By Daniel Bulusson, Esq.

From the happenings in this beloved country of ours; criticism from the public on the hardship they feel on the changes and policies of the current administration; the Government trying to convince the people that these policies are yielding results, the high rate of banditry, kidnapping and killing of farmers making it difficult for the government to convince the people of their achievements.

The way ‘we the people’ react to change in any form has opened my eyes to the fact that we wait for a problem to occur before finding solutions, rather than anticipate a problem before it occurs and develop solutions to avoid such problems from surfacing.

Take for example the partial shutdown of telecommunications network in some parts of northern Nigerian, the ban of commercial motor cycle riders, popularly called ‘okada’ with the goal of curtailing the high level of insecurity bedeviling parts of the country. The idea is to use this strategy to flush out these ‘Bandits’, ‘Hersdmen’, Boko Haram (Enemies of the state) from the forest, cut their source to food and free flow of transportation, and also make access to information difficult, thereby giving the military an added advantage to change tactics and formations when advancing on an operation.

The citizens on the other hand, who are already battling with the economic woes of the country, are now made to bear the brunt of these government changes in addition. To the extent that conspiracy theories are popping up that the Northern governors are collaborating with a particular telecommunication to garner more subscribers for the network, and the people are believing these rumours, because it seems to the people that the country is turning on e own and anything is possible for our leaders to do in a bid to enrich themselves.

The intent of the Government to fight the scourge of insecurity is genuine, but the security agencies are faced with an overwhelmed structure, infrastructure, equipment, and system that didn’t foresee the current attacks on the country, and so, there’s no pre-planned strategy on ground to confront the insurgencies. Left with no option but to change strategy and modus operandi of attack, the security agencies have to change strategy in a system where there’s porous free flow of communication and transportation; an immigrant can easily escape the eye of our institutions overseeing the border and enter the country, the unregulated use of the social media (use of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) has also made it easy for infiltrators to constantly be aware of the action plan of the Government.

Faced with these challenges, the security agencies are taking new steps to restrict illegal movement of persons, resources and communication to flush out and monitor activities of these insurgents. But then, these new strategies are making the citizens have a glimpse of how life was in an analogue operated system, in a time where the people already Knowle the comfort of the digital age.

These leads me to our topic, if ‘we as a people’ can look beyond our present circumstances and challenges, anticipate a future problem and begin to work on developing solutions towards those problems that have not happened yet, there would be hardly any government policy that ‘we as a people’ cannot or would not influence.

The Government is empowered by the Nigerian Constitution to do what is necessary to protect the lives and properties of its citizen, and if the current administration is saying that these policies are geared towards to achieving that goal, then we as a people, owe it to our mother land to join hands and work together to achieve those goals.

Our leaders and representatives on the other hand, must change their ways from seeking self-aggrandizement of wealth, to putting the country and its people first in all their government doings. For the people, if we support these new policies now, and it fails, ‘we as a people’ can collectively decide as a nation, who our next leaders would be, when we go to the polls to vote.

You see that way, selecting who to give the mantle of leadership of this great nation will not be difficult for the people to decide, because, ‘we as a people’ have already given them the support to perform, and they have brought untold hardship as a result, then ‘we as a people’ can exercise our franchise without fear of intimidation or favour based on ethnicity, and vote for leaders whose achievements while in government have shown that their hearts are with Nigeria.

May God Bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria!