A Nation Adrift

International monitoring agencies occasionally rate how well or unhealthy a nation fares. Whether it is the Human Development Index, HDI, or Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, IHDI, or transparency in government performance as reeled out annually by the Transparency International or the state of a nation’s human rights record as released occasionally by the Human Rights Watch, the aim is to keep tabs on nations to do better.

These are just a few of the multiple peer review mechanisms that countries glean from to know how well they are fairing. It is an accepted norm that any nation that consistently fails to obtain a good grade in these results is deemed as having failed.

We have taken a keen look at Nigeria’s performance over a period of time and the results show that our country is drifting precariously towards the brink of failure. The economy, despite the oft politically-mouthed stimulation it is receiving, has refused to improve on the standard of living of the ordinary Nigerians who have no access to the public till. Even with a so-called re-based economy, development and growth have remained mere wishes or at best motion in stasis.

Rights abuses remain prevalent. Armed robbery attacks, extra-judicial killings, kidnapping and other acts that demonstrate lack of respect for human life and dignity are perpetrated by the state and private individuals.

The educational sector is in shambles. The Academic Staff Union of Universities, the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, the Nigerian Union of Teachers and other affiliate agencies in the educational sector are almost permanently up in arms with the government because of poor working conditions and lack of funding for the education sector.

The health sector has collapsed. Nigeria, like one of the few failed states in the world, is where doctors embark on strike without the concerned authorities batting eyelids.  Health institutions are too far few in-between in catering for the needs of the about 160 million Nigerians; this is symbolized by the abysmal doctor-to-patient ratio in our hospitals and is indicative of the plummeting gains we have deliberately refused to reverse.

The final punch that appears to confine us to the comity of failed states is the Boko Haram attacks in almost all the states in Northern Nigeria and Abuja, the nation’s capital. Since 2010, the tempo of Boko Haram attacks has shaken the fabric of this country’s corporate existence.

On almost daily basis, the sect snuffs lives out of defenceless citizens. Despite hitting its biggest targets in the United Nation’s building and the Police Force Headquarters in Abuja two years ago, the group equally went on to carry massive hits in Kano, Yobe, Adamawa, Taraba, Niger and of course, Borno, which it has converted to a playground. The security operatives appear to be either aloof or incapable of contending with the deadly group.

When it took a break from the Northeast, it returned to Abuja with two massive bomb attacks in one motor park in about a two-week interval in April and May. Boko Haram then raised it flags triumphantly as it took about 285 girls captive, leaving Nigeria’s security apparatus naked before the world.

More than three weeks after the girls were kidnapped from their school in Chibok town in Maiduguri, Borno State, no confident word on their whereabouts has come from the presidency or the security agencies. In the silence that pervades the country in the face of the international outcry for the release of the girls, Nigeria gradually drifts to join the ignoble league of Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and other war-torn countries.