Nigeria’s many problems are a number of things that require you to sit down, off-shirt and have a chilled bottle of water on stand-by before discussing. Because really, where you wan start from?
There’s quite literally, no aspect of Nigerian life that just works seamlessly. No check it, even basic things,
Is it water? Who doesn’t have a self-built borehole at home.
Air? Port-Harcourt has been in the midst of a pollution disaster for years now. Quality of life in Nigeria is so trash, it might as well be okrika, and not the good kind either.
Because this nonsense has gone on for so long, it’s very easy for Nigerians to take our sub-par treatment as the regular way things are done, but that is so far from the truth, you could make a bush path through it.
As proof, here are 7 very Nigerian issues taken for granted, but which are anything but:
Electricity.
Do you realise that there are generations and generations of Nigerians that have said these two words: ‘up NEPA’ in actual excitement when power is restored? How is it that for decades and decades, Nigeria’s electricity crisis (because a crisis is what it is) has defied a solution? How?
2. Transport.
Can you suggest a cross-country trip, by road, to your friends without them looking at you like this:
The roads are terrible, infrastructure in the states are terrible and if that isn’t enough to send you away, there’s no guarantee of your security. Who did we offend?
3. Welfare.
If you counted on your fingers, how many homeless people you passed on your way to work or school, you’ll probably need four additional sets of limbs to complete the count.
Nigeria has a system called ‘Almajiri’ children’, and for the life of me, I can’t understand how it is still in place. This practice leaves children of all ages, destitute and abandoned on the roads in the name of following tradition. How can this continue?
4. The Police.
You know something’s wrong when the people have to appoint a hero to save them from the police. Nigeria’s police force is under-funded, under-resourced and underpaid. The SARS division has been a repeated source of strife in the lives of the citizens and the police barracks looks like it’s one strong wind away from collapse.
But has anything been done to truly find a lasting solution?
5. Politics and elections.
Every four years in the electoral cycle, Nigeria holds elections. These elections are from political parties and for political posts that are largely exclusive of the average man. Exorbitant costs to participate and campaign in elections guarantee this.
Just again, every four years, the Independent National Electoral Commission fails to provide seamless ways to ensure the majority of Nigerians aren’t disenfranchised. Needlessly complicated processes to participate in the elections guarantee this. Violence in elections seals the deal. And the officeholders that eventually win? Hm.
Every four years, without fail, rinse and repeat.
6. Healthcare.
A.K.A the largely crowdfunded enterprise Nigerians everywhere have been forced to engage in. Every time I hear people say one health scare can be the difference between having a savings and living through bankruptcy, the reality of the Nigerian situation just hits again.
Let’s not get started on the irony of a president who deems it fit to announce he’ll be living his country and his electorate to visit doctors abroad. His son as well for good measure.
Hospitals operating without blood, oxygen, electricity. Hospitals refusing stab, gunshot wound victims without police reports, what did we do to deserve these?
7. Security of life.
Nigeria is so precariously unsafe, it’s a wonder anyone remains in this country. Kidnappings, robberies, stabbings, tribal clashes, the yet to be defeated Boko Haram scourge. The insecurity of your home when it floods after rain. Poor vehicle inspections and road-worthiness guarantees, causing tankers to collapse on persons and property alike. The list goes on and on.
It’s not normal, none of it is.
