Last year, 2023, was quite an eventful year for Nigerians. It came in with the fever of the approaching 2023 general elections and terminated with the horrific terror attacks in Plateau State during Christmas.
In the wake of the widespread economic hardship that trailed the early economic decisions of the new administration of President Bola Tinubu, it copiously explained that they were the initial pains towards a more glorious future for the citizenry in line with its oft-vaunted renewed hope agenda.
However, in this year, 2024, there are a few things that Nigerians would like to see happen in their country to reassure them that their hope in a better Nigeria is not in vain.
First of all is electoral reform and the place of the judiciary in the political scheme of things. The fallouts of the 2023 general elections and election petition court proceedings afterwards have left much to be desired.
The struggle by many Nigerians and civil society bodies to have the law for electronic accreditation and transmission of results from the polling booths and the upload of same to a central viewing portal in order to avoid results manipulation at the collation centres was frustrated by the discretion the same law granted to the election management body, the Independent National Election Commission (INEC), to do otherwise, if it deemed fit.
INEC’s general conduct of the polls has led many to call for a strengthening of the Electoral Act to make it mandatory for it to accredit voters and transmit results electronically in future elections.
Also, for the first time in Nigeria, the 2023 poll produced a president with minority votes. President Bola Tinubu won just about a third of the total votes cast in the presidential vote.
The electoral law should be tinkered with to produce a winner of any executive position – president, governor or local council chairman – with at least 50 percent of the votes whether in the first ballot or runoff.
Also, the issues raised in election petition litigation have called for more changes to the electoral law. Nigerians want all pre-election cases resolved before the election and all election petitions to be discharged in court before the swearing-in of the winners.
Apart from the litigation being a distraction to governance, it confers unfair advantages on those whose victory is being challenged.
Those already sworn into office can easily apply the considerable powers of their new offices to sway the judgement in their favour.
Nigerians also want a more independent INEC starting with the mode of appointing its officials in order to exclude those with partisan leanings.
Allied to this is that a handful of judges should not be deciding who emerged the winner in an election.
The current system puts too much pressure on them and some of them can compromise justice for lucre.
As is increasingly the case, the mandate of the people expressed through their votes is often sacrificed on the altar of legal technicalities.
If the judges find a fault with an election, the candidates should go back to the ballot to obtain the people’s mandate. All these need further amendments to the electoral law.
Insecurity of life and property agitates the minds of Nigerians. In this country, most criminals are walking the streets scot-free.
They range from petty thieves and financial fraudsters to armed robbers, murderers, kidnappers and terrorists. Nigerians want security agencies that can detect and prevent crimes and punish offenders.
They want policing and military operations underpinned by good intelligence gathering and usage with the aid of surveillance technology, not the analogue reactive one currently in place, otherwise the thesis of the Sultan of Sokoto, Saad Abubakar III – that the bandits/criminals are always ahead of the security agencies – will continue to ring true.
The current showing – where marauders carried out a well-coordinated invasion of about 20 communities in Plateau State for two days without being thwarted by the security agencies is not acceptable. Heads have to roll for this kind of dereliction of duty if the government wants to be taken seriously.
On the economy, Nigerians want their back-breaking yoke of hardship to be lessened. The inflationary trend at 27.33 percent, led by food inflation at 32.8 percent (as of December 15), is pushing more and more citizens into misery, far beyond the 63 percent considered multi-dimensional poor (133 million citizens) as declared by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2021.
Nigerians want the government to find short- and long-term solutions to the energy and food insecurity at the heart of their suffering.
On a general note, Nigerians want government officials to lead by example: they cannot be telling suffering Nigerians bearing the brunt of the present economic policies to make more sacrifices when they themselves are living extravagant lifestyles and engaging in wasteful spending of public resources.
Nigerians also want the legislature – national and subnational – to be alive to its duty of oversighting the executive and judiciary arms of government, not a rubber-stamp one that is in cahoots with them to the detriment of the citizenry.
Nigerians do not want the government to engage in more borrowing and the unproductive application of the borrowed funds.
Already, Nigeria is using over 95 percent of its national income to service debts, not repay them. Rather, the government should plug internal revenue leakages in its ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), mostly through contract fraud and frivolous trips abroad.
Finally, Nigerians want more devolution of powers to the subnational governments in line with the principle of the federal system of government.
Too much power is concentrated at the centre and is hindering security and development at the grassroots level.
As a newspaper we wish Nigerians a better 2024.
