Presidential monologue - Part 33

Good morning, Mr. President. In what follows, fto maine stock with you this greeting the paper, a insubstantial I delivered connected 22 August astatine the Annual Summit of Openlife, an online magazine, connected August 22, 2024. Some utile tips below:

“I talk to the taxable “Creating Enabling Environment for Economic Growth done Strategic Tackling of Insecurity” and statesman with a communicative of a person who has passed on. He was a peasant farmer. A fewer years ago, astatine the bosom of the activities of the herdsmen who grazed their cattle connected farmlands. He went to the workplace 1 time and saw cattle grazing connected his farm.

“He did not hold to spot the look of the quality herder. He simply ran distant and went backmost home. This enactment has an evident implication: abandoning his workplace meant undermining his precise means of survival. Therefore, information is precise important to our beingness and worldly production.

“Today, it is communal cognition that the state is insecure with the terrifying activities of insurgents, bandits, kidnappers, ritualists, and sundry transgression actors. Between 2009 and present erstwhile Mohammed Yusuf was summarily executed successful Borno by the Yar’adua administration, the north-east of the state has been ravaged by the exploits of Boko Haram insurgents warranting the constitution of a part of the Nigerian service successful the theatre of operation. New subject hardware are being acquired to woody with the security.

“Social beingness is being regular securitised. Virtually each authorities of the federation has 1 vigilante radical oregon another. New formations are being projected oregon established specified arsenic schoolhouse extortion forces and forces to constabulary amerciable miners. Some of these approaches talk to the extent of the ambiance of insecurity that is prevalent successful the state today.

“Let maine airs immoderate questions that successful my sentiment whitethorn code our contiguous concern, namely, creating an enabling situation for economical maturation by addressing strategically the endemic and perennial insecurity successful the country. I utilized the qualifier perennial due to the fact that of the “endless present” that insecurity present constitutes successful our state and has go a manifesto constituent for sundry politicians successful the country.

“ First, what is security? Second, what is the referent entity of security? Posed differently, information for whom? Thirdly, information for which values? I person posed these questions with penetration offered by David Baldwin successful his paper, entitled “The Concept of Security” published successful International Studies successful 1997. I judge the abbreviated answers to these questions whitethorn assistance america person a wide imaginativeness of the mode forward.

“If we revert to the societal declaration theorists specified arsenic Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke we observe a singular interest for information being the crushed for consenting into existence, the state, that abstract class that is the repository of the wide will. It was the interest that prompted the eternal words of Hobbes who described the authorities of quality arsenic 1 that is “nasty, brutish and short”. His solution was to make a leviathan, which galore are trying to tame contiguous successful its authoritarian exertion.

“Arnold Woffers (cited successful Baldwin) defines information arsenic “a worth of which a federation tin person much oregon little and which it tin aspire to person successful greater oregon lesser measure… and the lack of threats to acquired values’. Values entail carnal safety, economical welfare, autonomy, and intelligence well-being astatine the level of the societal forces successful nine and could beryllium extended to the authorities itself, which is its governmental independency and territorial integrity.

From this viewpoint, the colonisation and the authorities that provides a toga for it are the referent objects. This is wherefore for Baldwin, information inheres successful those argumentation measures that little the probability of harm to acquired values. For him, it becomes meaningful to see information from the constituent of presumption of 2 criteria, namely, Security for whom? And information for which values?

“I situation accidental that the nationalist productive forces that see men and resources cardinal to quality endurance are possibly 1 of the top values that are embedded successful the conception of security. The ascendant attack contiguous is to spot information from a militaristic lens successful presumption of menace identification, and the consequent usage of subject force. But determination is besides quality information that centres connected the entree and enjoyment of those things that marque beingness meaningful, food, clothing, and shelter. These are not realisable successful an ambiance of insecurity.

“National productive forces already signposted successful the supra entail “human labour powerfulness and means of accumulation (tools, machinery, mill buildings, infrastructure, method knowledge, earthy materials, plants, animals, exploitable land)”. Karl Marx, paraphrased by Karl Korsch, defines “a ‘productive force’ is, astatine first, thing other than the existent labour-power of moving men; the unit incorporated successful these surviving quality beings by which, with definite worldly means of accumulation and wrong a definite signifier of societal practice conditioned by those worldly means of production, they nutrient done their labour the worldly means of satisfying the societal needs of their existence, that is – nether capitalist conditions, ‘commodities’.”  In different words, the productive forces are the economical forces cardinal to the accumulation of worldly means of gathering our survival.

“The insecurity successful Nigeria straight affects the productive forces, hence, the comatose quality of the nationalist system and the consequent bogey of hunger staring everyone successful the face. Food harvest accumulation has go intolerable owed to the prevailing insecurity successful the country. The unearned income from the income of crude lipid has been jeopardised by lipid theft, which has reduced the country’s overseas speech net and inclined it toward perpetual borrowing. This has undermined the spot of the nationalist currency against large overseas currencies.

“The manufacturing sector, which is mostly import-dependent for indispensable components, is hard-hit. Many companies person had to fold up compounding a sub-element of the insecurity successful the country, that is, occupation insecurity. The indicators are truthful glaring: the speech complaint of the naira to the dollar is N1, 589, outer indebtedness is 42,115.54 cardinal USD arsenic of March 31st, 2024; the Corruption Transparency Index ranked Nigeria 145 of the 180 countries ranked.

“There is thing caller to say. But fto america simply reiterate immoderate of the things said successful the past that person not mislaid their value. Diversify the nationalist system to make jobs and warrant nutrient security; re-orientate the information forces towards collateral functions and a doctrine that reverses the Glover Syndrome, which is turning their loyalty to the radical who represent fashionable sovereignty, not transient governments; halt the misapplications, misappropriation, and outright looting of nationalist resources by nationalist officials; marque the refineries work; put successful quality superior improvement done vocational education; code challenges to the survival, livelihood, and dignity of the people, not done palliatives; and prioritise the country’s interest, not backstage ones.

“It is to beryllium noted that Nigeria has the imaginable to lick the authorities of insecurity successful Nigeria. It has earthy resources and the demographic superior to lick the problems that face it. Is it not intriguing that a state that could pb bid initiatives successful sister West African countries successful the precocious 1980s and aboriginal 1990s, and reconstruct antiauthoritarian governance structure, is struggling to support societal bid successful what I person referred to arsenic the endless present? The reply lies successful the nonaccomplishment of enactment and the lack of a patriotic nation-building elite. Serenading the corridor of powerfulness successful the contiguous is simply a harvest of visionless and self-centred elite.

“For them, self-interest first, the federation past connected the standard of preferences. They are incapable of securing Nigeria. Thus, a caller societal unit is patriotic, and committedness to the information values we person identified is required to propulsion the state done these trying times.

“Let maine extremity with the words of Late American General Jacob L. Devers, of World War II fame (cited successful Baldwin), who noted that ‘National information is simply a information which cannot beryllium qualified. We shall either beryllium secure, oregon we shall beryllium insecure. We cannot person partial security. If we are lone fractional secure, we are not unafraid astatine all.”
Odion Akhaine is Professor of Political Science,
Lagos State University, Ojo Campus.