BEVERLY HILLS, August 16, (THEWILL) – Former Education minister and co-convener of the BringBackOurGirls movement, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, has warned that Nigeria would go the way of Rwanda or Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, if urgent measures is not put in place to douse the lingering political and economic tension in the country.
She stated that the country needs policies to address the economic inequalities in the country insisting that the problem with the country was not technical but the failure of governance.
Speaking on Tuesday at the Big Ideas Podium organised by the African Heritage Institution, Enugu with the theme: ‘Nigeria: The Economics of Failure’, Ezekwesili said the fundamental problem facing the country is not as a result of its political structure but the failure of the ruling elite to deliver good governance to the people.
“The obsession with politics is a divisionary strategy of the ruling class every time which favours the rapacious elite to distract the suffering mass with politics,” she said.
The former minister stated that the country is in a precarious state as its future is uncertain, which, according to her, is why many Nigerians have continued to consider the coun9 a failure.
According to her, “Nigeria presently is not sustainable. Something radically different must happen.
“Political restructuring will not solve our problems because the content will remain the same and the outcome this time around will be disastrous. We need economic governance as the basis for any political grouping the country may need.”
The former minister continued: “For Nigeria to survive, it must overthrow the existing order especially the 57-year-old political class and entrenched pattern. We need world class human capital not a nation of global trolls.
“We can’t continue to allow a few people who have hijacked our government to decide our fate, the citizens must rise to disrupt the status quo. A well constituted non-partisan group of intellectuals must help Nigeria fight this war because it cannot be a war fought without knowledge.
“We need a conversation of economic structure, inequality and governance that comes from the people. Its time to interrogate the dreams of the founding fathers, we must think differently.
“How long will it take for Nigeria to lift 100 million out of poverty when China used only 30 years to lift 700 million out of poverty. Its time for the citizens to organise a collective action that can produce results. Today, our literacy level is still 59 per cent while Rwanda has progressed to 72 per cent within two decades since the genocide.”
Ezekwesili stated that a war that pitches the citizens against those that have held them down for too long is all the country needs at this time. She harped on the need for the rebalancing of the weight of power between those that rule and those they govern because the disparity between those who have and those who do not have is worse than poverty.
“Redirecting the resources that are being invested on political discourse to addressing economy and economic strictures and inequality must be considered.
“We therefore either fight the economic war now and win it or our people will perish in large numbers regardless of their ethnicity and politics,” the ex-minister said.
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