Lessons In the NESG-CBN Economic Policy Imbroglio

September 16, 2020
COVID-19: Coronavirus

EDITORIAL: COVID-19: Calling On Nigeria’s Billionaires and Religious Leaders To Step Up

March 26, 2020
SSS Officials

EDITORIAL: Bichi Must Go; Buhari Must Halt Slide Into Despotism

December 13, 2019
Godwin Emefiele, Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)

EDITORIAL: The flaws in Governor Emefiele’s five-year plan for Central Bank of Nigeria

October 16, 2019
Sahara Reporters publisher, Omoyele Sowore. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official Instagram account of Sowore]

EDITORIAL: President Buhari must release Sowore Now!

September 23, 2019
Next Post
Six governors for honour in Abuja

Fashola approves new Governing Council for LASU

JTF kills 3 Boko Haram suspects, arrests 2 in Maiduguri

JTF says it recovered five thousand rounds of ammunition in Damaturu

Discussion about this post

Search

#EndSARS: Latest Updates




Polaris Bank


JAIZ Ad


NITDA Ad




Advertisement






netherland biz school Advert

Zenith Advert

Heritage Advert
ADVERTISEMENT

Our Digital Network

  • PT Hausa
  • Election Centre
  • Human Trafficking Investigation
  • Centre for Investigative Journalism
  • National Conference
  • Press Attack Tracker
  • PT Academy
  • Dubawa
  • LeaksNG
  • Campus Reporter

Resources

  • Oil & Gas Facts
  • List of Universities in Nigeria
  • LIST: Federal Unity Colleges in Nigeria
  • NYSC Orientation Camps Address Nationwide
  • Nigeria’s Federal/States’ Budgets since 2005
  • Malabu Scandal Thread
  • World Cup 2018
  • Panama Papers Game
  • Our Digital Network
  • About Us
  • Resources
  • Projects
  • Data & Infographics
  • DONATE

All content is Copyrighted © 2020 The Premium Times, Nigeria

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • COVID-19
  • News
    • Headline Stories
    • Top News
    • More News
    • Foreign
  • Investigations
  • Business
    • News Reports
    • Financial Inclusion
    • Analysis and Data
    • Business Specials
    • Opinion
    • Oil/Gas Reports
      • FAAC Reports
      • Revenue
  • Health
    • News Reports
    • Investigations
    • Data and Infographics
    • Health Specials
    • Features
    • Events
    • Primary Health Tracker
  • Agriculture
    • News Report
    • Research & Innovation
    • Data & Infographics
    • Special Reports/Features
    • Investigations
    • Interviews
    • Markets
  • Arts/Life
    • Arts/Books
    • Kannywood
    • Lifestyle
    • Music
    • Nollywood
    • Travel
  • Sports
    • Football
    • More Sports News
    • Sports Features
  • Projects
    • Panama Papers
    • Paradise Papers
    • Parliament Watch
    • AGAHRIN
  • Opinion
  • PT Hausa
  • The Membership Club
  • Dubawa
    • Dubawa NG
  • About Us
  • Advert Rates
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
  • Digital Store
  • DONATE

All content is Copyrighted © 2020 The Premium Times, Nigeria

Our website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.