Year 2022 in retrospect-A very difficult and unkind year for Nigeria, By John Abhuere

By the time this piece gets to you Year 2022 would have been dead to belong permanently to history. A requiem might just be going on for the repose of its wicked soul. It was an extremely difficult and unkind year for many and hope breaker for others including our own dear, beloved country Nigeria being dribbled about by some unpatriotic, selfish political elite. If the country was was bad before its arrival, year 2022 left her more broken and worse off than she met her.The year was very unkind in many ways.It claimed my beloved sister Phil, sent many citizens to untimely death through accidents, flooding terrorist attacks etc and many hungry and sick. The sick includes my cousin in hospital who could not speak to me on Christmas day.

It sagged and weakened our collective spirits of patriotism , nationalism and altruism It created doubt in us and in our institutions. The year saw increase of our debt profile which according to media reports rose by one trillion Naira in three months (Sahara Reporters http so://Sahara reporter.com>Nigeria). On the whole, the year 2022 did not prepare the country for stability, unity and rapid development in 2023 .It did not inspire hope and faith of citizens for a better world.

Thanks to the political elite’s shenanigan, democracy was seriously threatened and severely endangered during the ill- fated year. In the course citizens lost hope and faith in one Nigeria. Their collective future as a people of one nation was greatly threatened and put to extreme doubt. In short, the year 2022 eroded much of what the country had gained in politics since 1999. Thanks to the negative attitude of the Nigerian political elite to nation building and the unpardonable, unpatriotic bad foundation laid by them in 2022, the year 2023 would not be smooth sailing unless we do the needful to ameliorate the deep pains of the past made more so by the political elite who shattered our shared values. What was afloat in the country as the year was folding up were not love,trust and a courageous march toward national the unity and development but hatred, cynicism, distrusts in- fighting, disunity, a more renewed and reinvigorated threat to the unity of the country and steady drift towards disintegration especially after the 2023 General Elections.

The curse of Year 2022 was politics- dirty and unpatriotic politics driven by profane values.Some developments are important for attention here namely:a) The insensitivity of the political elite and their aversion to truth, patriotism,sacrifice,morality and history. b)The crash of moral and ethical standards and the abandonment of highly cherished values, beliefs, Justice and conventional practice at the altar of winnability, c)the unnecessary emphasis on old age as basis of rejecting candidates or not, d) the palaver over same faith ticket, and e)the bold attempt by the youth to find solace and salvation for their country, have a voice and a say in the political development of the country- perhaps to correct the misrule and cure the ills of the country and the rise of the profile of the LABOUR PARTY from its hither-to obscure position of yesteryear st of the front seat of Nigeria politics.

Advertisement

Significantly majority of the youth rejected the two major political parties and pitched tents with LABOUR PARTY thereby raising the profile and relevance of the latter to national reckoning. It is the youth’s way of saying no to the old order and of rejecting their entreaty to continue in office. The youth may have or not have their way but the message they sent across to the political class in 2022 was clear enough:change your way,do good governance for the good of all citizens and our dear country at large or check out of the way to progress.

The year2022 laid too many thorns on the way of 2023 that could frustrate many plans for the new year or make it impossible for the country to live happily in unity after the 2023 GeneralElections. Sadly, the capacity for doing the needful in order to save the day was not developed during the excessively hard year. The real cause of worry was the discarding of the “positive values that often enhance and enrich nation building efforts and sustain collective hope and faith in one Nigeria by the two major political parties.

These values which include power rotation, power shift and power zoning to ensure inclusiveness had been with us for long especially since 1999 and had proved useful . They have remained in our collective consciousness for a long time especially since 1999 when democracy was restored in Nigeria. And they have served well as effective aid to promoting the unity and development of our country. And in keeping hope alive for each of the ethnic groups of having a go with power sooner or later no matter how long it takes to come to pas.Yet they were gleefully jettisoned by the political elite for narrow selfish interests. They failed to apply moral/ethical sense in the national interest.

Looking at the nature of the task at hand-overcoming under- development, staging a clean election against a history of unclean elections in Nigeria, catalogue of problems that could harm or frustrate the 2023 elections including the rapid decline of moral values and ethical principles, spirits of patriotism and nationalism etc and based on the critical, creative approach to management, it is clear that the country is faced with serious paralyzing, life threatening disease that has assumed a cancerous proportion by 2022. That disease is moral and ethical decadence and amnesia in all facets of life of Nigeria. There was almost a complete loss of moral and ethical sense in the country during the year under review.These reservations notwithstanding I believe that the 2023 elections will hold. But we must learn to be ethical, moral and legal in our actions to get the best to the leadership position in the country.As Sobowale advised “patriotic and honest Nigerians should work together in cooperation to bring into being real order of justice as opposed to those who want to perpetuate an unjust status quo”.

For many reasons Nigeria deserves every prayer especially for her survival of year 2022. “Lord have mercy”,Christ have mercy, God have Mercy, And Glory be to God the catholic faithfuls would pray. God loves Nigeria and its people.Mercifully the country survived. We survived once more. God showed us His Mercies and saved the country from the doom and destruction implanted by the weakness and selfishness of her political elite.We thank and glorify God for his boundless mercies. And pray for continuation in the new yearned beyond. Thus in spite of all the difficulties and suffering of 2022 it is important in showing us what went wrong and in pointing to the source of greatest danger ahead- bad and unpatriotic politics .And what we do with the lessons of 2022 will determine whether Nigeria will continue to live in primitive bestiality or not, or embrace the positive values of modern civilization in the weeks,months and years ahead.

Happy New year my dear Reader.

● Prof. Abhuere is of the
Centre for Child Care Youth Development, Abuja.