As a kid, anytime there was a coup in Nigeria, we would be glued to the TV set or radio and listen in fascination as the new Lords of the Manor would reel out Decrees and Instructions to the Civil Populace! The most fascinating thing about those speeches was the number of entities, people and things “banned”. From General Buhari to Sani Abacha; they “banned” like say tomorrow no dey! It was so authoritarian…and had this ring of finality about it.
As impressionable young boys, banning was so cool…and all we ever wanted was to become Military Generals. Lol…the military messed up the national psyche! SMH…
Little did we realise that even adults did romanticize the “philosophy of banning” just like us kids. Declaring something “banned” makes one feel powerful, doesn’t it?
So the military decreed a Military Code for Civilian Administration in 1998, called it the Constitution, and declared themselves ready for democracy! So began our total demonstration of the crazy and the insane in 1999.
With the advent of the strange government structure, we commenced this journey to nowhere. We mouth the word “democracy” but we’ve got no idea what it’s all about. So we’ve got the Executive President and Governors that do not seek the opinions of the Lawmakers but formulate ill-thought policies that have almost zero input from people that most need them! And if those policies didn’t look like they would succeed, they would simply “ban” an alleged offender, sector or institution!
Since 1999, the Executive arm of government at the state and federal levels have banned Nigeria and Nigerians into oblivion. Just a few people thinking they own the world, banning left right centre…until there’s almost nothing to ban any longer. Now, some even want to ban us from traveling overseas! Just imagine?
Popular decision-making is the cornerstone of parliamentary democracy. All decisions by the Premier (at the region) or Prime Minister (at the federal) must be thoroughly discussed in Parliament; taken through intellectual and scientific grinder, before being made a policy. Unfortunately, the Nigerian System doesn’t allow that. A governor or president, could have a good dose of Codeine, look at a certain sector, and ban it out of existence!
With the banning mentality, the government banned all other sea ports except the Lagos Ports. With the ban, hundreds of thousands of persons were thrown out of work, and the economies of places from Calabar to Benin all through to Maiduguri went into a tailspin! But who would tell them that the non operation of the banned ports has adverse effect on the total economy?
So they banned private refineries. Oh, you’d be told that there are licenses. Well, it’s easier for the camel to pass through the eye of the needle! The sum total is that we spend all our national income to import petroleum products, enrich other countries and keep our own out of work.
And they banned state and municipal electricity generation, banned certain goods from being manufactured, banned local police, banned Chemical Engineering in UNN, banned direct maritime trade between coastal places and the immediate neighbors in the Gulf to Equatorial Guinea and beyond.
As they ban, the opportunities for economic progress shrink progressively. And people get more frustrated. And of course, when the chips are down, emigrate the country. Those that cannot emigrate turn into crime.
The Policy of Banning has cost Nigeria over 50 million jobs, and hundreds of billions in dollars! Banning is making us poorer every passing second! We are being banned into abject poverty; we are being banned into extinction!!!
Along came some governors from 2011 to 2019; they banned Commercial Motorcycle Riders in Onitsha, then Port Harcourt, then more places. The folks sold the motorcycles or converted the to engines to power motorized Rickshaws (Keke). These compete with commercial cabs and buses. They became self regulatory and virtually developed the insane Transport Sub-sector. They even formed associations…like NURTW. The good, the bad and the ugly joined in. But at least, they got themselves off the streets and provided a service (albeit insane). And became the largest employer of labor in Nigeria!
Then the Rivers State Government banned the Keke…Anambra banned the Okada, Oyo banned the NURTW as a whole! And more people flood the Misery Market!
You don’t ban something to make a policy work; you simply create a Black Market for corruption! Is that too hard to see?
Yet, we’ve got sufficient criminality already to last us ten lifetimes! As these bans came into effect, kidnapping, carjacking, robbery and others spiked! From Onitsha, to Port Harcourt…and spreading! The newly banned became desperate and started self help. Add that to the Fulani Terrorism and know you’ve got a terrible mix! A meltdown! Does this ring a bell?
Governance should not be populism, or the whim of a single individual! Governance should be scientific; an intellectual pilgrimage…where all good heads convoke to deliver knowledge-based policies. Rather than resorting to knee-jerk crazy, feel-good tantrums as banning, Root Cause Analysis ought to be carried out. Rather than ban, we ought to have phased approach to removing a past blight by providing a people-based policy with the active participation of the people the change was meant for! What was to be banned must be made to morph into something much better that even the people would take to it…for the greater good of all!
We’ve seen bans all our lives! A dude came in 2015 and banned the economy into disaster! A dude commanded a certain ban to end the Apapa gridlock and all he got was an indifferent silence! And so much more!
You don’t ban livelihood, no alternative, and you don’t expect a backlash!
The Policy of Banning in Nigeria is a colossal tragedy. In all truth, the 1999 Constitution is so completely fascist, and without intellectual content that even a police constable could ban anything! We operate a very moronic system, and the result is there for all to see. Even the newly selected governors cannot resist the inordinate powers given them by a most silly Constitution! Of course, they’ve been flexing their budding fascist muscles just two days after tasting the tantalizing honeypot of dictatorship. And already committing unforced errors that people hail as “good governance”!
That’s the tragedy of this Constitution…that Constitution itself…for all intents and purposes, should be summarily…banned!
#thinkAgain…what we are doing doesn’t make sense in any way. Can’t we see? Please!!!
