No sooner had President Muhammadu Buhari made a long-desired ascent
to Aso Rock in 2015 than the focus turned fully and forcefully on the pace of his
government. When it took him six months to put together a cabinet of expired eggheads,
his detractors including many drawn from the vanquished Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) immediately had a stick with which to beat him.
His frequent foreign trips in the early days of his administration
also became a worry as it soon became apparent that his health was failing. In fact,
there were a couple of protests in the United Kingdom on some of the occasions he
went abroad for medical treatment.
Three days after a fiercely
contested and even more fiercely disputed
presidential elections, the President is on the move again this time to Qatar. The
occasion is the Fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed
Countries (LCDs). Mr Buhari was invited to the conference by the Emir of Qatar,
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
The conference will be attended by world leaders, the
private sector, civil society groups and youth organisations. It aims to share
development ideas and mobilize political will, solidarity, actions and
solutions to transform the LDCs, by finding sustainable solutions to poverty,
food insecurity, hunger and weak or non-weexistent infrastructure. The conference
will also address inadequate healthcare facilities and climate change in LCDs
as they struggle to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by
2030.
As the world as one continues to confront global challenges,
meeting over common goals and to achieve common grounds has become common place.
What is achieved by such meetings is another thing however as many countries send
their representatives with preconceived notions especially on the most contentious
of issues.
Nigeria is Africa’s biggest economy and democracy.It also has
the distinction of being the most populous Black country on earth. But it would
appear that the bigger the country,the bigger its problems.
In sixty-three years of being an independent country,the last
twenty-four of which have been spent as a democracy, Nigeria has been plagued by
all sorts of problems. The biggest issues used to be poverty and corruption. In
recent years, insecurity, driven by terrorism and secession, has also been thrown
into the mix to leave the country hard-pressed on all sides. It is easy then to
see why Nigeria has remained rooted to the spot of poverty and relatively global
insignificance in spite of its many prodigious gifts.
For it is easier to attend global conferences using taxpayer’s money than to confront the fact
that Nigeria has no business being a developing country not to talk of a least developed one.
With everything that Nigeria has been blessed with in terms of
human and natural resources, it should be placed quite high on the least of the
world’s most developed countries. Yet, the country finds itself languishing on the list of least developed countries which even less gifted countries find beneath their station.
The quest to put Nigeria
on the path of sustainable global and international development has proven itself
beyond many administrations. It has defied every lethargic solution deployed by
successive governments in Nigeria. With President Muhammadu Buhari counting months
before he hands over power, the current situation of the country proves that the
challenge of charting the right course for
the country has consumed the best efforts
and experts of his administration.
With the way and manner in which the recent presidential election
was conducted, and the illegitimacy with
which many Nigerians would percieve the incoming government
if nothing changes, the signs are not good that Nigeria will escape the slump of
underdevelopment any time soon.
If this holds, Nigeria’s place at such ignominious conferences will be pegged down for many years.
Kene Obiezu.
Twitter@kenobiezu
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