Author: The Lumine News

07:07AM

By Richard Inoyo.

Good data they say is the foundation of proper planning and policy execution. May be in Europe not in Africa, and certainly not in the Lugardian playbook called Nigeria which is now under siege in the hands of federal and state psychopathic and almost dystopian leadership that knows nothing good other than manufacture excuses, create diverse and endless schemes to empty whatever the country earns and owns, and then go about doing cosmetic touches here and there to withhold and misdirect public wealth in the name of governance against the expectations citizens hold.

In the State Capital of Cross River State for instance, the amount of levies taken by government-backed levy-enforcers from the hands of thousands of keke riders, taxi drivers and market women daily is abundantly sufficient to repair all the bad and decaying roads in Calabar South and in some parts of Calabar Municipal. The same is true for States across the country, but ask where all that money goes to? They will declare you inciting the public, while the hands that grab such funds feed on the sweat, tears and blood of those hardworking citizens driving the Keke, the taxi and trading in our primitively organized markets with plans not to end this injustice.

True, the situation isn’t improving and Government is complicit in this open defense of the injustice and destruction of public infrastructure due to failure to insist that such money shouldn’t go into private hands but should be directed into repair, construction and upgrading of critical and life sustaining infrastructure. The solution for bad and rotten roads is here, take the funds and fix them.

On the flipside, *Citizens’ Observatory*, the research wing of Citizens’ Assembly and Citizens’ Solution Network has been mining socio-security data over the last 9years and we have shown that irrespective of the log of irrational arguments against data collation and data analytic project, everyone working with us knows that data is king in serious society that wants to truly become developed with an objective plan and will to fight and uplift many from poverty like China is doing, in reinvesting public wealth in communities, creating opportunities and reducing public dissatisfaction and earning real respect from different countries and human race.

But driving new growth transition from a sustainable corridor requires the basic understanding of demand and supply. Company sells what people are buying_ and if there are no buyers for a particular product, the production and distribution of such product will come to an end. For a minute, kindly picture this economic truth from a government-citizen standpoint, and you will discover that Government supplies citizens what citizens accept, not necessarily what citizens require and expect_ the opposite of which in form of rejection of rotten services would take a catastrophic toll on public leadership when citizens say enough is enough and grind public functions risking institutional violence and death toll from police and the military sent in by underperforming sociopathic government to dismantle resistance. For more understanding chat 08142147410 and get my article on *Collective Losses: How Lack of Opportunity Created by States is expanding the Dependency Ratio*

When two scholars came up with the formal theories of Electoral Replacement and Rational Anticipation which have survived scientific testing, the aim is to let citizens understand that citizens have the power to hold their representatives and government accountable by ensuring that they replace the underperforming government and the greedy politicians if they fail to do what the citizens expect from them, and that politicians should be aware that, there are immense consequences for their actions and inactions, especially when and if they take actions or pass policies that the citizens do not agree with.

In both situations, citizens are admonished to use their PVCs to vote them out during election and get people in that truly care about the electorates with willingness to tackling community problems such as insecurity, weak economic opportunity buildup and the destruction of public water systems by politicians who took public waterboard land in a State like Cross River and now justifying the stoppage of public water distribution system, something Donald Duke and Senator Liyel built and sustained respectively for over a decade which served millions of citizens, providing millions of litres daily during their regimes.

Today, waterborne disease is causing a State like Cross River State millions of nairas monthly in treatment cost due to the man-made embargo on potable public water supply system caused by the immediate past Ayade Regime which the new administration is doing nothing about to restore 6months into office while internally generated revenue and State-LGA allocations from Abuja still troop in on a monthly basis. It is the same story in Ilasa in Lagos State where there is zero access to decent water supply and where opportunity has been grounded to a halt.

But the twin evils of electoral fraud and result manipulation have further jeopardized the aforementioned accountability instruments of electoral replacement and rational anticipation theories. Nonetheless, citizens can organize politically, by identifying credible alternatives, campaigning for them and utilizing their candidacy to uproot, remove and get rid of public enemies occupying political offices who have done nothing tangible to create jobs, increase opportunities and grow the economy or guarantee security of citizens’ lives, businesses and assets.

As I think about the data and the man-made sufferings that Government explicitly supports via its inaction and action, the question that looms was *”Are Nigerians going to give up and continue to slide down in government supervised administration of sufferings and excuses?”* I heard someone exploded with a capital *No* .

As an activist pushing for positive social change, I re-echo the capital no of Mallam Kabiru Muhammad who recently chaired the General Assembly Special Session of Citizens’ Assembly. The least we can do is increase the advocacy to full volume in a quest to build a just and fair society where the money taken from Keke drivers and Taxi men as levies daily and from market women do not go into private pockets but rather get channeled into resuscitating comatose critical infrastructure, fixing bad roads and expanding their access to coupon-free credit, which can make real difference in life, economy and longterm development from Africa’s devastating vicious circle-poverty trap.

Signed

Richard Inoyo,
Country Director,
Citizens’ Solution Network.

Disclaimer: The opinion expressed in this article is strictly that of the author, Richard Inoyo and does not represent TheLumineNews or its agent.