Nigeria’s Woes: We’re All Guilty —Sanusi

Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has asked Nigerians to assess their contribution to the deplorable state of the nation.

Sanusi gave the charge at the Lagos State House of Assembly during this year’s annual Hijrah celebration.

The CBN governor, who was the guest lecturer at the event said the current deplorable state of the country was not caused by the leaders alone, but that the followers did not play their roles as well.

Sanusi, in his lecture titled: ‘Societal Reformation: The role of Muslims,’ listed the challenges facing the country to include corruption, high maternal mortality rate, poor life expectancy, which he puts at 54.

He disclosed that the nation had moved from a state of wealth to poverty and that most of the things the country took for granted are now challenges which have defied solutions.

While advising Muslims against corrupt tendencies both as office holders and in their private businesses, he submitted that corrupt Nigerians hated to hear the truth.

“We are an oil producing country, how come 90 percent of our people are living on less than two dollars a day?

“How come we have so many women dying during child birth? How come we have so many children that are out of school? We need to ask what have we done,” Sanusi said.

Sanusi warned the country’s leaders and politicians to be mindful of the wrath of God as they will be made to account for every role they played while they occupied such offices.

“Each of you is a shepherd, each of you have been given something to take care of and each of you will be asked about that you have been given responsibility for.

“We all need to ask ourselves what examples we set, what values we base our lives on, what principle we preach and we need to always remember that this has been the one message of Allah all through time,” he stated.

The Speaker of the House, Adeyemi Ikuforiji, had earlier lamented that the nation was further slipping into instability, adding that it needs serious prayers from every member of the society.

In his own speech at the occasion, Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN) advocated shunning of the life of pretence and promises which will take the nation nowhere for hard but truthful decisions which may not be too popular.

Governor Fashola said some past administrations have taken some popular decisions which has taken the nation nowhere.

He said after fifty years of nationhood, Nigeria should no more be talking about its potentials but about how the dividends of democracy can be directly delivered to her people.

The governor described this period as that of momentous change for Nigerians which the people can either embrace and benefit from or allow it to sweep everyone away.

“Have we had cause to ask ourselves that despite our security challenges, Nigeria remains attractive to the international community? The reason is not far- fetched, it is simply because the country has a very large population,” he said.

The governor explained that it was the fad for every government to promise that all the good things of life would be possible for all Nigerians at a particular timeline only to later shift the date to some other times.

He said the promise was that everything would be available for all Nigerians by Year 1990, later it changed to Year 2000. “When Year 2000 came and it became evident that it would be impossible to achieve this it was again changed to Year 2010. With Year 2010 passing and all this not coming to fruition, we are all looking forward now to Year 2020 as the magical year when everything will happen,” Fashola said.

According to the governor, Nigerians have talked about the glorious period of the Western Region when crops like cocoa boomed and earned the region the revenue to build the tallest building in Africa and the first television transmission station before countries like France, adding that the people then embraced tax paying religiously.

He added that all the popular decisions of the past years in Nigeria have not taken the country anywhere near the Promised Land but have instead ensured that the country remained underdeveloped.

“A life of pretence and promises will not take us anywhere because all such promises of the past have made no difference. You have to realize that if you want to live an improved life, you might have to endure some form of inconveniences in the interest of our communal growth.”

He said the question that should be agitating the mind of every Nigerian at this period is that is it not time now that Nigerians should change the way they have been doing things in the past and embrace change.

The event was attended by some members of the State Executive Council, including the Commissioner for Home Affairs and Culture, Alhaji Oyinlomo Danmole, members of the House of Assembly, including the Deputy Speaker, Kolawole Taiwo and several Muslim faithful.

— Eromosele Ebhomele