The Ohanaeze Ndigbo has said that UK-based business newspaper Financial Times was right in its assessment that Nigeria was fast becoming a failed state.
The newspaper made the assertion in an editorial on Tuesday, The Herald reported.
It stated that by definition of a failed state being “one where the government is no longer in control”, Nigeria “is teetering on the brink”.
According to the newspaper, Nigeria was faced with “chronic criminality and violence” and the spate of insecurity in the country shows that “the Nigerian government is no longer in control.”
It warned that the government of Nigeria “must redouble efforts to get a grip on security.”
Giving a background of its assertion, Financial Times wrote, “President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 pronounced Boko Haram “technically defeated”. That has proved fanciful. Boko Haram has remained an ever-present threat. If the latest kidnapping (Kankara school) turns out to be its work, it would mark the spread of the terrorist group from its north-eastern base. Even if the mass abduction was carried out by “ordinary” bandits — as now looks possible — it underlines the fact of chronic criminality and violence. Deadly clashes between herders and settled farmers have spread to most parts of Nigeria. In the oil-rich, but impoverished, Delta region, extortion through the sabotage of pipelines is legendary.”
It warned, “A new, slimmed-down state — ideally one with fewer, bankrupt regional assemblies — must concentrate on the basics: security, health, education, power and roads. With those public goods in place, Nigeria’s young people are more than capable of turning the country round. At the present trajectory, the population will double to 400m by 2050. If nothing is done, long before then, Nigeria will become a problem far too big for the world to ignore.”
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Reacting, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo through Emeka Attamah, the Media Adviser to the President General, Chief Nnia Nwodo warned that Nigeria was currently manifesting all the attributes of a failed state.
“Financial Times is a reputable magazine and before they write anything, they must have their facts. It is an incontrovertible reality that the nation is sinking fast.
“The wheel of governance is grinding to a halt and we are still chasing shadows. All indices of a failing state stare everybody in the face, a terribly insecure country, a bleeding economy, a bludgeoning corruption level, a convoluted political system where courts have become electoral umpires and a faceless Presidency.
“Whatever are we getting right in this country? Let us not continue to deceive ourselves. Until states or geopolitical zones are allowed to harness and develop their natural endowments for the good of all, until this country undergoes restructuring, it will continue to sink deeper and deeper into quicksand,” Attamah said.