Still riding on the currency of hope

Between the last editions of my articles “Currency Of Hope” and now, a lot has occurred in the administrative space of our beloved nation-state Nigeria. There is absolutely no facet of governance that has not been affected by a new policy or ongoing reforms hopefully for better. After all the only hope in any reform lies in the expected better outcomes, speed in performance embedded in a constant and sustained engagement with the citizens.

These led me back to pick up the document “Renewed Hope: Action Plan For A Better Nigeria”(2023). That was our campaign manifesto for the Tinubu Presidency and I bet some of us know the document word for word as we interpreted this again and again during the hard fought campaign preceding elections. It is a 75 page document that covers major areas of governance from National Security, The Economy to Agriculture, Digital Economy, Women Empowerment, Education, Sports Development, Aviation, Arts , Culture and Tourism ,Judicial Reforms, Foreign Policies and much more.

In that well researched document lies the pact this administration made with the Nigerian people for the first four years and from whence many of these reforms are being introduced. I will encourage all Managers of policies in this administration (whether they were part of the campaign or not) to have that document as a working tool on their tables as a guide for a clearer understanding of the pact, the journey and the hopeful destination. And these must be continually tracked, monitored and measured because it has automatically become the peoples’ scorecard of our performance in the next few years.

Thus it is with great excitement that the nation recently noticed a drop in the alarming rising prices of foodstuff. Many reasons have been alluded to this development. Daniel Bwala, one of the President’s spokesperson said “The reason the food prices are crashing is because we have dealt a heavy blow to insecurity, hence farmers enthusiastically go to farm and do what they do best. “

While the well respected Waziri Adio, who was once described (by the international renowned online media TheCable ) as the czar of Nigeria’s extractive industry in his recent article “The Savoury Fall in Food Prices” which should be read by all policy handlers in the agriculture industry writes “We need to fully understand the drivers of this positive trend, and ensure that we pay more serious, systematic and sustainable attention not just to food prices but also to the larger issue of food security.”

As he noted this fall in food prices didn’t go unnoticed by both local and the international media. This is not only an ongoing achievement but one that resonates with our pact with Nigeria in the Renewed Hope document on pages 26 to 29 “Agriculture; plant the right seed, feed the entire nation”. “We vow to help the farmer and his/her community in new and significant ways that will usher in a true and complete rebirth of the Nigerian agriculture.”

Since food is only one area of the essence of human life, Nigerians rightfully are hoping infact demanding for reduction of prices in other important areas especially medicare because without mincing words medicines is certainly out of the reach of most Nigerians! Though hope renewed, the ongoing promise made on Healthcare in pages 45-48 of our document that “Primary healthcare will remain the bedrock of our system. Deploying adequate infrastructure and Human Resources to address …all pressing issues of primary health care” is assured.

This week, President Bola Tinubu approved the employment of 774 National Health Fellows, a pivotal initiative led by the Federal Ministry of Health to foster sustained improvements within Nigeria’s healthcare system.

On Youth Empowerment and Entrepreneurship, we recognize that a great and prosperous nation is hinged on having strong and prosperous youths that make up a huge percentage of our population. Our pact with Nigerians on pages 57 to 59 of our document states that “Building the future, from day one our administration will partner with the youths “. This has been continually fulfilled by the number of youths in government which is unprecedented in our democratic history thus far. This week the president went further by inaugurating National Youth Confab Committee where he tasked them by these words : “Look at me in the face, tell me whatever you think is wrong and the way you want things done. We’ll try to implement all of it as long as it is for the prosperity of this country.” Indeed a statesman “whose eyes are on the next generation”!

These are not to conclude that we are there yet; but we must be dealers of hope while working extra hard to bring our nation to that glorious height we all desire and can be proud of, that is why I agree with Rohini Nilekani who said “We cannot be mere consumers of good governance, we must be participants; we must be co-creators”.

As we approach the half time of our first tenure we must keep marching forward deliberately with huge steps embedded in high performances, formidable information dissemination, needed support of the sub-nationals and the huge contributions of ideas and opinions from the citizens which we must develop capacity to absolve and reflect on. For these are the very foundations of a strong and prosperous nation.

May God bless Nigeria.

Bello, a policy analyst, publicist and author writes from Abuja.