Tuesday 13 April 2021

Nigeria: Great country with bad leadership

I don’t often talk about what is going on in Nigeria or any African country in general. Since I am half Nigerian (British of Nigerian descent), I would like to talk about it in today’s blog post. 

Nigeria really has a bad leadership. I am aware that the country have it’s own problems and challenges. However in the final months of 2020, I was stunned to read what is really happening in the country that is largest economy in Africa & largest oil producer in Africa. 

There are in the following

  • Corruption 
  • Currency (Nigerian Naira being valueless) 
  • Boko Haram in the North region of Nigeria
  • SARS police brutality 
  • Politics 

I could go on. The point is that my father’s home country has a bad leadership in the government. 

theguardian.com Democracy doesn’t work. Not in Naija  because two years ago, the presidential election in 2019 was very disappointing with low voter turnout & Muhammadu Buhari (Nigerian president) won the election for 2nd term. Hybrid regime. Politics in 9ja needs fixing. 

Police Brutality by SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad). The controversial Nigerian police force (criminal within police force). That had reached the attention for the world to know what was really happening there. t.co news.sky.com 

Is the country Nigeria slipping back to the days of dictatorship during military dictatorship times before Democracy in 1999? Yes. ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฌ en.m.wikipedia.org freedomhouse.org statista.com en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org 

If the Nigerian govt doesn’t get their act together  to really disband the police unit (SARS despite being renamed but still do horrific things) then it would be just matter of time before Nigeria is back in dictatorship. Back in the days of military dictatorship. Then maybe an possibility of kicking Nigeria out of the Commonwealth. Corruption is never acceptable. 

No wonder the UK govt (former colonial power) trained and funded the SARS officers between 2016 and 2020. I was very frustrated in October 2020 that the govt (the UK. Foreign country) trained and funded the police unit that is terribly corrupt. Despised by Nigerian people t.co I was even disgusted to read an article about it. My father even told me that he had an awful experience with SARS long time ago in Nigeria. He even told me that sometime last year that they captured one of my relative on my dad’s family side (my cousin). Brutal police unit (SARS) who is truly not acting like a proper police unit.

Police brutality shouldn’t be tolerated anywhere in the world whether is in Nigeria, the US, France, Belarus, the UK or any country. It has really gone out of hands. No wonder legendary Nigerian Musician Fela Kuti had been critical on the Nigerian govt & made a lots of tunes about it. Notably & shockingly, Nigerian military govt in the 1970s killed the mother of Fela Kuti. Funmilayo Ransome Kuti. 

Furthermore, living standards in Nigeria is shockingly expensive. Just look up at Naira. Nigerian currency. Nigerian Naira. It is worthless. Valueless against any currency including other African currencies like Ghanaian Cedis which it has a value. opinion.premiumtimesng.com 1 Cedi equals N66. 

Example: today’s calculations (based on my research): £1 equals N525. €1 equals N456 and $1 equals N382. It proves that Nigerian Naira is not a strong currency. It is something that I would not find in currency exchange bureau (in case if I do want to visit Nigeria). 

Lastly, the Nigerian government (& even governors) are seemingly to be terribly incompetent to put a stop to Islamist terrorist organisation (Boko Haram) kidnapping schoolchildren (mainly girls & sometimes boys) at schools in Northeastern Nigeria. foreignpolicy.com Since 2014, the terror group Boko Haram continues to cause problems & chaos there in the northeastern region. Jihadists like Boko Haram who is affiliated with Daesh (ISIS) are damaging the good reputation of Islam & that shouldn’t be so. Since religion in Nigeria is both Christianity and Islam. 

Conclusions: Nigeria is really a great country. Great country in the sense of culture, music, food and Nollywood (Nigerian equivalent of Hollywood). When it comes to leadership both at political level and economic level since politics in Nigeria (same for every single African country) are tribalised & not seem to be functioning, that’s where those things have happened badly. So that is why I am not very interested of Nigerian politics. Because it has an awful leadership in the govt & public service (which does include SARS). That’s why the country has a hybrid democracy (sham democracy. Fake one) which is not a true democracy. 

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